The 7 Keys for Social Media Success

Why do some businesses succeed on Social Media and others try and fail? There are certain things you must do with your Social Media marketing efforts in order to succeed. In this article I’ll share the Keys for Social Media Success.

Key #1: Understand Why Your Customers Use Social Media

 

Why do people use traditional media such as reading the newspaper, watching TV or buying a magazine?

For news, entertainment, a source of distraction and information.

People use Social Media for the same reasons as traditional media.

They can, of course, also keep up to date with their friends which they can’t do with traditional media.

For the most part however, it’s the same across all forms of media which means that when you are creating content for your Social Media, imagine you are publishing your own magazine. Your content must be newsworthy, entertaining, distracting, and/or interesting.

Many people forget this when using Social Media as a marketing tool. They are posting the equivalent of a magazine that is filled with ads. This is also called a brochure! Your Social Media is not a brochure, it is a magazine!

If you get your content right, it’s like having a magazine where your business is featured every day. If you get it wrong it’s like junk mail turning up in someone’s letter box and they throw it out without reading it.

Key #2: Start With the Right Advice

 

Most business owners and managers are already very busy and are wearing various hats. They are required to be experts in many areas of their business already, and then they are trying to learn and master Social Media as well!

Consider hiring experts for their advice and also to save you time. If you start on the wrong Social Media platform, for example, you could be destined to fail before you have even started.

Get expert assistance to show you the way to social media success, save you from making mistakes and help improve your results quickly.

Key #3: Make Sure Your Business Account Is Set Up Correctly & is Optimised

 

First impressions matter. You only get one chance to convert a visitor to your Social Media profiles into a fan/follower, and then potentially a customer. If they don’t hit the like/follow button, chances are you’ll never get another chance to convert them into a customer. If your Social Media page does not look professional and does not reflect well on your business, then your chances of attracting new customers are dramatically reduced!

Compare this to walking past a shop that doesn’t even have a sign out in front, or even if it has one, it looks terrible. Will you bother to even walk in? Probably not. Hence your cover photo is crucial. A poor quality photo as your cover image is a killer. Get a professional photo or a professionally designed image.

This is especially important when you are paying to use the paid advertising on Facebook – if people click on your ad but don’t click ‘Like’ – you have wasted your money.

Key #4: Post Regularly

 

The more often you post, the more often your fans hear from you, the better chance you have in developing a relationship with them. This is key to helping you get new customers via Social Media.

Of course if you post too often or you post the wrong things then your fans may get sick of you and ‘unlike’ your page. How often you post depends upon your industry, your business, and your customers. It’s usually in the range of a couple of times a day to a couple of times a week. Most people we see are not posting often enough.

If you are not posting regularly enough you are missing out on opportunities to market your business and brand.

Key #5: Post to Add Value, Build Trust & Familiarity

 

If your content is boring, does not add value to your fans, does not entertain or engage, is not conversational or is too “sales-y,” then you are in trouble.

You like to buy from people you know and trust right? Your customers are the same. So build trust and familiarity by adding value – helping your customers out with free information, telling them more about you and your business.

• Explain what your product does. Show it using photos.
• Give stories of customers. Ask customers to leave recommendations on your Social Media profiles (you must turn this on for your Facebook page).
• Answer the questions you get asked most frequently by customers before they buy when they ring up or come into the store.

This might sound like a lot but if you have a “posting plan” which has different types of content listed that you post each week, then these “content categories” will make it easy for you by keeping you on track and keep you posting the right sort of content.

Once you start posting to add value and build trust and familiarity you will increase your chances to receive more enquiries and results from your page.

Key #6: Reach Enough People To Make It Worthwhile

 

Consider these rough benchmarks:

• If you are a small business and you have less than 200-300 fans or followers
• If you are a larger business and you have less than 1000 fans or followers

If you are falling into either of the above categories then you are currently wasting your time as your content is having a very limited reach! Additionally, with the limited statistics you have from the results on your page it is hard to identify if there are other areas that you can improve on.

To get more fans you should implement all of what we consider the ‘free’ methods such as email signatures, website links, flyers and contacting current customers. However, these will not result in rapid fan growth so you will also need to utilise Facebook advertising, which is great because it is still very inexpensive, it’s very targeted and it gets super fast results.

It is important that you select the best type of Facebook advertisement for your objective, set your budget correctly, and select the correct targeting options when creating your advertising campaigns so that you get the best results for your dollar spent.

Key #7: The Critical Mass Of Effort

 

Successful Social Media Marketing requires an investment of time and money in order to get your strategy right, reach enough people and convert them into customers.

Remember there is a critical mass of effort that will be required to make it worthwhile and get results. If you don’t reach this, you could be better off not using it at all! But if you do reach the critical mass, then you will get a positive return on your investment of effort.

If you need expert assistance in getting this right for your business, then please contact Wide Reach Social Media via info@widereachsocialmedia.com.au