Welcome to this blog post that will give you extra ideas to further expand your social media reach to help drive interest in your business and brand.
It is now commonly known that a random and inconsistent presence on Social Media will not get you results and the kind of interaction that drives target audiences to your business capture website. Many companies are still thinking that an update every so often will be enough to generate a stir within the every growing world of Social Media… Sorry folks, but this is just not the case!
Our own success in using Social Media has been based around our constant daily usage and researching relevant audiences interested in what we offer in order to generate us large target audiences and a great deal of interesting and enquiry rich web traffic. The likes of Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook, YouTube and Linkedin are available on nearly every internet accessing device we own such as laptops, mobile phones, tablets and Smart TV’s – We can easily and instantly access what is happening in our own world of our most interesting topics as well as contribute and Educate, Entertain and Engage others via our own business accounts.
Keeping on top of Social Media is an increasing dilemna for any business, but once you have mastered the frequency of updating your social media accounts, then you can start to look at ways to further expand the popularity of your accounts which in turn will push web traffic to your website. Our tips are:
Competitions / GiveAways
Think about both rewarding the loyal followers, fans, and readers of your social media accounts as well as building you new audiences with a Competition / GiveAway. This can be done by creating a competition on Social Media platforms (read through terms and conditions of social media platforms to make sure if and how you can run competitions), ideally themed on your business offerings, to help build quick and interactive activity… Ideas include submitting photos and choosing the best, asking for catchphrases and again selecting the best or ask your clients to send through ideas on how you can improve your business and the best once again wins a set prize.
This kind of activity where your audiences stand to win a physical product or a service increases their motivation to share your brand or indeed connect their social media profile and submit email addresses for you to collate.
Think viral for competitions, the better the prize and the better engagement you have requested for their entry, then the higher likely that your contect / competition / giveaway will reach audiences far beyond your own reach…
Use Stats and Figures
The beauty behind stats from Social Media is that they nearly all point upwards with the theme being ‘increase’ and ‘positive traffic’ etc. Try and come away from the basic facts such as how many worldwide people use Social Media and try and bespoke your headlines to themes that would relate to the target audience you are looking to capture and engage. If it is sport then think stats such as how many of the top 100 sports personalities use Social Media or how many extra sales come via Facebook for the top five sport labels / brands etc.
A basic research on Google will give you many results relating to recent surveys reporting on the positive effective of Social Media on businesses – Take time to read through them and pick the best to share with your Social Media audience, remember to not use content from other blogs and editorials as your own and credit where necessary.
Engage in Conversations / reTweet
Once you understand Social Media and have more or less been hooked by the constant stream of news and information in offers, you will see trends occurring and most certainly lots relating to your business sector. Think about contributing to these news feeds be it with other businesses within your industry or consumers / members of the public who are involved in conversation.
Imagine that you sell plants and bulbs, then study conversation throughout Social Media platforms relating to gardens and the problems people are sharing relating to plants / planting and similar topics – Within time, especially if you engage positively with people and offer educational and entertaining advise, you will be seen as an ‘expert’ or ‘guru’ within your industry which in turn will increase the chances that people will refer to you within your sector.
reTweeting is a great way to both make new contacts and build a freindly and engaging profile on social media. Nothing delights us more as when another social media user shares content that we update across the likes of Twitter and Facebook… Just remember to thank anyone who has taken the time to ‘share’ your updates.
Share, Share and Share Again…
A great way to build and maintain an active audience on social media is to share great content and do so regulary. Unless you are a top celebrity, you really need to be writing up and sharing great, key word rich blogs, tips, wise tricks etc to add educational value to your social media community.
Just like most things in life, when people see you as a source of rich and engaging content, they will rely on you for more or the same… If you add value to their business knowledge, then they are not only likely to connect with you, but share you with their own followers and fans and even refer to you within their own updates and blogs.
Be consistent because social media doesn’t allow you to share great content one day then disappear for the next few months… Your audiences will decrease and people will find someone else to refer to!
Another tip to remember when posting content is that you must be consistent. You can’t be writing or sharing one day and disappear for the next month or two. You have to be consistent so that people would remember you and remember to visit your social media platforms to get their updated content.