Five tips for starting your business's social media

The world has heavily shifted to digital and social media marketing has become more important now than ever before - it’s no longer an option, it’s a must have for businesses.

Whether you’re releasing a new product, starting a new business or would like to expand your brand’s online presence, you need a social media strategy in place.

But where do you start? We know how overwhelming this can be, so we’ve put together five tips to help you get started.

1. Outlining your goals

Before rushing into social media, it’s important to have a clear understanding of what your goal is. Are you wanting to build brand awareness, drive traffic to your website or generate leads? By defining your goals, you’ll be able to outline your strategy better. For example, if your goal is to build brand awareness, your campaign focus would be on reaching a larger target audience through content that relates to them, rather than narrowing down on a specific niche. Whereas, if your goal was to generate leads, you’d look at niching down to target your ideal customer with a customer acquisition plan in place of how you get them from seeing your campaign to enquiring. 

2. Which platforms should you use?

Not all social media platforms are the same and all serve a different purpose, so don’t rush into creating an account on every platform. You need to identify your target audience and know where they spend their time. For example, if your business is targeting large B2B companies, Facebook and Instagram are not the platforms for you, instead, LinkedIn will be the best platform. If you understand each platform and what you can get out of each, it allows you to choose the right ones that align with your business’s objectives.

3. What type of content should I be posting?

The type of content you post should reflect your brand’s voice and relate to your target audience. You should consider a mix of educational, entertaining and promotional content to keep your audience engaged. Putting a face to your business is always an easy win, so don’t forget to get your team involved with series such as Behind-the-scenes, Meet The Team and more. Finally, remember that your content should provide value to your audience whether it’s humorous, educational or promotional. 

4. How often should I be posting?

When starting out on social media, consistency is key. However, finding the right posting frequency can be tricky. Too many posts could overwhelm your audience and too few can lead to disengagement, so how do you balance this? A great starting point is to post around three to five times a week on your chosen platforms. When posting content, analytics is also going to be your new best friend as it’s important to find out what works best for your audience and base your future content around this to engage with them.

5. How do I engage with my target audience?

Social media is not just a place for promoting your products, it’s a place of community and you need to build up yours. You should ensure you’re engaging with your audience through comments, answering questions and getting involved in discussions relevant to your industry. A great way to get your audience engaging with you is to create polls, Q&A’s and other interactive content your audience can engage with, this not only increases engagement but helps your audience to feel a part of something. Engagement is a two-way street, so don’t neglect your audience!

Now what?

Starting your business’s social media journey may seem daunting at first, but it can be a very powerful tool for business growth and shouldn’t be overlooked. If you simply don’t have the time or expertise, why not leave it to the experts?!

We’ve helped countless businesses across the UK to increase their online presence, build an online community and generate valuable leads through Social Media, SEO, Video Marketing, Email Marketing, Web Design and much more.

Simply get in touch with our team to chat about your marketing and what we can do for your business.

Call us: 01282 216613
Email us: [email protected]
Fill in our online form: https://cottondigital.co.uk/contact-cotton-digital/