How To Improve Your Social Media Marketing in 5 Easy Steps

You are fantastic my friend, for stopping by to read this.

Let me show you something about social media marketing. It’s opportunities. And how you should use it to your own advantage. Information does make a difference between successful and unsuccessful persons.

But first, let me ask you a question and please be sincere. Because it lays the foundation for what you will get from reading this post. Have you taken the most advantage of social media to improve your career or business?

If your answer is No, you are here for good, but if yours is yes, then bravo.

You see, not everyone likes to ‘jump’ on trends. People have different views of everything. which in the end determines what opportunities they choose to take. There are persons who are not on social media and there are ones who are not on Facebook or Twitter nor LinkedIn, but whom you will find on myspace.

Although it does not matter what social media brand you are stuck to. Since there are a lot of them now, the important thing is – purpose. Why are you on social media? The simplest I can think of is to connect with people, that is family and friends.

That, in fact, is the least advantage anyway.

Online marketing was a one-sided medium where businesses push ideas out and customers consume them. But social media came to change the internet marketing landscape. By creating a style of communication that allow billions of conversation go on around the web.

People are discussing everything in clusters. From popular news articles to talking about their favourite brands, elections, movies and on. All these conversations present exciting opportunities for marketing because you can create, or join in on targeted conversations to drive brand awareness. This will let customers do the marketing for you.

Keep in mind, yet, that social media marketing transcends brand recognition or website traffic. It also creates an opportunity to hear from customers about what they like or does not like. Still, it helps to establish credibility when customers give positive feedback and reviews.

With social media, you can develop a community of ‘fans’ – small or large, that will ignite word-of-mouth marketing and help you gain exposure to friends of friends.

Social media marketing is about creating interactive moments with customers to achieve set goals. Often, the goal is either to optimise brand visibility, drive traffic to a website or to establish credibility. Unlike other marketing channels, social media allows you to get your customer to spread the word for you through content sharing.

This viral effect is what makes social media marketing valuable. Done right, social media marketing has the ability to transform your career or business. But it also has the potential to bring unwanted negative attention to your brand or business if done wrong.

So, how do you do it right?

1. Consider Your Objectives

You do it right by first taking the time to consider your own objectives. By determining which of the advantages is of most value to you.
You might want to use it to gain professional exposure as a personal brand by establishing credibility through your works. Or perhaps you want to make your business brand more visible too.

Whatever your aim on social media is, you must be clear on it if you want to get the most of the social media marketing. By the way, whether you sell products, services or you are an employee, marketing aids your progress. Hence, social media marketing is for all.

Having known this.

2. Understand Your Platforms and Its Strategies

So, what platform is best for your social media goal? Facebook? Twitter or Snapchat?

It is critical to understand that not all social media platform is right for your goal.

For instance, let us compare Facebook and twitter. In relation to audience, content lifespan and optimal posting times. Twitter is most popular with 18-29-year-olds. It is great for brief and rapid communication. But, younger users are shifting away from Facebook. which is most popular with the 24-50-year-old age demographic.

Content on twitter has a short lifespan because it is a real-time conversation. While Facebook’s content is like an ongoing conversation, it stays on for several days. As you begin to put this in perspective, you will realise that there are favourable times to make posts. This is dependent on your audience, geographic location and category of business.

Even so, understanding who your target is will help to determine what platform to use. For example, Instagram and snapchat are valuable social media platforms if you sell fashion accessories. But Facebook will be a good tool if you intend to sell to mothers.

3. Create a Brand Presence

This is the part where you have to let your creativity shine through. what is your brand name? Is it consistent across all platforms that you are on?

For you reading this post to improve your career. It is as easy as using your name or preferred name. Although, you can choose to use a nickname or whatever, just make sure to have a consistent meaning associated with you. Your profile picture, short bio, and cover photos are all important elements too.

For business owners willing to take social media marketing serious, it is more than that. You have to be creative. Your name, logo, slogan, the colours you choose all matters.

Mind you, these are not just what branding entails. It is much more than the brand elements I just mentioned. Brand building is usually a list of plans. To keep it simple, it is everything from the elements, to service delivery and consistent interactive customer engagement.

Also, your words count. You don’t want to come across as unprofessional do you? So, craft the right message whenever you have to use words. It is important in marketing online.

4.Know What Works

How do you know what works with your chosen social media platform? A truth about that is, you need to learn it. It is simple to learn as there are a lot of free tutorials online. But for people who do not want to bother themselves with technology and digital jargon, I can help. Just talk to me about it in the comment box.

Yet, for you who intend to do it yourself, you must understand how to create compelling and engaging contents. You must understand rich media.
Rich media is rich imagery. A long time ago, texts use to be enough for posts. These days, tweets and posts that have relevant catchy photos and videos rock.

So what? Never make posts online without rich imagery or videos. People click more on those. Alright?

If you had come this far reading this post, I suggest one thing after, act on it. Make some changes to improve your social media marketing. And, you can ask me any question.

But before then, read this next line.

5. Know the Facts

Facts are sacred. They are what they are, and no one is entitled to their own. This is the essence of data analytics.

Data is essential to making decisions on social media.

It is about knowing the facts. How many followers do you have? when are they most active? How many people liked what and so on. This helps to understand your ‘customer’s behaviour. By indicating which post was read the most, or when the optimal posting time is and much more.

You will need to learn how to use twitter insights, Facebook simple analytics or your platforms’.

‘It is a fact of the internet that every click, every view, and every sign-up is recorded somewhere.’ So, know your facts. They are important.

Oh, you are still reading. Have I not told you everything?

Well, I can not tell everything in one post. But, until the next time. These are surefire ways to improve your business and personal brand on social media.

Very quickly, just so you know.

Statistics as of July 2015, showed the total worldwide population to be 7.3 billion. It further indicated that the internet has over 3.17 billion users. Out of which there are 2.3 billion active social media users.

Not forgetting also that every day 1 million new active mobile social users come on platforms.

What are you waiting for? Don’t be the slacker, my friend. Improve your career and business with social media marketing today.

Social media marketing is a moving target. If you are able to adapt and scale along the side of it, your brand will benefit in a long term.

Anyway.

If you need help, just let me know. I will gladly attend to your concern on social media marketing. But then, do me a favour too, share this with your friends now. 🙂