August 9, 2024 Avilla Area Chamber Team
In today’s digital age, a solid social media presence is crucial for businesses looking to connect with their audience, boost brand awareness, and drive sales. With he variety of social media options currently available, it can seem overwhelming to figure out where your business should invest its time.
Here are some easy steps to implement to see where your customers are online, which is going to help you to have a better opportunity to show up in their newsfeeds and remain top-of-mind.
As a business owner, you probably already have a good idea who your target customers are, but in case you don’t, you will want to identify them by creating a simple avatar or profile about them. List specific information pertaining to their their age, gender, location, interests, and buying behavior. The more you know about your customers, the easier and better you will be able to speak their language and meet their needs.
There are a couple of easy ways that you determine which social media platform is best for your business to use to build brand awareness and connections, one of which is to look at where your website’s traffic is coming from. If you aren’t using a tool such as Google Analytics, your site may be using a tool like Jetpack or another metrics tool.
These tools will not only give you a look at where your site visitors are coming from, which could be social media, a web search, a news letter, another website, etc. You can also receive other information such as what actions they take when they are on your site, how long they are there, and what device they are using and their location.
Another way to find out what social media profiles your customers use, is simply ask them. You can do this face to face or through a survey.
You can also take a look at the competition. Check out their website to see what social media platforms they have linked and look over the profiles. If you don’t see any social media icons or links on their site, do a simple website search for their business and you should see int e query results, any profiles that they have.
Take a glance at their engagement and interactions to see if the platform is working for them. If they have many followers and little engagement, it’s likely this is a platform that may work well for you, especially if you plan to use it consistently.
Let’s take a quick look at some of the most popular social media sites and the best uses for them, to help you to solidify your decision on what platform(s) you will use for your business.
According to Statista, an estimated 37% of the world’s population are Facebook users and more than 200 million businesses (mostly small businesses) use Facebook tools. Facebook is good for building brand awareness, creating a community, and advertising to a large audience through the use of written, image, and video content.
Instagram is a platform that is best used for visual content, such video snippets and live streaming. According to Social Pilot, Instagram has over 500 million daily active users, which makes it a great opportunity to get your business in front of your audience and new customers.
LinkedIn is typically thought of as the social media platform to use as a business to connect to other businesses and potential employees and staff. This platform is perfect for networking and gathering and sharing professional content. Hootsuite reports that around 141 million users are on LinkedIn daily.
Gusto has reported that on average, TikTok users spend over 1.5 hours on the app each day. According to TikTok, which is a 1short-form video platform, 35% of users have bought something they’ve seen on their platform, which is a good consideration to add to your sales operations.
X, formerly named Twitter, is great for real-time updates and information. This is a fast-paced platform that is versatile, as you can share links, short form text content, videos, and images. eMarketer has forcasted X’s global user base to 335.7 million.
Once you have selected one or two social media sites to use for your business, you will want to have a strategy in place for aligning with your business’s voice and strategy when posting social media content and staying connected. As previously mentioned, consistency and interacting with comments and inquiries are keys in maintaining your online presence and interactions.
To reiterate, know your reason for using the platforms to reach customers and create content that reflect those objectives. For instance, you can share tips, behind the scenes, reviews, sneak-peeks, information, and events that pertain to your business and industry.
If you find your content is falling flat, there are several different things to consider – you may be using a platform few customers are actively using, your posting times may not coincide with when your customers are online, or something else may be a factor. Regardless, be sure to take a look at your insights and make adjustments, not being afraid to try something new if needed, but sticking to your overall goal for using social media.
Selecting the right social media platform and using it effectively can greatly amplify your business’s online presence. When you know your customers (audience), having a strategy, and measuring your successes, you’ll be well on your way to having a viable social media presence.