Digital advertising instruments 101 | Attain Additional
From Angela Bao
January 28, 2021
Digital Marketing Tools Your Business Needs. (Photo credit): Gettyimages.com/Hispanolistic
An overview of social media platforms and the tools small businesses need to build successful profiles, increase reach, and drive engagement
Social media can seem overwhelming for small and micro businesses. There are a multitude of platforms that are not only saturated with content but also require different media and strategies. However, social media is also a very powerful and easy-to-use tool that can have a significant impact on the bottom line of small businesses.
According to Statista, there will be almost 3.8 billion social media users worldwide in 2021, and in 2018 GlobalWebIndex found that 54% of social media users used social media for product research.
“It is important for small and micro businesses to use social media to market and sell as it is one of the most cost-effective ways for them to get greater reach than normally any other type of old school marketing Case, ”says Sarai Garrett. Founder and CEO of The Marketing Millennial.
Overview of the most important social media platforms
There are five social media platforms that small businesses should consider when trying out digital marketing for the first time, and each has its own set of tools for business, says Garrett.
- Facebook business pages to showcase your company and its features
- Facebook Ads and Facebook Ads Manager help companies reach customers
- Facebook Live for live video that allows you to connect with your audience in real time
- Facebook marketplace where people can buy and sell items
- Instagram business pages where you can link directly to your website
- Instagram ads that appear in users’ feeds
- Instagram Shopping, which allows users to shop the products in your photos
- Instagram stories and roles that drive greater customer loyalty
- Videos that can showcase your product and its uses
- Live videos that you can use to connect with customers
- TikTok for Business, which enables businesses to create engaging short videos to promote their products and services and feed them into users’ feeds
- LinkedIn Sales Navigator, which helps companies find the right customers
- LinkedIn Marketing that helps in branding and driving traffic to your website
The great thing about these social media platforms is that business owners can use them individually but also in conjunction with one another to create greater impact, says Garrett.
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“If you have more information to share that will help get your customers to a website, you may want to … use TikTok as a funnel to get to your website and then to YouTube,” explains Garrett. “This is how you can … use the various social media platforms to help your customers make a sale.”
Pay attention to these details as you choose an ideal social media platform for your online marketing efforts.
Choosing the right platforms
Choosing the right platform depends on both what type of business you have and who your target audience is, says Garrett. While there is an overlap in audiences between social media platforms, certain will be more targeted towards one generation or another. For example, only 23.8% of Facebook users are between 18 and 24 years old, but 41% of TikTok users are between 16 and 24 years old. If your company’s target customer is older, it makes more sense to focus your marketing efforts on Facebook. Conversely, if you want to reach younger generations, TikTok might be the way to go.
A good place to start is to think about who your current customers are. “I like to ask people who is buying from you right now? Who is your market right now? “Says Garrett. Often times, entrepreneurs think too far about the target market for fear of alienating potential customers, but Garrett explains that limiting your focus is the best way to find qualified leads.”
“I really like groups on Facebook,” says Garrett. “Some Facebook groups are half a million [members] Some of them are like 100,000 but find those groups where you can have conversations and find a way to attract potential customers by having real conversations about your product. ”
Although small businesses should only start with one platform at a time, there are advantages to using multiple social media platforms at the same time. “It’s great when you use all of the different social media platforms and all of the information on each of those platforms because it gives you a bigger picture of who your market is,” says Garrett.
(Photo credit): Gettyimages.com/sorbetto
Click here to find out which platforms are best for your business, as well as important tips and best times to post.
Tips for a great social media profile
The key to creating a great social media profile on any platform is having a clear understanding of the problem your business is solving, your mission, and your vision. Even so, Garrett says brevity is key and companies need to be able to translate these values into short messages.
“It’s important to have something that is short, dynamic and that really speaks to you and your brand,” she says. “It really speaks volumes about where we are in terms of our attention, how much we want to read, and how much time we want to spend reading someone’s bio. Because if you can’t achieve that in very short words, people probably aren’t interested and want to follow you. ”
Tips for creating a better social media profile can be found here.
Editing apps for your social media game
Given the visual nature of social media, companies should think about making their content visually appealing. Free graphic design apps like Canva and Logo Maker are ideal here. They come with pre-designed templates for a variety of platforms and media to make social media easier for small business owners.
“That’s what I love about our technology today – you don’t have to start where the big guys are supposed to play with the big guys,” says Garrett. “You can start where you are.”
Social media #hashtags
Almost all social media platforms use hashtags to help developers discover their content from potential customers. This makes them an invaluable tool for businesses. Hashtags are clickable and take you to a page with all the content that has used that particular hashtag. This way, businesses can get inspiration for their own pages and gain insight into the mindset of consumers. Likewise, potential customers can click on the hashtag to discover new content and accounts.
“Hashtags are little labels that you can use to open the door to what the rest of the world says about marketing, skin care, and anything else you can think of,” says Garrett.
Use Twitter’s built-in search engine, Twitter Advanced Search, to find the right hashtags and keywords that are directly related to your content. By searching through a specific hashtag, you can see what context it is being used in and assess whether it is relevant to your content. In addition, you can use a hashtag tool or a combination of several to determine which hashtags are popular, how many people see that hashtag per hour, how many retweets it receives per hour, etc. Popular hashtag tools are RiteTag, hashtags . org, Trendsmap and Hashtagify.me.
This article is part of a series of webinars organized by the East West Bank in association with Grameen America.
