Key Criteria for Business Growth

Before investing time and money into social media strategies, businesses must understand the various criteria that impact online business growth. Understanding the demographics and behaviors of the target audience is fundamental to enhancing online engagement and ensuring that promotional efforts reach the right audience. Most social media platforms offer analytics tools that provide insight into user behaviors and demographics. Businesses can use these tools to tailor their digital and social media marketing strategies accordingly.

User engagement is another critical criterion for business growth. Follower counts mean nothing if those users are not engaging with a business’s content. Engagement comes in several forms, including likes, shares, comments, and saves. High rates of engagement indicate that content is resonating with the right audience. Social media also allows businesses to establish two-way communication with users. Responding to comments, running interactive campaigns, and utilizing user-generated content are effective strategies for strengthening consumer relationships.

Understanding these critical criteria allows businesses to set the basis for a successful social media strategy.

Comparison of Leading Social Platforms

Let’s look at the strengths and weaknesses of the most popular social media platforms for business growth.

Facebook

Facebook is the most popular social media channel, with over 3 billion users. This platform is used by individuals across demographics and offers businesses extensive advertising options. However, organic reach has become more challenging as the platform has grown and garnered popularity with advertisers.

Instagram

Instagram is a social media platform emphasizing visual content, like images and short videos. This focus allows businesses to showcase their brand and products captivatingly. Instagram offers features like regular feed posts, Stories, IGTV, and shopping. Additionally, influencer collaborations are popular on this platform. Instagram appeals to a younger generation, like millennials and Gen Z.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a professional networking site that allows businesses to connect with other companies and establish thought leadership by participating in relevant industry discussions. This platform enables businesses to create content that establishes their authority and trustworthiness.

X

X, formerly known as Twitter, allows businesses to share instant updates and engage in the current trends. This platform encourages concise messaging with its character limits. Hashtags are also popular on this platform, allowing brands to tap into the latest trends and conversations.

As businesses weigh their options when choosing a social platform, it is essential to consider factors like target audience and content strategy. 

Tools for Maximizing Business Growth on Social Platforms

Using social media for business growth requires a comprehensive and strategic approach. Here are some tools for making the most of your business’s social pages:

Developing a Cohesive Social Media Strategy

Before diving into social media marketing, it is crucial that you clearly define your goals for business growth. This could range from increasing brand awareness to bringing in more leads to increasing conversions. Defining your goals will allow you to choose a social platform and create content that aligns with your objectives. During this stage, it is also crucial to understand your audience’s engagement style, including their online preferences, behaviors, and pain points. This ensures your content is relevant to your audience while meeting your overall goals.

Consistent Brand Representation and Messaging

It is vital to maintain brand consistency across all digital media channels. This means that when users interact with your business on different platforms, like your website or LinkedIn page, they see the same visuals and receive the same messaging. This creates a cohesive and consistent consumer experience, fostering brand recognition and trust.

Engaging in Community Building

One of the most significant benefits of using social media for business growth is the ability to communicate directly with your audience. Be active in relevant online discussions by responding to comments, sharing content, or creating content that responds to the latest trends. This positions your brand as a thought leader and builds trust with your audience.

Utilizing Analytics for Performance Improvement

All social media platforms offer analytic tools, allowing you to track the performance of your social media marketing strategy. These metrics can identify what content your audience is interacting with and how they interact with it. Analyzing these metrics, you can gain valuable insights and optimize your overall strategy.

By using these tips in your social media marketing strategy, your business can experience higher levels of online engagement, resulting in greater brand recognition and business growth.

Which Platform is Best?

Ultimately, no “best” social platform for business growth exists. Instead, each social media platform appeals to different audiences and possesses different strengths. Different audiences use different social media platforms, so businesses must consider this when forming their digital marketing strategy. For example, a B2B company may be better served by interacting with its audience on LinkedIn, while a company targeting Gen-Z may be better off using TikTok. 

Call Effect Web Agency for More Marketing Help!

Optimizing your social media strategy for business growth can be challenging. However, with the help of digital experts like Effect Web Agency, you can see increased engagement, brand loyalty, and business growth. Contact Effect Web Agency today to learn more about our digital marketing services!

The post The Best Social Platforms for Business Growth appeared first on Effect Web Agency.

Should Your Business Use Twitter?

Here are some situations where Twitter may not be a good tool for your business.

• You don’t have time to tweet daily: All social media tools require regular updating, but with this social media platform, in particular, you need to have the time available to engage on a DAILY basis with your audience. Not updating or responding to your followers in a timely way is the fastest way to fail.
• You aren’t interested in what others have to say: The key to being successful with Twitter is the ability to use it to build relationships. If you are simply tweeting links to your website or promoting yourself, no one will listen.
• It’s a numbers thing: If you think that measuring your success amounts to how many followers you have, Twitter may not be the right tool for you. Quality followers who care about what you have to say are much more important than the number of people following you.
• You envision Twitter as ultimate marketing solution: Sorry, that’s just not going to happen. Twitter is a tactic or tool, it is not a strategy. It needs to work in conjunction with other social media tools and your overall marketing strategy.
• You plan to put Twitter on autopilot: A ton of tools exist that promise they can put your Twitter growth on autopilot and help you grow followers. They are all a bad idea for one main reason: they lack the engagement and interaction that is vital to Twitter.

For the most part, this channel works best for public figures and B2C clients. B2B companies might find it beneficial to keep in touch with clients and employees if they have time-sensitive information.

Making the Most of Twitter

Now if you plan to use Twitter for all of the right reasons there are three questions to ask yourself before getting started.

1. What do I want to achieve with Twitter? Define your goals and what steps are you willing to take to get there.
2. What is the message I want to convey? In other words, what are the core of my tweets going to be about? For example, are you a pet bakery who is going to tweet about the pet nutrition along with interacting with pet owners? You must find your niche and what you are going to focus your tweets around.
3. Who is going to be doing the tweeting? Figure out who in your business is going to be your voice on Twitter. It’s often CEO’s, Presidents, and other upper-level management doing the tweeting but there is nothing to say that you cannot have multiple people within your organization tweeting. Just make sure that everyone is in sync with what, where, when, and why they are doing it.

The post Is Twitter Right for My Business? appeared first on Effect Web Agency.

Common Social Media Questions

Almost without fail, these three questions come up in some form during a marketing consultation.

• Should our business post on social media? (Is it worth it?)
• What is the ROI? (How much will it cost?)
• What do I need to do?  (Can you do it for me?)

The answers to these questions depend on a number of factors, but the bottom line is that social media marketing won’t be profitable if you don’t understand your customers and how they shop.

Scenario A –  Your Local Business NEEDS a Social Media Strategy

Social usually equates to fun, and if your product or service is pleasure-centric, then you really should market on one or more social media channels.

• Restaurants
• Theme Parks
• Women’s Clothing Boutiques
• Museums
• Theaters
• Spas

After all, 3.2 billion people use social media regularly (Emarsys, 2019) and 90.4% of all Millennials actively use social media (Emarketer, 2019). According to GlobalWebIndex, 54% of social browsers use social media to research products.

That’s a lot of exposure!

How Often Should You Post?

The amount of “work” you will need to do to create a following and reach new people depends on the loyalty of your customers (and reviews). People will expect you to post frequently and to offer them incentives for sharing and participating.

Knowing which platform to use and how often to post depends on your customers and their buying habits. There are multitudes of stats that show the best times to post and what type of content to share for the best engagement.

For instance, Instagram and Pinterest are great for visual appeal, and FaceBook offers low-cost advertising that can be targeted by demographics.  Twitter helps with brand identity and personalities and LinkedIn can foster business relationships. Most companies will focus their social media efforts on two or three platforms for the best results.

Scenario B – Experimental – Finding the Right Social Media Platform

OK… we’ve shown how social media can benefit local retail businesses, but what if your company is not pleasure-centric (e.g. a septic pumping company) or you are a B2B company?

If so, then social media may still be an appropriate marketing channel, but you must make sure you move forward with a strategic social marketing plan.

B2B social media channels are NOT the same as B2C.

What do we mean?

Honestly, the local serviceman won’t need to Tweet every hour, and there is probably no need for pest control companies to spend a lot of effort on Pinterest. What these companies do need to do is make sure their Google Business Listings are up-to-date and actively solicit reviews for both Google and Yelp.

I know… you probably don’t think of your Google Business Listing as “social media.”

However,  your business now has the ability to publish posts on your Google Listing. You can promote specials, link back to your site, and add photos. Your customers can ask questions, leave reviews, and even chat with you in real-time.  Anymore, your Google Business Listing is “social,” and it’s also one of the more likely places that people will find your local service business.

How Does It Work?

We know of a local painting company that offers a 4% discount for any review left for them on one of five different sites (Yelp, Facebook, Google, Bing, or Home Advisor).

This has resulted in more reviews than any other company in their local area. They still have to perform well in order to get GOOD reviews, but most people need some motivation to take the time to leave positive remarks.

When you consider that social media is the modern-day “word-of-mouth” referral system, you can see that reviews are extremely important for service businesses if they want to generate new business.

There are several good services available for generating reviews, and your web developer can integrate one of those services with your social media platforms and your website.

Scenario C – Social Media Marketing May Have a Lower ROI than Other Efforts

Don’t chase rainbows if there is no pot of gold sitting at the end! Social media is NOT always the best option for your business, especially if you have limited resources available.

Don’t prioritize social media if your organization:

• Doesn’t have goals that social media can help meet now or in the near future
• Doesn’t have the time or resources to do a whole-hearted social media effort
• Finds that the costs outweigh the expected benefits

The truth is that social media is just one more tool for promoting your business. That doesn’t mean it’s necessary for your local business to succeed. If you have limited resources, consider whether an SEO strategy will provide greater returns.

The Bottom Line Is the ROI

This seems obvious but any marketing strategy must provide good returns or it’s a failure. Whether or not social media will benefit your company depends on your goals.

• What will your company gain by being social this year, 5 years, and 10 years down the road?
• When does it make sense for your company to become social and with which audiences?
• How can you make it enjoyable for your audiences?

The first step in determining the ROI is to establish a baseline, or internal audit, of where your organization stands. You need to take an inventory of a variety of business variables (both financial and non-financial) that you can use to determine social media’s impact on the bottom line.

It is best to establish the baseline before implementing your social media strategy. However, if you are already engaging in social media it is still important to establish a baseline of where you stand right now. That way you can identify future successes and opportunities for improvement.

Although ROI doesn’t equal analytics, variables such as Twitter followers and web traffic are important to measure. For example, it would be important to analyze how the number of Twitter followers affects web traffic and how increases in web traffic lead to increased sales.

Establishing Your Social Media Baseline

Consider these variables when you establish your baseline.

• Average monthly sales
• Average dollar amount per transaction
• Blog comments per month
• Cost to acquire a new customer
• Current YTD sales
• Customer conversion ratio
• Facebook friends
• Keywords ranked for on the first page
• LinkedIn connections
• Number of new customers per month
• Monthly transactions
• Monthly unique visitors
• Number of links from social bookmarking sites
• Press mentions per month
• Previous yearly sales
• RSS subscribers
• Social mentions per month
• Twitter followers
• YouTube channel subscribers
• Google Business Listing Metrics

After creating your baseline, monitor your metrics each month and notate changes.

2 Musts for all Local Businesses Regarding Social Media

Because local listings and credibility are important, there are two things all businesses should do when it comes to social media. You should do these two things even if they don’t think social media will benefit your company.

• Claim your Google Business Listing and update the information monthly. This is especially important if you are a local business.
• Your company needs a Facebook Page. Anymore, almost all businesses have some sort of presence on Facebook. Update it about once or twice a month, unless it is one of your primary marketing channels.

Apart from that, do what makes sense for your business regarding social media. Integrate it, as much as possible, with your other marketing strategies, such as SEO and PPC, and keep re-evaluating its importance. You may find that down the road a social media strategy begins to make more sense for your company.

Should You Hire a Social Media Marketing Company?

If your business fits Scenario A, consider hiring a social media marketing agency or an in-house social media expert. Essentially, this person or group will function as your sales department. They will handle the day-to-day postings, social media ad campaigns, and social engagement with your clients. Look for someone who can write and knows graphic design, in addition to marketing experience.

For other companies, you might want to designate an employee to work with a hired social media consultant. The consultant can analyze your campaign results and traffic and offer suggestions for a better social media strategy. Your in-house person can do day-to-day postings and handle client interactions. Consider hiring a digital marketing agency that specializes in SEO, content marketing, and social media since all three work together.

Effect Web Agency partners with businesses around the globe to help them get more from their digital marketing efforts. If you are considering whether or not social media marketing is right for your business, contact Effect for a free consultation.

A comprehensive web strategy plays an essential role in the overall marketing plan. Not only does Effect create the online experience, we empower companies with tools to track results and measure ROI across all of their media mix.

Steve Schmidt, CEO

steve@nostalgic-borg.138-197-69-193.plesk.page

The post When Should a Local Business Invest in a Social Media Strategy? appeared first on Effect Web Agency.

Yes, B2B social media marketing requires some effort, and no, it’s not the best marketing tool for all businesses. But, for some, it is an excellent way to foster brand recognition and generate new leads.

The Primary Benefits You Get from Social Media

The two primary benefits of leveraging your social media accounts are brand awareness and what we will call a “soft call-to-action”.

“49% say it is “very effective” in increasing brand or product awareness.” – Marketing Sherpa.

Soft call-to-actions are the micro-steps your clients make along their buyer journey. This soft call-to-action could be leaving feedback, registering for a webinar, voting, downloading, or other non-sales related actions.

Brand Awareness

As we said, one of the primary benefits you get from your social media accounts is brand awareness. Marketing studies show that it takes, on average, eight touches with a brand before a person is comfortable enough to engage. Just getting your name in front of potential clients counts as one of those “touches.”

Additional Benefits of Social Media Marketing

So, what about the secondary benefits? Many of them are just as valuable to the growth of your business as brand awareness.

1. Targeted Marketing

One of the key advantages of using social media is the ability to identify your client base. A little research goes a long way and going through tweets and Facebook updates can you insight into your ideal customer. This is useful for helping your company formulate marketing strategies.

2. Improved Response

Social media eases the process of providing and receiving feedback from the public. If your customers have concerns or problems with what your business offers, they can let you know in a timely manner. You should encourage feedback and use your platforms to assure their customers that you value their input.

• Neenah Paper discovered that using Twitter is a more effective way of nurturing leads and now has 10 salespeople working it. (source)
• Northwest Analytics generates one-third of webinar registrations through social media. (source)
• Kinaxis had a 2.7X increase in Web traffic and a 3.2X increase in leads. (source)

3. Keeping Track of the Competition

If your competitors are using their social media accounts for marketing, then you can gain insight into the digital marketing strategies they have in place. Are they running a holiday special? How do their followers compare to yours? Are they drawing from a different demographic?

4. Affordable Advertising

Advertising on Facebook can prove quite profitable. The cost of the ads is low compared to Google AdWords and you have the ability to target specific groups. You can use social media creatively to instigate those “touches” that bring brand recognition.

How to Implement Social Media Marketing

If your company does not have much of a social media presence you may not know where to start. The first thing to remember is that most social media activity is done on mobile devices. Make sure that your posts look good on mobile devices to make it easy for your viewers to engage.

Outside of that, consider your audience. If you are a B2B company, then LinkedIn might be the best B2B marketing platform for your business. If you sell products that photograph beautifully, consider Instagram. Facebook is a must for almost all businesses and Twitter is good if you have constant updates or a high-profile personality endorsing your product.

Once you know where you want to post, then you need to decide how often and what type of content to share. The key is consistency. If you can commit to posting once a week, then that will be better than posting every day for a week and then not again for another month.

Vary your content. Share company news and industry-specific information. Promote specials and by all means, toot your own horn from time to time. You can also encourage engagement with polls and open-ended questions.

Remember that the goal of social media is brand awareness and micro-commitments. Every time a person engages in even a small way, they move further down your marketing funnel.

Should you hire a social media expert?

We suggest identifying and quantifying social media opportunities before making a decision to invest time and resources. The Social Media Director at Effect Web Agency can help you identify viable options, your potential ROI, and create a plan for your social media outreach. The depth and breadth of that plan depends on your goals, your budget, and how much time is available for your social media campaign.

Contact Effect Web Agency and get more insight into how social media and other marketing programs can grow your business.

Read more articles on how to increase your customer reach:

• Unencrypted Websites Penalized by Google
• Why Was My Site Moved to the Google Mobile-First Indexing?

The post B2B Social Media in 60 seconds appeared first on Effect Web Agency.