Social media marketing is a great way to reach new customers and grow your business. It's also free! Here are five simple steps for getting started with organic sources for building awareness of your products or services.
If you're just starting out, Facebook is a good place to begin. It has over 1 billion users worldwide, so you'll likely find people who share your interests. Plus, it's free to use. Some business use Facebook solely because it reaches the customer base, and it’s easier to manage one social media platform when businesses are just starting out and have few employees.
If you're not already on LinkedIn, you should definitely set up a profile. It's free, and you can use it to connect with potential customers, clients, and partners. Increasingly, LinkedIn is the go-to platform for B2B marketers who are seeking brand visibility from industry professionals looking for solutions and ideas for business improvement or trends. The first step in creating a LinkedIn business page is having a professional presence and connections that you can leverage for your business page.
Instagram is one of the fastest growing platforms for businesses. It's also very visual, so make sure you post images that will attract attention. Instagram can also be labor intensive, so have a resource and time-management plan in place that will give you outstanding visual posts with a message that grabs the attention of your potential customers. Like LinkedIn, most social media experts recommend creating an Instagram business page that is separate from a personal Instagram presence.
The effectiveness of video to communicate just keeps getting better. This year’s digital marketing reports and podcasts all list video usage as a big driver of lead conversions now and in the year ahead. YouTube takes the lead as a social media platform where people upload and watch videos. The videos can be shared through other social networks, like Facebook and Twitter. Many YouTube users leverage the platform to livestream events and create media that advertisers will pay for.
Don’t dismiss TikTok. After all, your goal is to increase brand awareness, drive traffic to your website, and boost sales. The rapid growth of TikTok usage in the past two years means you will find an audience to help you do just that. But forethought is necessary so that your brand will be entertaining and informative on this platform known for funny videos that have gone viral. So choose your content carefully. Use social media calendars
To support your social media marketing work, content calendars are great tools for keeping track of your online presence. And they save you time. They help you plan when to post new content and keep you organized. You can create a calendar using Google Calendar, Outlook, or any other calendar app.
Increasingly, all-in-one digital marketing platforms, like Constant Contact and Canva, provide content calendars integrated into social media platforms as well. These omnichannel platforms help you blend social media marketing with email marketing, advertising and search terms to manage your overall strategy for reaching your customers and turning them into valuable leads.
Social media content calendars are great tools for implementing your marketing strategy for the coming year by helping you plan a series of campaigns. You can create a calendar based on your audience, industry, seasons, or even time of day.
Using free social media platforms should be considered part of the foundation of your marketing plan to build awareness for potential customers. While it may take some time to translate into leads, your customer's journey must begin with awareness.
To learn more about social media strategies for growing your business or planning an outreach campaign using social media, let's schedule a time to talk about your goals.