Solomon Thimothy is the President of OneIMS, where he works with agencies and clients to develop predictable and scalable growth strategies.
Social media—you either love it or hate it. Either way, it won’t be affected by your opinion. The giants (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.) are probably here to stay whether you prefer them to or not.
In my experience, the brands that stand out on the large social media platforms haven’t necessarily figured out a way to crack any code. While they may generate new leads (and who doesn’t want more customers?), they seem to have a better handle on how to engage on any given platform.
What do I mean by that exactly? They’re having real back-and-forth conversations. And not just with their customers, but with other brands, and with new and old prospects; they really know how to put the social in social media.
On the other hand, those that don’t have a lot of positives to say about social media platforms either refuse to use them, or they just use a “plug and play” template with non-engaging content and wonder why they just hear crickets.
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I want to discuss five different ways I think we can all rethink how we use social media, as well as how we can use each of these ways to be more engaging, build relationships and create a dialogue with others rather than just sharing a monologue of what your brand thinks.
Stay Connected And Keep Your Relationship With Current Customers Strong
The first rule of thumb for social media is to stay in touch with contacts and customers who already love your product or service. This results in customers who have purchased from you continuing to build their confidence in your brand and as a result referring you to their friends and family. Do you have a line of products or services? Continue to build trust with your current customers by posting every day.
Examples of posting to continue building relationships with customers might be sharing customer testimonials or even highlights from in-depth case studies. Call out customers-of-the-week and ask your customers in your posts what kind of results they’ve gotten, why they love your products and even what they’re up to this weekend.
Find, Nurture And Convert New Leads
The holy grail for most companies is to use social media to grow their business. The goal is to tap into new audiences and get roaming “scrollers” to take a peek at what you offer.
Pay attention to hashtags that your target audience and look-alike audiences might use. Use these in your posts and ask questions to get new leads to engage with your content. Your focus shouldn’t be to sell anything. After all, it’s just social media; the goal is to engage with prospects and simply get them to pay attention to you. Use pop culture references and have fun with content that also links back to your website.
Get A Front-Row Seat To The Competition
Many people don’t realize that a huge advantage to using social media is seeing and even repurposing what the competition is doing. While you never want to let someone else lead or copy them, you can watch your competition to see what is working and use it as inspiration.
For example, pay attention to how your competition engages (comments, likes, etc.) with customers. Have they been able to target new audience segments by posting content catered to a specific group? Lastly, how have they set themselves apart? Create your own unique selling point based on what’s already out there.
Solidify Your Network With New Partnerships
Want a little secret to how you may be able to double your business revenue in the shortest amount of time? Build relationships with complementary businesses. Not only can they introduce you to important connections, but they can also let you in on their customer base and vice versa.
So how can you use social media with new partnerships? Highlight why you love other businesses and why they are so good at what they do, and then watch as other businesses start to praise you in return. In addition, consider creating a group message board where every time you post on any social media channel, the group members are notified and can comment and like your posts so that they will be more likely to show up on others’ social media feeds.
Build Your Brand
Using social media to grow your brand can mean highlighting your “why,” your values and other important core principles that help people establish a heartfelt relationship with your brand. It can also mean posting about how your brand is evolving, your day-to-day whereabouts and how you’re making a difference.
To build a strong brand foundation using social media, consider posting longer stories that really allow prospects to get an inside view of your brand. Don’t be afraid to go as far as personally messaging people to ask how your product or service is serving them.
Putting The Social Back In Social Media
If you feel like your social media game is a dead end or can even be improved, consider how you’re using it. Don’t just post to post. Post with intention and create a spreadsheet that organizes each post with the goals you have for the day and week and how the post should affect your business based on the categories above.
Lastly, find ways to communicate with people every day.
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Author: Solomon Thimothy, Forbes Councils Member