Social media has come a long way since MySpace and AOL Instant Messenger. What was once just a place to connect with friends and family online has evolved into a place to sell products, build brands, and even become famous.
Social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter have become popular hubs for businesses to promote their products and services, and many people ask, “How can social media be used for business?” I’m here.
This page explains how to use social media successfully for your business, various social platforms that can help your business, social media tips that can help your business, and more.
If you’re ready to dive in, keep reading! Or, if you’d like to speak to a marketing specialist about social media for your business, give us a call at (408) 982-5851.
How to Use Social Media Effectively for Your Business
There are countless ways to use social media for your business. Ideas must be tried.
If you want the best results from social media for your business, follow these steps.
Take inventory
Taking inventory of your current social media presence is a step that you don’t want to skip. When reviewing current social platforms, gather the following information:
- How often do you currently post on each platform
- Types of content you post
- Amount of engagement each post type receives
- Number of messages received through the platform
- Number of followers you get
- Analysis
Current social media platforms and Knowing its performance can help you understand and understand what you are doing right and what you need to optimize.
Digging into analysis is one of the most important steps you can take during the inventory phase, and it’s easy to see why.
Looking at the analysis for each platform (most social platforms have their own analytics tools) reveals a lot of the information previously mentioned in the list.
Analytics Helps Understand:
- How Followers React to Your Posts:
- How Engagement Changes Over Time and Different Post Types:
- How They React to Messages
- Follower count and how it changes over time
- And so much more
As you can see, looking at the analytics for each platform will help you understand almost everything I mentioned in the inventory checklist above. You can see if you are
If not, you can develop a strategy for improvement. If you’re happy with your performance, you can use analytics on an ongoing basis to ensure your social platform is always performing well.
Know Your Goals
Before you start analyzing any social media platform, you probably have some goals in mind. Whether you want more followers, sell more products, or increase brand awareness, you need a list of goals you want to achieve.
Setting goals means that you know exactly what you want to achieve, so you always have something to work on, making it easier to design your campaigns.
Goals are:
- Increase Post Consistency
- Increase Followers
- Increase Brand Awareness
- Sell More Products
- Increase Website Traffic
- Social Deliver great customer service through media
See, the goals are very different
It’s important to remember that no goal is too big or too small to consider, and no specific number needs to be assigned to be effective.
Remember unattainable goals and work towards them. Surprise yourself!
Know Your Competitors
Knowing your competitors is another important first step in creating the best social media campaigns for your business.
You can learn a lot about your competitors just by looking at their social presence.
Note the following:
- Platforms used
- How often you post
- Types of content you post
- Engagement with the types of content
Witness that focuses on their success.
Choose Your Platform
There are so many social media platforms that it’s difficult to keep track of them all. And how do you decide which social media platform to use for your business?
Each platform has strengths and weaknesses, and some work better than others in certain industries.
One of the best things to do before choosing a platform is to research each platform. All social platforms share a common denominator of keeping people connected, but each has its own quirks that make it effective for your business.
You’ll need to spend some time doing your own research, but here’s a quick overview of each platform and what social media goals you can achieve with it.
User base: Facebook is the most popular social media platform with 2.38 billion users. Given the number of Facebook users, it’s easy to see why Facebook is one of the best platforms to market your business.
Paid Options: Facebook offers paid advertising options so you can sell more products. Our integrated advertising platform allows you to create ads that are precisely targeted to your highest quality audiences
Analytics: Facebook also has its own built-in analytics platform called Facebook Insights. From there, you can access metrics like Page Views, Post Reach, and Messenger Insights.
Messaging: It wouldn’t surprise you to know that Facebook also has its own messaging feature built into it. Facebook Messenger allows you to seamlessly communicate with your followers and even provide a level of customer service.
Goals you can use to achieve: Facebook is a great platform for increasing brand awareness, selling more products, and driving users to your website. Not only that, but if your goal is to improve customer service, Facebook Messenger makes communicating with your customers easier.
User Base: Instagram has over 1 billion users, making it another great platform to attract your target audience.
Paid Options: Instagram is owned by Facebook, so it has many of the same advertising options. You can create custom ads that showcase multiple products to increase your sales.
Analytics: Instagram’s built-in analytics give you access to metrics like mentions, impressions, website clicks, age groups, and more.
Messaging Features: Instagram also has a direct messaging feature that allows you to communicate openly and easily with your followers.
Goals to Help You Achieve: As an image-heavy social media platform, Instagram offers many opportunities for brand awareness. You can also sell more products with Instagram ads.
User base: In 2018, Twitter ended the year with a staggering 262 million users. Keep in mind that Twitter is a great platform for marketing your business, but it has far fewer users than Facebook and Instagram.
Paid Options: Twitter’s built-in advertising platform allows you to create photo ads, video ads, and more to sell more products on the platform.
Analytics: Twitter also has built-in analytics to help you understand your post’s reach, audience engagement, follower count, and more. You can also choose the time frame to analyze.
Messages: Like Facebook and Instagram, Twitter also has a direct message feature that allows you to connect directly with your followers. You can answer questions, troubleshoot problems, and more.
Goals achievable: Tweets are short (280 characters) and fleeting, making Twitter a great platform for building brand awareness. Of course, if you choose to advertise on Twitter, it’s also a great platform for selling more products.
User Base: At the end of 2018, LinkedIn reached 590 million users. More than Twitter and less than Facebook and Instagram, LinkedIn offers a broader marketing audience.
Checkout Options: LinkedIn offers advertising options such as photo ads, video ads, and InMail ads.
Analytics: LinkedIn offers in-platform analytics – similar to the other platforms discussed so far. With LinkedIn analytics, you can pull metrics like post engagement, follower demographics, and more.
Messaging Features: LinkedIn also offers on-platform messaging to make it easy to stay in touch with your followers.
Goals You Can Achieve: You can sell your products and services on LinkedIn, but keep in mind that the platform’s audience is mostly business professionals. This makes it a great place to advertise your conferences and events, and it’s also a great place for recruiters to post their job listings.
Now that you’ve looked at some of the most popular social media platforms for your business, it’s time to choose which ones to include in your campaigns.
Remember, the more space you occupy on social media, the more results you will get. Picking just one social platform is fine, but if you want to get the most out of social media for your business, consider two or three.
At a minimum, you should create a business profile on all social media platforms so that people can find you wherever they are.
Contact Xekera Systems at (408) 982-5851 for assistance in determining which social media platform will help you achieve your social media goals.
Decide whether to opt in to social media advertising
You are not required to use advertising to market your business on social media platforms. However, if you want to sell more products in addition to building brand awareness, running social media ads is wise.
Social media advertising is an inexpensive way to generate more leads because it won’t cost you more than the budget you set.
For example, Facebook allows you to set a budget cap and Facebook will automatically allocate advertising costs at its discretion. However, you cannot spend more than the budget limit you set.
Not only does a limited budget make paid advertising on social media more cost-effective, but you also have to remember that you won’t be charged for the ad until someone clicks on it. This payment system means that you only pay for ad clicks, not for ad space.
Each social media platform has its own advertising platform that makes it easy to create ads tailored to your target audience. Based on your platform, you can target users based on demographics, interests, educational level, etc.
You can also enjoy the look of advertising. Choose beautiful images of your products to share with the world on social media.
Decide if you need professional help
If you are considering using social media for your business, it may be best to ask a social media marketing agency for help.
If you’re unsure about asking your agency how to use social media for your business, here are some things your agency can do.
- Provide advice on which social media platforms to use:
- Help improve your current social media presence:
- Help set up your business account on social media platforms:
- Advertise on social platforms Help Create:
- Make Campaign Suggestions for Continued Success:
- Analyze the performance of your social posts on each platform
These are just some of the things a social media agency can do for you. Agencies are a great option.
Social Media Tips for Business
If you’re still not sure how to use social media for your business, we’ve put together some social media tips for your business to help you get the most out of your campaigns.
If you have any questions about tips, you can always call (408) 982-5851 to speak with a marketing representative.
Tip 1: Track Your Goals
Remember the goals you set at the beginning? It’s important to keep these goals in mind throughout your social media campaigns.
For example, if your goal is to build brand awareness and you keep that goal in mind at every stage of your campaign, you can make decisions that help you reach that goal.
Tip 2: Analyze, Analyze, Analyze
Analytics make or break your campaigns. It’s important to analyze the platform at every stage. However, when it comes to making small changes, it’s most important to analyze your campaign.
For example, if you change your header image from an image to a video on Facebook, monitor your analytics to see if your metrics change. If your measurements improve, you know your changes were correct. If not, you’ll know you need to convert the video back to an image.
Not all analytics are valid, but you should be aware of changes in key metrics that occur after optimizing something on your social platform.
Tip 3: Start a Conversation
One of the best social media tips for businesses we can offer is to start a conversation. Social media platforms are just that social, and if you don’t interact with your followers, they will lose interest.
Not only that, but it’s hard to believe a brand that can’t effectively communicate with its audience.
There are many ways to start a conversation
End the post with a question: What’s your favorite flavor we offer?!”
Engage with your followers in comments: If your followers are commenting on your posts and engaging with you, comment back! Thank you for your interaction.
Reply to direct messages to keep the conversation going: When users send direct messages, reply as soon as possible. Not only does it show that you are friendly, but it also shows that you care about what your users think. Join this conversation too! Ask users how they like your product and what they can do to improve it.
Tip 4: Be Human
Be Human is one of the best social media tips for businesses. Many brands forget to be human and treat their customers as friends.
Interact with users on a real level. Make an effort to speak and understand your own language. Offer a unique experience by personalizing your posts for specific niches and don’t be afraid to highlight your own shortcomings.
For example, if someone criticizes your customer service in a comment on a post, be honest with them, apologize, and tell them you will do it right.
Tip 5: Be consistent
Be consistent when posting. It doesn’t mean you have to post at 4pm every day, but it does mean that you should create a social content calendar to post regularly.
The Social Media Content Calendar helps you keep track of what kind of content you post and when. With a social media management tool like Buffer, you can automate the entire process.
Consistency shows your followers your dedication and attention to detail. This has two big advantages.
Ready to bring social media to your business?
If your business does not currently have social media marketing campaigns or is unsatisfied with your current campaigns, Xekera Systems can help.
We are a full service digital marketing agency that helps you engage with your audience on social media, increase brand awareness and sell more products.
Our entire team of social media specialists can expertly craft a social media presence that delivers results.
Business If you’re ready to generate more leads on social media, contact Xekera Systems for a free quote or call us at (408) 982-5851.
