These days, consumers don’t just have email or phone to air their approval or complaint about a particular brand. They also turn to social media, which has been quite the game changer over the past decade or so.
According to a report, 4.62 billion people across the globe now use social media. Seventy-six percent of them purchase products they’ve seen in social media posts. If your business isn’t capitalising on these numbers, you could be losing a great deal of potential customers.
In this article, you’ll learn the importance of a brand’s social media presence, get tips on how to improve it and perhaps realise why social media managers Australia are in such great demand at present.
Social media has been instrumental in empowering customers. Something as simple as presenting people with resources (e.g., relevant content) effectively improves their customer journey. If you make an effort to personalise their entire experience, you could potentially be developing loyal customers.
With social media, people can research about a product without directly reaching out to the brand, and at the same time, they can connect with the brand easily if they need to raise a complaint. For brands, it’s a means to learn about consumers and what the latter truly feel about the products or services they offer and even those of their competitors.
Needless to say, it’s going to be tough for a business to survive without a social media presence. As to which brand or brands will reap the most rewards depends largely on their social media strategy. Part of that is having a strong social media presence.
Whether you’re a small business or a large enterprise, you need social media. It may not be a sole driver to business growth, but with a strong social presence, you can attract and connect with customers, increase brand awareness and boost your leads and sales. Here are a few tips on how to improve your social media presence:
Before anything else, you must know your target audience and build your strategy around them. You must understand them enough to identify your brand’s voice, which social media platforms to prioritise, the type of content to create and even the posting schedule.
For example, if your target audience is young professionals that are travellers, consider focusing and being active on top sites like Facebook and Instagram, creating content about travel guides and destinations and publishing them early evening when your target audience is at home.
You’ve probably heard that it’s good practice to publish content regularly, and that’s true! But if you don’t plan out a system that controls the publication of your content, you could face potential issues down the road. With an editorial calendar, you could:
publish your content at the most opportune time for maximum engagement,
avoid cramming just so you can post consistently,
fine-tune your content before the actual publishing schedule and
avoid duplicate content, which could put off your audience.
Users generally favour images and video content. In fact, a report shows that 59% of adult Aussies consumed digital video content on their smartphones in 2020-2021. The same source shows that in 2020, 60% of businesses used video in their marketing strategy.
Facebook, which is the top social media site in Australia and the world, is making a killing with their live video feature. We’re talking six times the engagement (i.e., comments, reactions and shares) over regular videos. Instagram, which is a photo- and video-sharing platform, is still one of the top social media sites in Australia.
Image and video content are so popular that if you’re not using them, we can go as far as saying that you are doing your brand a disservice.
When you post interesting content, whether it’s a video or article, people will be commenting or ‘reacting’ to them. If it impacts them enough, they may even share the post. At times, you’d encounter people posting on their social media page and then tagging or mentioning your brand. All these are great opportunities for you to further engage your audience.
Show people that you value them by commenting on their posts, replying to their comments and starting or participating in conversations. For instance, when a customer posts a product review on your Facebook page, take the time to thank them. You having a good product and expressing appreciation to your customers form the recipe to brand loyalty.
Engaging with your audience is humanising your brand. It’s the way to building a community, not just social media followers—precisely what you should aim for.
Have you ever encountered a post or a comment from a brand’s social media account that seemed a little off from what you’re used to reading from them? As if it was typed by another person? That’s because it probably was! This could be the case if there are multiple people handling the brand’s social media accounts.
For that reason, it’s best to limit the number of your community managers and make sure everyone sticks to your brand voice so as not to alienate your audience.
Make the most of your social media accounts by optimising them for engagement. There are numerous ways to do it, including:
Filling out the necessary account info completely
Linking your accounts to your website
Using relevant keywords
Using hashtags
Adding social media icons in your content and emails
Treating your social media accounts individually (i.e., Facebook is different from LinkedIn)
Again, creating content that generates interaction
Treat social media marketing (and management) as both an art and a science. The ones we’ve discussed so far mostly focus on the art side of things. Now it’s time to let science kick in.
Use relevant analytics tools to gain visibility into performance trends and identify your low- and top-performing content. Adjust your strategy and implement change based on your findings. If you’re not confident or don’t have the capacity to do these, it’s best to hire a social media agency in Sydney.
You can look into G Squared, which is an award-winning social media agency in Australia. What you need is a team of experts who can go knee-deep into analytics and propose effective courses of action—and G Squared has the track record to prove their competence.
Let people know about your social media accounts! There’s no shame in asking friends and family members to comment on your posts and share your content. This is especially helpful for small businesses and those that are just starting out. If you already have a following, make sure to link any content you create to your social accounts.
Little by little, you’ll increase your reach without even running paid ads. But if you have the budget, then try it out to extend your reach further.
Neglecting the impact of your social media presence is a mistake. Partner with a social media agency with a wealth of experience to reach your desired results. Talk to us about your social media goals today!
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