Expanding Your Brand’s Reach with Social Media

Is your business taking advantage of social media? Social media attracts new customers, creates a loyal community, and boosts your brand’s reach. At first, social media can seem like a big beast to conquer if you have never used it before. But I have some tips to help you get started using social media marketing and to improve your results out of the gate.

To take advantage of this marketing channel, you will need to: 

• Choose the right social media platform for your business
• Find your brand or style
• Build a community 
• Set reachable goals

Choosing the Right Social Media Platform for Your Business

Deciding which social media platform you should be on amongst the huge variety of platforms really depends on the audience you are trying to reach.

Platforms

Social media is a big umbrella with many different platforms underneath it like Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. You might think that to have the best success and to reach the most people, you will need to be on every platform. However, you don’t. Being on every platform is too time consuming as a small business owner. Therefore, you should pick the best social media platform that fits with your business.

Know Thy Audience

Choose your social media platform according to where your audience is. If you know your audience and what they will be attracted to, the right platform will help you effectively reach them. 

First consider if you are B2B (business-to-business) business or B2C (business-to-consumer) business. A B2B business can reach their audience and create useful content for them on a platform like LinkedIn. LinkedIn allows you to post informative articles on business practices and make business connections. On the other hand, a B2C business might find platforms like Instagram best because products or services photographed attract today’s consumers. Your beautiful photos can catch peoples’ attention as they scroll through their feed, and this sparks interest into your Instagram page and business. Therefore, when you know your audience, you can choose the best social media platform to be on. 

Finding Your Brand or Style

There are several factors that go into determining your social media will be branded.

Brand Consistency is Important

Consistently applying your brand or style to your social media posts will help your brand stand out professionally and be more recognizable to your audience. A brand or style for your social media means that you use a certain tone or aesthetic consistently throughout your posts. Maybe your business uses a certain color combination like warm reds and oranges, then use that in your pictures or graphics. Other ways to create your brand is through using certain fonts or a filter on your photos.

Variety Still Possible

However, maintaining your branding doesn’t mean that your feed must be monotonous. You can choose to use certain colors, fonts, or filters for different types of posts. For example, on Mondays, if you post informative graphics, you might have a certain color combo while on Wednesdays you might post something more entertaining that uses another set of colors. Yet, every Monday’s and Wednesday’s post should follow that same pattern to solidify your brand and style

Content Calendar Makes Planning Easier

Set your plan up in a content calendar so you can plan your brand ahead of time to avoid the hassle of coming up with posts on the day. Check out our recent blog post on creating a content calendar.

Just by looking at your feed, your audience will know this is your business, and the pleasing look will attract new customers because a planned, organized feed gives you a professional look that stands out from other posts.

Building a Brand Community with Social Media

The great part of social media is that it’s global and can be used to create a community surrounding your business. This community can grow into a place for loyal customers to gather and support you. If your audience loves your products or services, they will share with their friends which in turn grows your business and reach on social media! 

You can create a loyal community by interacting and engaging with people on your social media platform. For example, if someone leaves you a comment on your post, answer back! Remember, the person on the other side of the screen is a human so talk to them like you would a friend, but don’t be too casual because you are still the voice of your business. 

Being personable on social media will show people that you care about them, and they will more likely feel a connection to you and your brand/ business.

Setting Social Media Marketing Goals

To grow your social media presence you must measure your progress and set goals to move forward.

Social Media Engagement is Measurable

Another great aspect of social media marketing is that it’s measurable. Every platform provides trackable data. With this data, you can see how many followers you have, how many people viewed your post, how many people viewed your profile recently, and other analytics that can help you determine which posts work to grow your online presence. These numbers will help you set goals (short-term and long-term) for your social media that you can easily measure and keep track of.

Types of Goals to Set

You should have short-term and long-term goals, so that your goals are reachable and you aren’t discouraged. Short-term goals will give you little successes that can motivate you to keep going forward to reach bigger goals that take longer to achieve. If you only set long-term goals, the journey can seem long and impossible. For example, your short-term goal for the month could be to post four posts a week regularly and gain ten to twenty followers. Then, your long-term goal can be to consistently get over a couple of hundred likes on a post.

Try to be kind to yourself in the beginning because it’s a learning experience, but with these tips you can use social media to promote and grow your business. Social media is a powerful tool, allowing you to reach your audience and create a loyal community if you craft a unique brand and interact with people on it. Following these steps will help you reach your social media marketing goals, leading to business success.