Social media has become an integral part of the marketing mix over the past ten years. Most people are using at least one platform, and a majority of businesses have their own business pages on Facebook and other social media platforms.
In fact, 82% of B2B companies use social media to promote their businesses, grow their audiences and even generate leads. So if you’re still holding back from using social media for your company, you could be missing out on a vital marketing component. Here’s how you can use social media to help power your marketing efforts.
Who to Interact With
Start by following people within your audience. Look for individuals and organizations who are interested in your industry. Find opportunities to engage with industry influencers. Like them. Follow them. Retweet them. Comment on their posts. Lastly, if your company is location-specific, follow relevant and nearby people who are active on social media.
As more parties share your content, their followers will see your content as well.
How Social Media Supports SEO
When starting to use social media, the first step is to create a content creation strategy aligned with your search engine optimization (SEO) goals. Then create the content. By sharing the content on social media, you become a valuable source of information for your audience.
Sharing content on social channels also benefits your website’s SEO. If search engines see that you are actively adding content to your site and users are finding and sharing that content, your site will gain recognition as an important resource.
What to Post
Social media pushes all of your digital content in front of your audience. Try posting your blogs, white papers, infographics and other content to see what resonates with your audience. Once you know what’s most appealing, plan to emphasize the content that people want most, while supplementing with other types of content to keep things fresh.
Why Link to Email Marketing
Studies show that email marketing is still the more favored and most effective digital marketing in terms of ROI (according to a study from the Content Marketing Institute). By sharing your newsletter and other email campaigns on social media, your audience can see your great content, extending the value of each email.
You can also use social media to invite your audience to subscribe to your newsletter or mailing list. Why is this important? When a visitor shares their contact information with you, and you are able to reconnect with them again, this is considered a conversion. Social media platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn often alter the algorithms businesses count on to reach their audience – they own the platform and the way that participants are reached. Once you have converted a social media contact on your own, that conversion becomes one of your assets. Making conversions is one of the measurable and most valuable benefits of social media marketing.
Experiment With Paid Ads
Paid ads on social media allow you to grow your audience reach. Try boosting a great piece of content. As the ads are put it in front of new people, you can acquire new followers interested in your business. Eventually, these new followers may be converted into leads, then possibly into clients! While you can still get great content published without spending money, paid ads on social have far greater reach.
One Piece of the Puzzle
Social media is a vital piece of the digital marketing puzzle. It amplifies your other digital marketing efforts and can help you gain leads. So put your strategic marketing plan in place and set specific social media goals to get the best results. You’ll be glad you did!
If you need help with your social media marketing planning or program, please let us know. Our team is always happy to help!
