Are you interested in building a relationship with your customers and expand your customer base?
There’s a free, simple way to do it.
In fact, 82 percent of customers trust brands that employ this marketing strategy alone.
The strategy is simple… take advantage of social media using a few specific tactics and watch your customer interaction, loyalty, and buying soar.
Taking advantage of social media networks is a must, not only because so many people spend their time browsing them, but because they’re practical for connecting a user to a brand. Customers realize that social networks are the best way to get informed about a business or product. A website is also valuable, but on a social network, everyone follows a standard making it easy to find your basic info, contact information, and your working hours in seconds.
For a small business owner, social media can be exceptionally useful. It’s a free, simple platform with nearly unlimited reach and massive opportunity. If you decide to start branding your business this way, here are a few things you should have in mind.
Be Targeted. Be Familiar.
The first step to creating your social media strategy is determining your target audience, which depends on your industry and product.
Make a detailed plan for which demographics you want to appeal to. Once you do that, use targeting tools to reach the exact audience you want.
Adapt your voice and style to those you want to reach in order to create a feeling of familiarity for the people who follow you.
Keep in mind that your target audience will be the base for how all the other things are done on your social media – you pick your channels, your design and create content according to the audience you want to address.
Be Responsive
Once you consider the pros and cons of all available channels to choose the ones that will be the most useful, the next step is to be responsive and helpful.
Answer their questions and fix their problems as quickly as possible. Show that you’re reachable, friendly and responsive.
If you’re promoting your product or service on social networks, you have to prepare for unpleasant feedback since it’s not possible to satisfy everyone. Know that there will be some complaints.
React to these with dignity and good will to help, without arguing or grumbling. It’s not that customer’s always right, but they do always react like this with a reason, so this is a great chance to show your expertise and find a way to help them.
If the point is to build trust among your buyers, arguing with them or avoiding to give them a hand doesn’t help your cause. Don’t forget that the most desirable types of behavior on social media include an honest, friendly and helpful attitude.
Encourage the Engagement
Try to provoke customer engagement yourself. Encouraging people to comment on your post by simply asking them to do it.
Don’t hesitate or worry about looking unprofessional. This is a great way to create a sense of trust and familiarity among your audience.
There are several ways to draw them into the conversation, the simplest one being too openly ask for their opinion on your post.
Another good trick is to build a reputation of always caring about and responding to customer comments. Always keep the conversation going. In some cases, you can even build a new post around an especially interesting or intriguing comment. This will not only generate better engagement in the future but also increase your reach because every time someone comments on your post, your page will appear on their friends’ news feed.
Make sure not to leave generic replies, and be genuinely interested and curious. This can obviously be time-consuming, but it definitely pays off.
Be Useful. Be Relevant. Don’t Be Spammy.
The best way to promote your brand is not by continually spamming them with calls to action.
Instead, attract customers to your brand by offering them useful content and interesting info related to your field. Limit your promotional posts. Customers will be more eager to buy if you show them that you’re an expert on the matter in a pleasant way rather than yelling at them to buy.
Post regularly and consistently and follow the 80/20 rule – roughly 80 percent of your posts are supposed to be educational, while purely promotional ones should be reduced to no more than 20 percent.
Develop Your Visual Identity
It’s no surprise that customers are more likely to engage with visuals than with texts and articles.
It’s crucial that your visuals have a recognizable look – choose a template, brand colors, and filters and keep them as consistent as possible. This gives you a more serious and professional vibe, and if you don’t do this, your users may fail to recognize the connection between the visuals.
Create a logo that suits your industry and your brand. Of course, this is not a simple job and if you’re unsure about your artistic talent, turn to professionals. Digital agencies like Quikclicks can give you a hand when it comes to developing your visual identity.
Let Influencers Do Your Dirty Work
Having an influencer promote your brand might be of great use for your social media efforts.
If you’re trying to build trust among your followers, this is one of the best ways – customers trust influencers since they don’t see them as advertisers. They implement a story about your brand in their own content so most of their followers don’t see it as a promotion but as regular content that happens to endorse your brand.
Furthermore, they are able to promote your product in an authentic and creative way. When brands post repurposed mid-tier influencer content on their Facebook, it outperforms their other posts by 35 percent on average.
Be careful when choosing the right influencer for your brand – find the one that is considered an expert in your niche, that has a similar target audience, and a language and style compatible with the one you’re using on social networks.
Team Up With Another Business
Another trick that can increase your visibility across social networks is making partnerships with other businesses that attract roughly the same population in terms of demographics and interests. This is done for a mutual benefit – you promote them and they promote you which creates a compelling synergy.
Build a partnership with a business related to yours. For instance, if you own a phone repair shop, you can team up with a shop that sells phone gear. There are several ways you can implement this partnership – sharing each other’s posts or informing your audiences about each other’s discounts and deals are the most obvious ones. You could also try writing guest posts on your partner’s page and vice versa. If your target audience is similar enough to your partner’s, your followers will definitely be interested in reading them.
It’s Time to Design Your Social Media Branding Campaign
If you only take away one thing from this article, the most important thing to remember is that you don’t start your social media campaigns randomly, when you feel like it, or by just following your instinct, but only after designing a careful step-by-step plan according to your needs – your type of product, your target audience and your position on the market.
Social media advertising is a very cheap and effective way to brand your business long-term. Now, go take full advantage of it!
About the Author
David Webb
Business Consultant
David Webb is a Sydney-based business consultant,online marketing analyst and a writer. With six years of experience and a degree in business management, he is driven to help people to better understand this new digital age. In his free time, David enjoys writing, travelling, basketball and an occasional night out with his friends.