In this time of great uncertainty, it’s easy to dismiss marketing as an afterthought when you’re faced with keeping the lights of your business on. Marketing can seem like an intimidating giant that, for some business owners, requires a kind of technical savviness they believe they lack. Gone are the days when you could simply put out an ad in your local paper and rely on good word of mouth.
Today’s marketplace is competitive and providing a good service doesn’t always cut it. Luckily, there’s an easy way to boost your company’s online presence and you don’t have to be a technical whiz kid to pull it off. Social media is a free, readily available tool that, with a little effort, can build awareness of your business.
To get started, you need to set up some professional pages and accounts on popular social media platforms. The Miner Agency, for example, has a Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and professionally designed website. You’re probably aware of at least one of these if you’re reading this. The main thing is to not overdo it. It’s better to have a couple great pages than five or six average ones.
When you’ve finished deciding on and creating your pages, it is important to get some followers. Facebook has made this very easy by allowing you to invite all of your personal friends to follow a page. If your business keeps a record of frequent customers and/or has a newsletter, you can also invite customers to follow you that way. Offering some incentives for followers like an in-store discount or online giveaway can also be effective, especially around milestone followings like 500, 1,000, 2,000, etc. At the very least, set out some flyers to make customers aware of the newly created pages.
After you’ve gained some followers, it’s important to keep them engaged. This means regularly posting new content. It’s important to strike a good middle ground here. Never posting will cause people to lose interest while too many posts can become irritating and result in a loss of followers. The typical golden ratio is one to two posts a day– one in the morning and another in the afternoon. These posts can be anything from information about new merchandise, special offers, pictures of staff and other big news.
You may be thinking, “how am I supposed to have time to create and post content on top of everything else I have going on?”
Well, that’s where The Miner Agency comes in handy! We tailor specific content for your business, based on goals we discuss together, and make sure your social media pages are booming. With that said, if you’re more of a DIY person, some sites do have convenient features for managing content. For example, Facebook has the option of scheduling what day and time a post drops on your page. That way, you can organize all of your weekly posts in one sitting. All you would have to do until your next round of postings is monitoring likes, shares, comments, and other reactions to the post.
Another important detail is to review your analytics on at least a monthly basis. Knowing where you stand with your audience helps tailor your posts moving forward to what is working and leaving behind the things that aren’t serving your business.
It’s important to remember that these business pages are just that, business pages. They aren’t personal accounts where you can drop funny memes and offer thoughts on current events. Posting professional content is important in making your business look legitimate. With that said, it can be fun to add some humor and playfulness to the page, so long as there’s a healthy level of restraint.
At the end of the day, your priority is your business. At the Miner Agency, our priority is helping your business grow. Overshadow the competition with customized professional marketing tailored by us!
