Social media can be a real thorn in the foot.
But it doesn’t have to be!
After reading this article you will be equipped with the understanding and mindset that you need in order to do social media effectively.
I promise!
Before we get started though, I want to clarify that Social Media is an extension of what we usually like to call Word-of-Mouth, the most powerful marketing that you can ever get. (you only get it from extremely satisfied customers that feel you have changed their life for the better)
In this whole article, we will talk about four different aspects of Social Media Marketing, and I will share valuable information about each and every one of them. They are:
-Listening
-Influencing
-Networking
-Selling
With this in mind, let’s get started…
It all begins with the simple act of Listening.
Listening is the first step towards developing a meaningful relationship with your audience.
Think about having a conversation with your friend.
If you imagine yourself spending a balanced amount of time between listening and talking, that’s perfect!
That’s exactly how Social Media works as well. You need to be out there paying attention to conversations that are relevant to what you are doing, or to what your ideal customers are doing.
There are a couple of reasons why listening is so important:
-It informs your decisions for your other social media activities
-It shows your customers that you care (value)
-It enables you to learn more about your ideal customers
These three direct benefits can be enjoyed instantly, and I will tell you exactly how you can find these conversations.
To begin with, you need to determine your ideal customer and what their interests are. Most of the time, they won’t be interested in your product or service, as they are most likely not even aware of your company and your solutions.
That is okay, and you can work to change this, but please avoid trying to sell on social media, because that is the last reason why people come to these platforms.
You want to create value, so you need to explore what relevant topics your product or service touch upon, and look to join conversations happening about these topics already.
Questions in this regard are extremely powerful, as providing the answer to a struggling person really puts you on their radar.
You can use a tool such as Mention (a paid tool), search the web yourself, or simply use Google Alerts. Be warned though, that Google Alerts is not the most reliable of tools for monitoring the internet.
Social Media Marketing and business, in general are not a sprint, but rather a marathon.
Your Social Listening Goals:
-Discover and respond to complaints and questions
-Discover content or product gaps
-Manage reputation
-Find conversations around relevant topics
Pay attention to the first goal, as it is one of the most important here.
Especially if you’ve been in business for long enough to experience somebody talking about your company online.
You need to be looking for these conversations on relevant networks, through quoted Google searches (put your “brand name” in quotes, as well as variations), and effectively respond to these complaints, questions, or statements of satisfaction.
This will not only generate a positive image for your customers, but also show them that you are up and about, looking for these conversations, providing feedback, and that is incredibly valuable.
Let’s move on to…
Social Influencing
Social influencing is all about having people come to you for relevant information, which is something that people already do naturally.
After you’ve spent enough time listening to your potential clients, now is the time to speak.
Before doing that though, ask yourself these questions:
-Have I seen questions that are repeated across various conversations?
-Do I understand who my ideal customer is?
-Is there a problem, that we already have the solution to?
-What does my audience enjoy?
-What kind of information do they find informative?
-What are they inspired by?
If you can truthfully answer these questions you are already setup for the perfect social influencing efforts.
After all…
You want to be seen as the expert, don’t you?
Arriving on time, having a fast delivery, or keeping your promises are just a few ways to generate value. Another way is to create amazing content!
So get busy and take the information that you generated with the questions and start thinking about what kind of content would be useful for your target audience.
For example,
My target for social media marketing is the small business owner, that realized the importance of social media, but either doesn’t have the time, energy, or money to invest into learning all of these things that I have already developed.
So I ask them…
“Do you struggle with social media?
It doesn’t have to be this way, just read this valuable piece of content where I give away knowledge and ideas that you can implement right now, and it’s only going to take away 10 minutes from your day.”
After all, every small business owner wants to understand everything about their business, so that they can communicate and delegate responsibilities efficiently.
Regardless of your business, you want to be seen as the expert.
If you have an Italian restaurant, you want to be seen as the Best Italian restaurant in your area.
If you have a bakery, you want your bakery to be perceived as the tastiest bakery in town.
To achieve this perception, you need to provide valuable information to your audience. Answering the questions above will provide all the necessary data that you need to create these pieces of content.
They can come in many different formats, such as:
-Video
-Audio
-Article/Blog Post
-Combination of all three
And with these pieces of content you can influence your audience in such a significant way that they will be more than happy to like, share, retweet, visit and purchase your products or services.
Do I really have to create my own content?
Don’t be afraid to get creative and your digital “hands” dirty.
Yes!
Absolutely!
Because, if you don’t…
Well, it’s difficult to show anybody that you are an expert (or even knowledgeable) if you don’t create some form of content that demonstrates your knowledge, friendship, problems, and solutions related to your company and brand.
Regardless of the format you create your content in, keep these ideas in the back of your mind:
-My content has to be valuable to my current and future customers
-My content has to provide some form of entertainment
-My content must inspire people to take action
Not only do you need to create content (if you want to be perceived as a valuable brand), you also need to curate content, or in other words share content created by others that is valuable to your audience.
There are many different strategies to create content, and this part of social media marketing is deeply connected to content marketing.
If you find yourself struggling to come up with engaging articles or videos, consider outsourcing by hiring a writer or a video editor.
Social Networking
Influencers can help your business grow exponentially. Do not hesitate to share their content if you have a similar audience.
Not only will you create content, but also you will curate content.
Curation is extremely important if you want to get noticed by the “big boys” on social media. By actively curating content valuable to your audience, you not only manage to find a way to save yourself some time and effort otherwise spent creating said content.
Down the line, it can and will earn you mentions from these other channels that you are networking with, and this can cause a spike in your following, especially if you create content that is well targeted to your ideal audience.
Through networking you can:
-Increase your following
-Develop strategic partnerships that will x10 your business
-Save time/money, by sharing other people’s content
To network on social media effectively, you need to catch the attention of other marketers, business owners, or employees that are operating pages, groups, and accounts.
This can also be your competition, but not necessarily.
Do you remember what we talked about in the part about Listening?
We said ” To begin with, you need to determine your ideal customer and what their interests are. ” and this really hits the nail on the head.
What other companies have audiences interested in the same direction as your own audience?
These are the people that you want to network with, and to have them notice you, all you need to do is actively share and engage with them.
After all, they want the same thing as you do, attention.
Don’t worry about losing attention to your competition, but rather focus on providing more value to your audience, so that you are the logical choice.
And for the finale…
Selling on Social Media
To sell, you want to bring prospects to your property, regardless whether this means the store or the website
You do have a business after all, and you do need to make sales.
Depending on your model, these purchases either happen online or in physical space.
This will be the determining factor that will decide how to approach selling on social media.
We mentioned before, that you shouldn’t actively try to sell your products or services on social media and this is still true. So if by this point you still haven’t figured out that direct selling doesn’t happen on these platforms, let me clarify it even further!
Selling on Social Media doesn’t work in the way that we would love to do it (although right now with Messenger shops, things could change), so we need to focus on bringing people to our own property before trying to convince them to buy our solutions.
This means bringing people to sign up for your email newsletter (often in exchange for a valuable lead magnet), read an article on your website (where they can see a special offer designed to turn them into buyers, or have them print out, download, share a special offer that represents value just by itself (think about large discounts, buy 1 get 2 offers)
These types of offers are valuable enough, and this is exactly what you are going to be selling on social media.
Afterward, you should use your other channels that you own to guide and get people to sign up for various offers.
Conclusion
It’s about relationships, attention, communication, and value. Do not hesitate to provide any one of these things.
The power of social media to grow your business is real, but it also requires a lot of dedication and persistence. Maintaining your relationships with your customers is as difficult as maintaining your relationship with your friends.
If you don’t treat them nicely, they won’t stick around, they won’t sign-up, and they won’t buy from you down the line.
So whatever you decide your strategy is going to be, make sure that you are providing value to your audience. Ask questions, provide answers, give away free (yet valuable) information.
One of the reasons for writing this article is to demonstrate my knowledge and understanding of social media marketing, and to convince you, the small business owner, to consider me when the time comes when you need a Social Media Marketer.
I will always be here to help you out with information and inspiration, but to do this I need your help.
See as much as I would love to say that I understand you completely, it wouldn’t be an honest thing to say.
So, if you are a small business owner, freelancer, artist, or maybe working in-house doing social media marketing for your company, go to the comments right now, and let me know what your struggle is!
Questions to consider:
What is my biggest Social Media Marketing Challenge?
Where do I struggle to connect with my audience?
Is there a way that I can achieve X result?
Or any other question that you feel has been left unanswered in this article.
In exchange, I promise that I will do as much research, experiment, and identify solutions in order to provide you with the answers that you are looking for!
That’s it for right now, and the comment section is below!
Talk to you there! 🙂
Zoran Spirkovski
P.S.
Since you’ve been reading so far along this article, I want to give you a “pro” tip when dealing with complaints online.
Don’t do it in public, but rather acknowledge that there is a problem and that you are looking to provide the solution. After that invite the person experiencing the problem to join you in a private conversation.
The reason for this is to avoid the initial anger/frustration response that customers will have when they are disappointed to go public. People suffer from association bias, and associations with problems will negatively affect your business (or at least the perception of your brand)