How to Use Social Media to Grow Your Business

You can leverage social media marketing to grow your business in many ways, from building your brand to engaging with customers. But no matter your business goal, you’ll want to be sure you’re using the right social media tool for your needs.

Choosing the best social media 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:marketing tool and learning how to use it effectively can give you a cons🅺istent online presence that can help you grow your business with an affordable strategy. Learn how to leverage social media to help you meet revenue targets, attract new customers, and more.

Key Takeaways

Using social media effectively can help you establish an online brand presence that embodies your brand’s mission, values, and offerings.
Social media metrics can help you gain valuable insights into your customer base to help further inform your marketing and business development strategies.
Before committing to one or more platforms, research how much the business tools cost, and which platforms your target audience uses most.
Consider how you will leverage a content calendar to engage with your customers, generate leads, and promote your products or services.

What Is Social Media Marketing?

澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:Social media marketing leverages various online social media platforms to connect business owners and brands with their existing or target audiences. Also referred to as digital marketing or e-marketing, it generates purpose-built 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:data analytics for excellent, detailed metrics to help you understand whether certain products, services, or approaches are popula𓂃r with customers.

You can easily share information online with customers, learn about competitors, build brand🐲 awareness, accept online sales, and drive long-term business growth. Some social media platforms pay for catchy content that keeps users on their sites and away from competitors. So, developing a strong online presence could pay off in more ways than one.

You can use social media metrics to gain valuable data, such as customer data (email addresses,ജ phone numbers, etc.), audience engagement (likes, comments, shares, clicks), referrals, and conversions. This feedback can help businesses improve products and marketing strategies. You can al𝓀so compare your brand’s online performance and adjust it in real time.

Fast Fact

Social media is a low-cost beta-testing opportunity and marketing to🔯ol that can turn into its own♐ revenue source.

Brand Your Business

Social media pla✱tforms can reach a very wide audience, so they are great vehicles to showcase your products, services🍸, and brand personality.

Brand identity incorporates the visual elements that translate the mission, vision, and values o𒅌f your business. This can include the symbols, colors, and unique designs that a business uses consistently over time. The most visible element of brand identity is the company logo, which should be distinctive from competitors and easily recognizable.

Your slogan or 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:mission statement is the written or spoken element(s) that share the company's stance and values. While many 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:small business owners🍨 believe that brand identity is only about packaging, it is so much more. Identity helps customers connect with the people behind the company—its founders, employees, designers, and/or key spokespeople—and the company’s main mission.

Social Media Platforms

There were 5.17 billion social media users in the world, or roughly 63.7% of the global population, as of July 2024, according to global statistics from DataReportal. This totꦛal is spread out across multiple popular platforms that target different audiences and can be used for diff🍌erent marketing strategies.

Here are some of the most prominent platfor꧂ms in the United States (although there are many global options as well):

澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:Facebook: Facebook is the most popular global platform, with a cross-generational demographic of 3.27 billion monthly active users. A wide range of businesses can benefit by creating business pages that automatically cross-post content on Instagram. This can act as an online store, too. Facebook groups also build a sense of community, allowing for moderated or unmoderated conversations between like-minded people.
X (formerly known as Twitter): X is useful for real-time updates, customer engagement, and businesses looking to share concise information. This character-limited text platform underwent a rebrand under its new ownership. Some users closed their accounts, while others upgraded to X Premium, a fee-based subscription that allows for greater visibility.
澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:TikTok: While TikTok started as a place to do silly voiceover videos, it is eclipsing Instagram as the place for visual content. Despite data security concerns, many content creators continue to find it easy to create and monetize viral TikTok content that builds brand awareness and audience popularity. Many businesses that create TikToks cross-post them on Instagram as well.

澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:Instagram: Instagram is a photo-sharing platform owned by Meta, which also owns Facebook. Instagram is designed for visual content like photos or videos of travel, food, or lifestyle brands.
澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:LinkedIn: LinkedIn is a more professional and business-oriented platform that was created to connect employees with recruiters and hiring companies. Companies often find success advertising jobs on the platform or creating newsletters that gain media attention.
澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:Pinterest: Pinterest is a photo-focused search engine site. It has a strong, predominantly female demographic that uses the platform to create visual shopping lists for arts, crafts, events, and design projects.
澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:YouTube: YouTube includes longer-form video content that is too lengthy for TikTok and Instagram’s normal 30-second snippets. Here, business owners can offer password-protected or publicly available content, ideal for tours, tutorials, staff introductions, industry explainers, and webinars, as well as unique content that can attract viewers and customers.

Tip

Before committingღ to a platform, understand how they work, how much they cost (many are free), an🧜d which platform your target audience uses most.

Make Your Social Media Posts Consistent

Consistent posting makes the most of your online presence. Develop a content calendar to regul🐼arly schedule messages▨ for your followers.

Algorithms change all the time, but the more content you produce, the more the platforms boost your content to larger audiences. Thi𝓡s often means posting daily for at least 30 days at a time. When in doubt, look at competitors’ social media pages to learn from their successes and failures to adapt your content toward industry trends and audience interest.

Solo 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:entrepreneurs may find this cadence of content production and competitor listening overwhelming. Hiring project-based 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:freelancers can help. You can hir🦹e community managers, copywriters, graphic designers, filmmakers, and editors to do this work.

Important

Social media aggregators like 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:Hootsuite and 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:Sprout Social manage all your accounts on one dashboard. They can save you the time of posting multiple times a day and provide statistics to help you measure your 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:return on investment (ROI).

Customer Engagement

Engaging with your customers goes beyon🐬d posting content. You can interact with your audience directly through comments, likes, shares, and messages.

Marketing strategies, such as hosting live videos, Q&A sessions, and giveaways can help you foste🍬r a personal connection with your audience, which can ultimately lead to𓆉 sales. Be responsive to online interest by responding promptly to comments and messages.

Many business owners add a chatbot to their Facebook accounts to simulate a customer service exchange and field frequently asked questions. This is just one way to🐈 keep users on the platform, out of your email inbox, and off your customer service line.

Remember, social media is often about two-w🌳ay communication, and you should have a strategy in your social media plan to respond to comments and queries.

Lead Generation

Social media is an ideal way to search for potential customers who may be interested in your product. You can attract them with unique or informative content and eventually convert them into clients. Social media allows you to test concepts with audiences even before you 𓆉invest any mon🐬ey in developing new products or services.

Try putting up images of a prototype to gauge interest or accept presales. Create surveys to ask existing customers what you should develop 🐟next and how much they would be willing to pay for the new offering. Social media is one of the best ways for ♑businesses of all sizes to reach new customers and design products and services that people are willing to buy.

Important

Paid ads on social media are not a set-it-and-forget-it marketing tool. Instea🍨d, you can change keywords, demographics, images, and even wording throughout the campaign. Unlike with radio and TV, you have control over changing your ads.

Paid Advertising

While organic reach is valuable, many small businesses can benefit by paying🎶 a small fee to advertise to new audiences.

Each platform has a different set of paid advertising options, but most entail a campaign that puts your video or visual content in front of your target demographic. This can drive traffic to your business’s website or store, leading to increased sales. It can also eliminate the need for an expensive 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:public relations (PR) company or marketing consultant.

Your business could advertise its services t🃏o hundreds—if not thousands—of potential clients for a few d🀅ollars a day. You can often specify a desired age group, gender, and location, and the platform will put your content in front of the right audience.

Budgets for paid ads can vary in price (typically $1 to $50 a day, depending on how many people you want to reach) and minimum periods to run campaigns (typically around 30 days).

How Can Social Media Help a Business to Grow?

Social media platforms can play a significant role in helping a business grow in several ways. They can help you increase brand visibility, improve audience engagement, and generate leads. Social media platforms can also provide a way to leverage targeted advertising and garner customer insights. Finally, it can help with conten🌳t distribution, sales, and conversions.

What Is the Best Social Media Platform for Businesses?

This depends on your business. Your social media preferences should be based on your target audience and business goals. However, some of the most po🐎pular platforms for businesses include Facebook, Instagraꦛm, LinkedIn, Pinterest, TikTok, X, and YouTube.

How Often Should a Business Post on Social Media?

Each business has to define its specif🌌ic goals and audience to determine how frequently to post on social media. Also, the algorithms that govern each social media site differ slightly in how they reward frequent posters or paid accounts. Consistency and engagement with the target audience matter more than just the number of posts. According to Hootsuite research, some ideal target ranges are:

Pinterest: One post per week.
X (formerly Twitter): Two to three posts per day; pay attention to hashtags.
Instagram: Three to five posts per week, including stories, lives, reels, and posts.
Meta (Facebook): One to two posts per day, including posts, lives, etc.
TikTok: Three to five posts per week.
LinkedIn: One to two posts per day.

Can You Promote Your Business on Social Media for Free?

You can promote your business on social media for free. Many social media platforms allow businesses to create free profiles and post content without any cost. Organic reach can help you connect with your existing audience, but it might not reach as many prospective customers as you’d like. Over time, you might want to consider paying for a modest amount of 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:targeted advertising to reach a broader audience.

The Bottom Line

Using the right social media platform🐭s in the best way can help your business grow significantly. As you review all your options for leveraging social media, keep your main business goals and budget in mind. Marketing via social media can help you reach a wide audien🌼ce to generate leads, build your brand, engage audiences, and target advertising, among many other benefits.