Social media has proven itself to be a big part of digital marketing today. With countless media platforms and an endless audience, social media is important for development of businesses. Always changing and growing, it can also be an intimidating area to begin building that bridge with your audience, but when approached correctly can be easily handled.
According to PewResearchCenter, as of 2015, “Nearly two-thirds of American adults
(65%) use social networking sites”. So obviously we now know where a great portion of our
audience lies, making this just another great reason for an approach. But we need to identify
our audience and narrow down the possibilities of social media platforms we need to occupy.
This can be a frightening process, but just takes a little bit of research on your current audience.
Identify the age gap your audience is most likely to be classified in, even interests or careers.
Using this information can help you find what social media platforms they are most likely to
use. For example, Facebook is quite common for people of all interests, but say something like
Instagram, or even Pinterest, those sites are more unique and attract a certain type of
audience. Finding where your target audience lies is where you are best to start. Having a
presence in many social media platforms can be good for reaching a larger audience, but can
become quite a prodigious task when it comes to personalizing or keeping an active account
with fresh content. If it’s able to be handled, then it is only encouraged. For some, it’s found
best to pick only a few key social media sites and just focusing on your audience there.
After finding your audience and declaring an active account in social media, you want to
keep on top of it all. This is often where it can become a challenge with multiple accounts. With
the constant updates and a need to keep fresh content flowing out, things can become quite
hectic. Just as you keep your content up to do date and current, you also need to keep up to
date on any new features that social media site may have to offer. The features could be used
in your advantage to share and expand your content across social media, or just simply draw
your audience near. Having share buttons available on your site to share your content is very
important also. They should be easily and readily available so it’s only convenient for your
guests to share your content on other blogs or social media sites.
Part of keeping an active account is being receptive with your audience. Treat your
audience as if they are customers in your own store. This should be a given, but we can often
neglect our customers’ feelings over social media. This is where things can become interesting,
with some people coming along to insult you on social media, and some thanking you and
expressing their admiration and approval of your work. You need to know how to respond
accordingly to each of these, going about it professionally. Be sure to thank your customers and
provide them with any help needed if they reach out to you through social media.
Keeping track of your influence in social media can come in handy also. Using analytic
tools like SumAll, can help guide you through your social media growth by helping you spot
your targeted audience and analyzing data to use to your advantage.
Social media is a big stretch to make for developing your site or business, but you will find it to
be a very rewarding one with your audience. Always keep in mind that there many different approaches
or strategies to social media for marketing. This is just a basis for how to begin your trek into social media.