Here at NeedAPrint we know a thing or two on how to market your business through social media, social media is a fantastic way to increase brand awareness and sales at a relatively low cost/no cost.
No doubt you’ll be able to easily upload your family holiday photographs onto Facebook and Twitter but did you know how profitable creating a business page on these social media sites can be for your business? We have found that more and more small businesses are utilising social media to showcase their brand and their products/services.
We have put together a useful guide to help you crack digital marketing and grow your business.
What platform(s) should you business use?
When it comes to social media there are lots of different sites offering great prospects, the most popular channels such as Facebook and Twitter are the best place to start and the most likely to generate new business and increase brand awareness. Social media accounts are free to set up and use, they are a great place to showcase your business.
Each social media platform works in a slightly different way, all with different rules and restrictions as to what kind of content you can publish, Twitter has a 140 character limit on all tweets, this includes tweets containing links, video and images. This means you will need to specifically tailor your content to each platform, this may sound time consuming and in all honestly it can be but when it is done correctly social media proves to be very worthwhile.
Facebook – The most used social media site in the world and is therefore a great place to generate mass exposure and awareness. To get started you will need to create a business page, this will need to link to a personal Facebook page, once you have done this you can begin inviting your Facebook friends to like your business page. You can post a variety of different types of content on Facebook such as, photographs, video, text and polls. We recommend uploading plenty creative and interesting visual content as this is more likely to stand out in your follower’s newsfeeds. Photographs and videos showcase your product/service far better than long-winded text descriptions, your followers want to see with their own eyes how good your work is and not read about it!
Facebook is a great place to engage with other Facebook users as there are plenty of groups that you can share your business page in, you can become an influencer by answering questions specific to your sector and offer your services. Facebook is a great way to interact with clients and prospective clients on an informal basis although you must try and remain professional at all time, a slip up in professionalism could be very costly to your reputation.
Once you have created a business page you can encourage customers to leave reviews on your page, these will be public and are a great way for other Facebook users to see genuine reviews of your product/service. People are more likely to use your company if they can see genuine, honest reviews from satisfied customers.
Twitter – Similar to Facebook in the way you can create a business account and share a variety of content types to a mass audience. Twitter is great for getting involved in sector specific hashtags (#) in order to market your business. A hashtag is a tag that users use to talk about a specific words or phrases for example, #HandmadeJewellery users can click the hashtag and find all of the tweets containing that same hashtag.
If using Twitter try to get involved with people who can act as brand influencers such as celebrities and bloggers as this will get your business in front of the right people. Twitter can be a great place to communicate with influencers within your industry, you will find a lot of brands communicating with bloggers and celebrities via Twitter and sharing tips, tricks and advice. There is a character limits on the length of tweets which is currently set at 140 characters, expect to have less in depth communications as opposed to those on Facebook. Your content must be snappy, relevant and eye-catching, try to attach an image to your tweets to help them stand out in your followers newsfeeds.
Google+ – A relatively new contender in the social media arena and fantastic for SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)! Creating a Google+ page works well for local SEO and getting your business appearing in the Google search engine results. A Google+ page will help direct searchers and users to your website which will in turn help your site climb up the search engine results. Try adding regular content to your Google+ page and participating within industry specific groups (circles) on Google+. The better your Google+ page the better impression your prospects will make.
Once you have set up a Google+ page you should encourage clients to leave you a review on your Google+ page and this will show up in Google when someone searches your business, reviews are a great way to generate more business. A great incentive to get customers to leave a review is to offer a discount for anyone who leaves a review, this is a lot for feasible on a smaller scale so great for startup businesses.
Instagram – A purely visual social media platform that brings users together through similar interests and hashtags. Instagram is more popular with the younger generation but it also acts a great way to bring in new business from all over the world. A great platform for sharing artistic images and videos or your product/service, try to make your Instagram visually interesting and creative as this will help your brand stand out and get noticed.
Utilising hashtags is very important on Instagram so try tap into hashtags that are likely to get your work noticed, try to use relevant hashtags to attract users to share a common interest with your brand. You will find that users may comment on your photographs or videos and it advised to communicate back to them rather than ignore it, unless the comment is spam.
Pinterest – Similar to Instagram, Pinterest is another purely visual social media platform. Pinterest allows users to search for specific terms and will show the relevant images that match their search term. If a user finds an image they like they can add it to a virtual pinboard which will then show up on their profile and in the feeds of their followers.
Pinterest is a great social media platform to drive traffic to your website, you can attach links to your images and no matter where your image may end up the link will still be attached. So if you image ends getting pinned onto a board the original link and source will always remain.
Try to be creative with your images and caption them appropriately, images that are interesting and different are more likely to get noticed and pinned. On your Pinterest profile page we suggest you create a variety of different boards to captivate your prospective customers, try not to post purely self-promotional posts a variety of promotion and other relevant images such as quotes are a great way to mix up your content.
Top Tips!
To ensure you captivate your followers and to help increase brand awareness we suggest you regularly update your social media profiles to keep your followers up to date and interested. Try to update your social media on a daily basis even if it’s just an image, keeping your social media regularly updated will keep your followers engaged and the interest surrounding your brand.
For more business advice and tip visit the NeedAPrint blog where you will find a great mix of articles to help grow your business.
