We live in the age of social media everything. New platforms appear overnight and take the world by storm. Business owners, no matter their field, are kept on their toes when it comes to keeping up with modern consumers. Snapchat, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and a host of other apps are where businesses need to be if they are trying to compete with a tech-savvy consumer base. We asked entrepreneurs and business owners about how they use social media for business and their replies are listed below. These tips might even help you find the right footing on social media for your business.
#1- Building relationships
We utilize social media to form more personal relationships with our clients and prospects. Social media is great tool we use to build rapport and interact with clients and prospects in a genuine and authentic way. We encourage an open, honest dialogue from our followers. Ultimately, social media shortens the distance between our company and our audience.
Thanks to Morgan Lathaen, Thumbprint!
#2- Showcase my work
I've found that the contemporary art world has been catching up to social media in the past couple years – I've ramped up my efforts 300 percent! I showcase my actual artworks and my events-from exhibits and openings to shows– such as recent ones in Hong Kong and Ukraine. People respond best to my stories, what inspires me to paint and the process of going from an idea to conceptualization and execution. The posts with stories carry the most weight and usually the most likes and shares.
Thanks to Monique Rollins
#3- Create connections
Social media plays a crucial role in running our business. Using multiple platforms helps us connect with different individuals and companies that are both local and nation-wide. Connecting with the right people via online presence can help build a more significant brand awareness. Focus on your target market, and that information can help you determine which social networks you should spend your time on. Plus, you can repurpose your top content to fit the language of each platform, like blogs and creative infographics. By making these small changes, you can make a considerable impact on the success of your social media marketing for your business.
Thanks to Jeff Pitta, Medicare Plan Finder!
#4- A number of ways
I use social media to keep up with clients, share tips, behind the scenes and client successes. Most of my clients are on social media and even found me through it. I use Instagram every day to share behind the scenes of design and marketing projects I'm working on or if we're on set with Public Relations clients. I use Facebook to share bite-sized tips and inspirational quotes.
Thanks to Erica Johnson, E-Partners Marketing Inc.!
#5- Engage with people
When it comes to social media, a great number of entrepreneurs focus on building the biggest following possible. While this is an effective strategy, I believe that many of them miss out on a greater opportunity; one that consists of using existing traffic to engage with people they don’t necessarily follow. In order to do this, I begin by identifying keywords or hashtags that are relevant to my business. With tools such as Hubspot or Hootsuite, I can type in certain phrases and receive alerts that will notify me when people are talking about a specific topic. This allows me to engage in conversations with those people and start building a relationship with them. Another method that allows me to leverage social media is building simple landing pages that trade in specific information for an email address. To generate these types of pages and build lists, I like to use clickfunnels. Once my lists are compiled, I continue to provide value so that I can generate solid revenue through conversions.
Thanks to Kharen Minasian, Lab 916!
#6- Customer acquisition
I own a marketing agency that specializes in providing marketing support for influencers and athletes. Social media, specifically Instagram, has been a major asset in our customer acquisition. While many companies and sales teams will look to acquire new customers through more traditional means including cold calling, email marketing, and reliance of word of mouth, we've learned that Instagram provides us an opportunity to approach major brands or athletes through more nontraditional means. Specifically, Instagram Direct Messages are a unique tool that we leverage to acquire new customers because it instantly provides the prospect with a snapshot of who we are. In a world where you have 6 seconds to capture someone's attention, people won't take the time to even go through a website. With Instagram, they receive our message and can immediately look at our profile and get an instant idea of what we do and who we are. We control exactly what they'll see about us and often times get a company interested because we're able to really put our best foot forward.
Thanks to Jonathan Lubic, Distinction Agency!
#7- Answer customer questions and queries
I am a business owner who uses social media primarily to connect with our customer base. We encourage customers to message us on our social accounts, including Facebook and Twitter, when they have questions so we may answer them or redirect them to the best point of contact to discuss further. Customers are welcome to reach out to us through direct or private messages (DMs/PMs) if they would like to chat one on one in a private space. We always respond back within a day or less — sometimes in the same hour — and work hard to resolve any issues or address any questions they may have for us. The assistance we are able to provide is always greatly appreciated!
Thanks to Deborah Sweeney, MyCorporation.com!
#8- Marketing purposes
As a business owner and digital marketer, I do extensive research on my industry trends and potential clients’ needs at the start of a month. Afterward, I prepare a practical plan for social media marketing. I split marketing into two parts, organic and paid, and spending budget on the posts related to new products. Making a complete budget strategy makes things simple for me. I post 2-3 times a day during peak hours to keep in touch with my clients and keep them engaged by offering mini giveaways. Along with static posts, I mostly use short videos or GIFs for marketing purposes. As per my experience, becoming live on Facebook strengthen your bond with the audience. However, I would recommend one should use all features of social media and observe which feature is giving him the best result.
Thanks to David Mitroff, Ph.D. Piedmont Avenue Consulting, Inc.!
#9- Lead generation
I've had great success using Facebook to generate leads and ultimately sales. I've had multiple clients reach out to me via Facebook ads, which enables me to connect with them through Facebook Messenger to set up appointments. Additionally, when I share relevant health or life insurance tips and other information on my Facebook page, I've had Facebook friends tag other friends within the comments to connect them to me and the services I can provide. These have been great ways to get referrals, set up appointments and positively build my personal brand and business.
Thanks to Brett Casey, HealthMarkets!
#10- Provide different experiences
We use different channels to provide different experiences. Facebook performs better with video content. Twitter performs better with short little tidbits and tips like #MotivationMonday and #TechTipTuesday LinkedIn allows us to connect with owners and managers who may love the benefits of cloud solutions for their business. It's all about diversifying your content, because not one piece fits all platforms.
Thanks to Shannon Giedieviells, Bedrock Cloud Solutions!
#11- Defining an engaging content strategy
Your target segment has very specific interests and expectations. To use social media effectively, one must have absolute knowledge of what these expectations are. This is actually independent of the channel you choose. I run a B2B business where LinkedIn is the primary channel and another B2C business that thrives on Instagram. Knowing the interests of my audience enables me to define a content strategy that engages. Consequently, with a concrete strategy, I can choose the best formats for my content. I have always found that good content is even more important than exciting visuals.
Thanks to Deepak Sharma, Withstartups.com!
#12- Each in its unique way
We have found that each social media platform has their distinct crowds and uses. Twitter is a B2B communication tool, a way to find journo requests and connect with other businesses in our industry. With Facebook ramping up the importance of community, groups are now a really effective way to connect with our existing customers and join the bigger conversation. Finally, we use Instagram as a wide net, first touch point platform, generating content that people engage with so that we can re-market to them.
Thanks to Andy Smith, Reco!
#13- To add value
Within the learning, development and business coaching field the face of training is changing. It is less about chalk and talk and more about curating a range of content to suit a variety of learners. We therefore use a range of social media sites to post illustrations, articles, book recommendations and infographics pre and post session or conferences for those that want more information. It also enables us to give updated research or articles to all our clients at not cost very quickly ensuring they remain engaged with the brand. These are then saved on Pinterest boards for delegates to access at anytime. We call it the gift that keeps on giving.
Thanks to Mary Jane Flanagan, mjinspire ltd!
#14- Educate
In today’s day and age having an online presence for your business is a must. Social media has made it easy and possible to reach your target audience without breaking the bank. At Journal Solutions we use social media to educate our online community on best practices and tips on how they can increase their practice’s revenue via our weekly blog articles on our site and then sharing them on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. As a business owner increasing your exposure is key. Journal Solutions sometimes have Q&A sessions on Facebook Live and occasional podcasts on IGTV. These social media marketing tools have increased our online presence and helped us get our content out to the general public.
Thanks to Alpha B. Journal, Journal Solutions, LLC!
#15- Share new post and events
Software Portal is a technical knowledge base with news, guides, and reviews. I mainly use social media to promote our latest posts and try to let people know what we've been writing about. I'll also post articles that we have that are pertinent to any news or current events that are trending. If data privacy concerns are in the news, we'd tweet about our piece on eavesdrop-proof cell phones. This way we're able to get people to consider us as one of the sources they can use to learn more about what's going on.
Thanks to Jason David, Software Portal!
#16- Disseminate information
We create free YouTube content that is bingeable for bookers, agents and potential clients. Our produce is short, high quality and frequent. We are not appealing to nor seeking a large audience just the aforementioned types and so far so good. In fact it's been very interesting how many conference bookers know my little videos almost better than I do!
Thanks to Scott D McArthur, Sculpture Ltd!