Today’s consumers expect businesses to be present on social media outlets such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. As a business owner, you can use these social media platforms to provide customer support, answer product inquiries, or to show gratitude to your loyal customers. Social media is now considered to be one of the top choices of consumers seeking superior customer service, especially with the rise of social media chat platforms like Facebook Messenger.

 

Your social media presence promotes customer loyalty, generating indirect advertising through word of mouth. If you own a business, it is crucial to engage with your customers and potential clients via social media.

 

In this post, you will learn how to establish and strengthen your social media presence. This guide will help you increase your traffic, generate more leads, gain more customers, and achieve your business goals. 

 

  1. Define Your Goals

 

In any business strategy, you need to have solid goals. You should set your social media goals based on the products and services you offer. Your strategy should clearly define what your followers will gain from interacting or engaging with your brand on social media. Here are some examples:

 

  •   To increase your followers, consider running a contest and providing freebies and items with your brand image, with the help of us imprints.
  •   If your brand is geared toward educating people (e.g., couples therapy clinic, veterans law firm), your engagement strategy should focus on giving advice, answering questions, and sharing resources.

 

  1. Know Your Audience

 

Getting into your target audience’s head is key to decision-making about posting frequency and what content you are going to share. Take time to immerse yourself in the needs, desires, preferences, and points of view of your customers. Listen to your customers to help decide which social media tactics you will use to engage your audience. Here are some tools to help you identify your target audience:

 

  •   Facebook Business Page Insights. Check the age and gender of people who liked your post on the “Your Fans” tab.
  •   Consumer Barometer. This fantastic Google tool allows you to choose questions and topics to better understand your audience. It will help you identify the forecast trend and your target audience's interests.
  •   Subreddit Forum Search. This tool will help you identify the questions people ask about your product, niche, or industry. 

 

  1. Target Influencers

 

Recruit people and companies to act as your brand advocates or influencers to attract social media users. Influencers can work with you to provide testimonials of your offerings and promote your brand. People are more likely to engage when a third party attests to the quality of your products and services. A social media influencer usually has a lot of followers on Facebook or Instagram, with access to a high volume of social media users. Here are some tips to target and find influencers to help you promote your brand:

 

  •   Identify the niche of your prospective influencer by visiting their website and social media pages, and make sure it aligns with yours for a successful collaboration.
  •   Use a free tool to calculate the engagement rate of an influencer's post (e.g., Instagram Money Calculator).
  •   Search keywords in Twitter user bios via Followerwonk to discover those influencers with the most authority and the broadest reach. Use this tool to identify influencers who are following your competitors.
  •   Determine the different types of influencers with BuzzSumo. You can search popular contents shared about a specific topic and find the people who shared it. The features are helpful in analyzing the best content in your niche.

 

  1. Fine-Tune Your Social Engagement

 

Create and establish your brand on major social media channels to drive more engagement. Remember to prioritize quality over quantity. It is not the volume of posts but the quality of content that enables you to connect and engage with your target audience. Here are some tips to channel social engagement:

 

  •   Facebook's peak engagement time is between noon and 3 PM on weekdays. Succeed using this channel by posting easily shareable content into your target audience's newsfeeds, resonating their core values and interests.
  •   Twitter's peak engagement is between noon and 2 PM on weekdays. Twitter is a microblogging site where you can engage in real time with your target audience. Because of the limited character count (140 characters), you should aim for quality texts.
  •   LinkedIn's peak engagement is between 7 PM and 9 PM weekdays. It is a niche for working professionals of all age categories, giving your audience direct connections to your business. Provide value and highlight your services.

 

Conclusion

 

Generally, customers love interactions on social media. With tags, likes, shares, and comments, people can express themselves about a product or service, and businesses can use social media to their advantage. While you may get some negative comments through your engagement, you can defend your business and show people how professional, credible, and dependable your business is in terms of customer service through social media channels.

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