There was a time a business could post a cute picture online and be done with it. Nowadays, it’s not so simple. Social media platforms have evolved a great deal in the last few years, and as they have grown and diversified their offerings, in order for businesses to successfully harness all the benefits of each platform, they’ll have to adapt the ways in which they use platforms too. To help, in this piece we highlight some of the new rules of social media to help you with your marketing campaigns.
1.“It’s all the same, right?”
Wrong. The number one question you should be asking yourself before you set up a single profile page for your business is this: what do you want to achieve on social?
Are you focusing on sales? Brand awareness? Customer service?
Deciding what your objectives are for social media will help you to focus your time and the content you create, as well as making what you do more effective. Having said this, you don’t need to spend hours drawing up elaborate plans for each platform. You can keep the ‘strategy’ part really simple, with a single idea for each platform playing on the strengths and benefits of each one.
There is naturally a huge amount of crossover across the different sites, but below is a rundown of the best uses for each platform, to help you work out what you want to use each platform for.
The world’s largest social media site and the best for targeting customers of all age groups – nearly half of all internet users over the age of 65 use the site.
The home of real time conversation, and the best place to handle customer service queries.
Visually led, and a great platform to take your customers behind the scenes and show off your brand’s personality.
Google +
Although Google + gets a rough ride, it’s actually the world’s second most popular social media site. By setting up a page, it becomes easier for customers to find you via the maps function, as well as having easy access to reviews and information such as opening hours and contact details.
An ideal platform for networking with other businesses and people from your industry.
Think of this site as an online scrap book for inspiration. The platform’s algorithm makes it a great tool for people to find businesses that offer services or products in line with what they are looking for.
YouTube & Vine
Slightly more time consuming and not necessary for every business, these video platforms are brilliant for engaging with younger audiences, sharing expertise with tutorials and for good old fashion entertainment.
Tumblr
A blogging platform for sharing personal perspectives and imagery, it’s a great way to connect with bloggers and curate visuals to give people a sense of what you’re all about.
2. “I’ll grow my page organically”
A ‘post and hope’ approach to social media is futile; particularly as in the present day organic reach has become a fantasy of bygone years. Using Facebook and Twitter effectively means being willing to invest money into it. But that shouldn’t be a deterrent, as Twitter and Facebook offer very competitive advertising and promotions starting from as little as £5. It’s a far from princely sum to pay in exchange for being able to boost posts or target people by location, age, sex and interests - all perfect for building up an audience from scratch based on your competitors fans to eventually running targeted campaigns.
Advertising on these channels is no longer solely about sales and targets either – you should view this as a mechanism to also promote general content and posts on your page to help in your quest to keep spreading the word about your business by using the ‘boost’ option.
3. “E-commerce? I’ve got my website for that”
For years the elephant in the room with social media has been proving that there is a direct correlation between activity on channels and sales. Perhaps in answer to the demands of businesses and marketing agencies of all sizes, platforms have been building in mechanisms that lead to more transactions and sign ups, here are a few you can try:
Twitter’s Amazon Basket
Twitter joined forces with Amazon last year, giving the huge e-commerce site the opportunity to capitalise on the social media site’s reach. In a brilliant example of twenty first century marketing, the basket works by taking advantage of changing consumer behaviours online – for example, a greater number of people using social media to inform their purchase choices and using their mobiles to shop.
It’s a smart approach that aims to make life more convenient for consumers, as the effort on their part is minimal. All users have to do is ensure that their Twitter and Amazon accounts are in sync, then they can tweet #AmazonBasket by replying to any tweet featuring the URL of a product they wish to purchase, which then automatically adds said item to their Amazon basket.
Of course, for this to work, you’ll need to sell on Amazon. You’ll be reaching wide audiences as people publically share what they’ve bought with their networks , this of course, means free marketing for you, quite literally, as the feature is free to use. To get started, all you have to do is tweet the URL to one of your product pages & of course, let your customer base know that it’s an option. It might be worth encouraging your customer base to sync their Twitter and Amazon accounts – publish a blog post or a few social posts to let them know that this is an additional way to buy from you. You can find out more information here.
Instagram is a huge social platform, often outpacing Facebook and Twitter in terms of engagement and reach. However, it’s limit on links (only one allowed in the user bio) has meant that should you post about an item that your customers want to find out more about, then they’ll have to leave Instagram and head straight to your website and hunt for the item in question – it sounds small, but it’s a massive barrier to a customer’s journey.
New tools such as Like2Buy, created by Curalate, are changing the game by transforming that sole link into a portal that leads to a gallery of images from a business’ Instagram feed of all the items that are available to be purchased. By clicking on those images, users can head directly to the retail page. The tool also enables users to create personal wish lists by liking items, which they can go back and purchase later.
Facebook’s ‘Buy’ button
Last year, Facebook announced that it would be testing out a new ‘buy’ button to accompany adverts and posts on business pages, meaning that for the first time, transactions will be able to take place completely through the social media platform, rather than linking to other transaction pages as is presently the case. This is currently being tested out on small businesses in order to improve features such as security and privacy.
What currently is available however, is a range of call to actions that provide direct avenue to transaction pages - you can ‘book now’, ‘learn more’, ‘sign up’ for example, all exceptionally beneficial for your business as you are directing people to your website.
Where once social media was changing the world, it’s now changing to suit the needs and behaviours of consumers – in some ways this makes life much easier for you, as you can rest assured that everything you’re doing (if you understand how each platform works) is working hard to help your business thrive.
Content on this page is paid for and provided by Kia Fleet sponsor of the Guardian Small Business Network Accessing Expertise hub.
