FAST FACT: Social media users in Australia are some of the most active in the world.
So wouldn’t you like a slice of that action?! If so, we’ve put together 29 social media tips to help you take your business to the next level this year. Jump on it. Choose one or all of them to implement. Just start today!
- Who’s who
Consistently look for opportunities to connect – use the People You May Know feature, the Alumni search feature, and your second and third-degree connections. You never know who is there and ready to help you grow your business.
- Timing is everything
Time your activity strategically. Most users of the platform are active in the afternoons and early evening. This is the time you should aim to be active as well for greatest visibility and response.
- Be an industry authority
You can maximise your effectiveness and develop much more meaningful relationships in the LinkedIn platform by being an authority in your niche.
- Don’t waste time
The ideal time for you to seek a deeper connection on LinkedIn is promptly after you have made a new connection, been introduced, or answered a question or received an answer to a question you have asked on the platform. This is the right time to initiate a deeper, one-on-one conversation.
- Business to Business
LinkedIn is the optimal choice for business to business marketing, connecting with corporate employees, and promoting content that is business-related.
Slightly more men than women use LinkedIn regularly, with all age groups evenly represented. More users are located in urban areas, and users tend to be more highly educated, on higher incomes, and are currently employed or seeking employment.
- Take advantage of upcoming events
What’s happening in your area or industry that you should be at? Book your ticket today.
- Promote yourself
Facebook is a fantastic platform to promote almost any brand, as it has a huge, active, and heterogeneous user base. It is quite evenly distributed between male and female users, equally from urban, suburban, and rural areas.
All ages and income and education levels are represented quite equally.
- Make it easy for people to work with you
When you do showcase a product in a post, include a direct link to its page on your website where it can be purchased. Also include a button on your profile to SHOP or a link to your site in your bio.
- Promote content with social media posts
Include contests that incentivise users to interact with and share your posts. Consider participating in paid or sponsored campaigns.
- Link to longer content, such as your blog
Use link shorteners and include a preview if using Facebook. Blog content that includes images will capture more engagement.
- Create and manage a Facebook group
Plain and simple as that. Just remember to look after your members with really great content and let them know regularly that you are the organiser and that you have some pretty cool things on offer.
- Ask customers to leave reviews on your page if possible
Encourage customers to leave reviews and “tell us what you think”. Target consumers for reviews and time your request for them leaving a review carefully – always after purchase (within a week is ideal).
Social media in general
- Don’t be salesy
Many, many potential sales have been killed by pushy sales staff using aggressive sales tactics. Even customers who are bullied into making a purchase (it does happen!) will eventually just return the goods if their purchase experience has not been satisfactory to them.
Your social media profile is not an advertisement or a billboard. No matter what your business or your product, or how great it may be, there is another to take its place just a few clicks away when consumers are online.
- Create great content
Great content results in sales conversion. It’s a delicate balance between direct marketing and providing value via information, inspiration, humour, and a voice of authority.
Great content helps prospective customers evaluate you in a positive light when compared with your competitors.
- Have consistent branding
Have awesome branding … and use it consistently through your content and advertising campaigns to foster brand loyalty. Through branding, a business is able to establish a differentiated and significant presence in a competitive market for the purpose of attracting and retaining paying customers.
- Know your audiences
You can’t be all things to all people; you need to look at your product or service, your target audience, and create content accordingly to suit your niche.
Ideally ask yourself, who do your target audience want or need you to be? You need to be accessible and reflect who they are or who they aspire to be.
- Provide value in your content
Your reputation and authority will be enhanced if you create and share content that is of high value, interesting, inspirational, and enjoyable. These are the posts that will be shared.
- Surprise users occasionally
Give the gifts and also be sure to personalise your posts and show your humanity – don’t just be a faceless brand. Share a story or two about yourself.
- Respond to your messages and callouts
One of the best ways to build a relationship and get clients at the same time is respond to message quickly and also reply to mentions on all social fronts.
- More on timing. Post regularly:
- To Facebook at least once or twice per week
- To Twitter between five and ten times per week
- To LinkedIn once per week
- To Google+ once or twice per week
- To Instagram up to three times per week
- Automate as much as you can
Automating social media can be a very powerful and effective way to build your audience and follower base.
There is, however, a fine line between social media automation that maintains a personal tone and that which sounds robotic and inauthentic.
Social media users expect timely content and too many posts that are obviously automated will turn followers away.
- Are you networking on social?
Networking on social media for business is one of the biggest ways social media has changed the business landscape. Do you regularly network and touch base with people on social media like you would if you were at a live event?
Google+
- Get to page one quickly
Try sharing a blog post using G+ and see how you rank in search.
- Tap into the male market
Google+ is ideal for reaching male users who operate in technology and technical professions, with more male users.
- Be image focused
Instagram, being so image-focused, is ideal for retailers, travel operators, clothing companies, and their ilk. It’s also the perfect platform for reaching a younger audience.
Instagram is used by more women than men, with more than 80 per cent of users being under fifty years of age. All income levels, education levels and locations are reasonably equally represented among users.
Add a dash of well-written words to your pics and you’ll be flying high.
- Poll your audience
What do they want to hear about from you? You can do this in your IG stories.
You can also use Facebook to setup a poll. This is a great way to engage with people and also ask them what they want from you so you can give them exactly what they need and solve their problems.
- Social customer service
Twitter is currently the top social customer service option. Male and female users are equally represented, with all age groups represented as are locations, education, and income levels. Here is a great place to research and have real-time conversations. Are you asking questions on Twitter?
- Use pics on Twitter
Note that Twitter posts with images attached gain twice the number of views as text-only Twitter posts. Are you adding pics to your posts?
- What do you stand for?
Take a stand and stand for something. Finding your voice and your image online is crucial to social media, but test it out on Twitter and you’ll have phenomenal results.
As a business owner or manager, using social media marketing for your brand can dramatically enhance and build your audience and customer base. Sometimes even beyond your wildest dreams, goals and aspirations!
Let us know how you go with these tips and tricks once you’ve implemented them.
P.S. Here are 4 ways we can help you accelerate your Lead Generation results:
- Grab our free 4-Week LinkedIn Profile Optimisation Course
It’s the road map to positioning your profile in the top 5% of the 550 million LinkedIn users currently active – Click Here
- Join our LinkedIn Group and connect with entrepreneurs who are scaling too
It’s our Facebook community where smart entrepreneurs learn to get more leads and smart ways to scale using LinkedIn —Click Here
- Join our LinkedIn Influencer Program so you can“Show out” instead of just showing up
Every 8 weeks we have a new intake into our 12-week Influencer program… Click Here for more details
- Work with our team privately
If you’d like to work directly with us to create new marketing opportunities send us a quick message Click here … tell us a little about your business and we’ll organise a time for a deeper chat