Knowing how to use social media for marketing your business is an essential skill to have in today’s world.
In 2020, it was estimated that 3.5 billion people will use social media networks worldwide.
That’s almost 40% of the globe’s population!
These figures prove how important it is for your business to be present on social media.
Unfortunately, there is just no getting away from it, and with the results, it can yield, why would you want to?
I know how daunting it can feel when you’re a new business owner. All of a sudden you’re wearing multiple hats and juggling a billion tasks.
When I first started to use social media to market my business many years ago, I felt way out of my depth, but as soon as I got the hang of it, it helped me build one of the biggest Forever Living Businesses in the UK.
In this article, I will break down what social media marketing is, why you should use it for your business, how to create a social media strategy, and the top social media marketing tips for 2021.
Ready? Let’s dive in!
What is Social Media Marketing?
I’m sure most of you already know this, but it’s always good to start with the basics.
Social media marketing refers to business promotion and activity on social media platforms that contribute to marketing objectives such as brand awareness, website traffic, and customer acquisition.
This activity is largely in the form of content — such as text, images and videos — but also includes community engagement and paid ads.
Great social media content is really about how relevant it can be to your audience and their desire to share it.
When your audience becomes your channel of distribution through shares, this is when you know you’re doing it right!
Whether it’s resharing a post to an Instagram story or tagging a friend in a Facebook post or retweeting something to their audience, content that provides value and is relevant and visually attractive is likely to receive high engagement and shares.
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Why Use Social Media For Marketing Your Business?
Around the world, 47% of internet users ages 16 to 64 have spent more time on social media in 2020 than they did in 2019—those users aren’t just mindlessly scrolling: e-commerce sales are also on the rise.
Now is a good time to be in network marketing as there are so many social media marketing advantages for us MLM business owners.
Some benefits include:
- Allows you to be more discoverable
If you’re posting content on a variety of social media channels that are specific to your target audience, you will likely be discovered by new potential customers. - You can have valuable conversations with your audience/ customers
Social media marketing offers a much more personal and informal way to get to know your audience through things like Instagram Q&As etc. - Recruitment opportunities
Social media marketing makes it easier than ever to share your story and reach out to people who could potentially be interested in also building a network marketing business. - Building a community
Regardless of the industry you’re in, social media marketing helps to connect you with your target audience and other relevant businesses and nurture those relationships.
The great thing about social media is that it is forever changing and making new and improved ways to market your business creatively.
The benefits are never-ending, and the more you learn and dive into what platforms and content work best for your business objectives, the more you’ll get out of social media marketing!
Read ’23 Reasons Why Network Marketing is the Biz To Be In Right Now’ here.
How To Create A Social Media Strategy In 8 Easy Steps
Step 1: Set Your Objectives
In order to know which channels to use and what content to create you have to first determine your business objectives i.e what do you want your social media marketing to achieve?
Take some time to write out a list of everything you want to achieve out of your social media marketing, and then prioritise them in terms of value for your business.
Once you know what your core objectives are you can proceed with the next steps.
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Step 2: Outline Your Audience
Now that you know why you’re using social media, it’s important to also get clear on who you’re trying to reach. This will help to give you a better understanding of which social channels will be most effective for your objectives.
For example, your target audience may be women aged 30 – 60 which means you may use Facebook to engage with them more instead of using a platform like TikTok.
Outline your audience demographic in as much detail as possible: age, gender, location, hobbies, interests, challenges they face, where they hang out, what brands they like etc.
By determining these characteristics you will be able to make sure you use the most suited social platform to reach them on! You will also be catering your content to best reach your objectives!
Step 3: Do Market Research
Analysing your competitors’ social media marketing activity is an important and valuable part of your strategy when looking at how to use social media for marketing.
This is not about copying or replicating what they do!
You are merely gaining perspective so you have a better idea of what you should be doing.
Have a look at:
- Which platforms they’re most active on
- What kind of content they publish
- How much average engagement they get
- What hashtags they use
- What tone of voice they use
- What kind of conversations they have with their audience
- What call to action they promote etc.
By taking the time to do a social media marketing analysis you will put yourself in a much better position when it comes to deciding which platforms are best for your audience and objectives.
It will also help you get to know and understand your target audience’s behaviour on social media.
Step 4: Set Brand Guidelines
Your brand guidelines should comprise of all details regarding your brand activity on social media. It should also be clear and accessible to anyone who is on your team with access to your social accounts.
By outlining these details in the very beginning of your social media marketing strategy you will have a clearly defined and recognisable brand identity on social media.
This will ensure your team is on the same page and that you stay consistent with your brand persona.
Below are some suggestions you may want to consider including in your social media marketing brand guidelines:
- Brand voice
- What kind of tone/language do you use? Is it the same on every platform?
- What kind of emojis do you use?
- Brand colours and elements
- Font
- How formally/informally do you want to be perceived?
- Which hashtags do you always use on each social network? (build hashtag clouds for certain themed posts)
- Protocol on interacting with your audience: Who is responsible for replying to comments and messages?
- Banned words/topics: There are some things you never want your brand to talk about on social media – even if it’s obvious to you, avoid any potential faux pas by outlining them in the guidelines.
Your guidelines are what will help your audience to feel a familiarity with you and your brand and this cultivates loyalty—so make sure you stay consistent across your social networks.
Read ‘7 Business Motivation Tips For A Booming Network Marketing Business’ here.
Step 5: Plan Your Content
This is the fun and creative part, where everything comes together. This is where you will decide what type of content will best for attaining your objectives on each social platform.
This usually involves a mixture of the below formats:
- Photos
- Videos
- Graphics
- Articles
- Livestreams
- Stories
Your audience and competitor analysis would of helped you identify some of what will work for your industry.
Really think about your target audience and get to the core of what truly matters to them and what they’re most inclined to respond to.
Step 6: Use A Content Calendar
A great way to stay on top of all your content, especially if you’re using multiple channels is by using a content calendar.
This also allows you to see how frequently you are publishing and ensure posting consistency.
Using a content calendar, you can plan ahead for big events, milestones or brand announcements.
You can use a platform that offers this or create your own one in excel.
Step 7: Schedule Social Media Content
The best way to stay efficient and save hours of time is by scheduling your social media content.
Using an automated management and scheduling tool like Hootsuite, Sprout Social or Hopper HQ, allows you to bulk upload your photos, videos and text posts for some of the main social networks such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn — and set them to be published in the weeks ahead!
Step 8: Track Your Insights & Metrics
When looking at how to use social media for marketing, one of the most important aspects to your entire social media strategy is tracking your content’s performance.
It’s all well and dandy putting out beautiful content and engaging with your audience, but if you aren’t looking at the numbers then you won’t learn what works best.
You might think an Instagram campaign is brilliant, but if it doesn’t achieve what its objectives were, then it’s a waste of time and resources.
By tracking key metrics you can develop and optimise your activity and become even better at your social media marketing!
With business social media accounts, you have access to insights such as reach, impressions, engagement as well as information about your audience demographics, such as age, gender and location. These are all good metrics and insights to keep a consistent eye on!
Top Social Media Marketing Tips for 2021
1. Start A Facebook Group
If you’ve thought about creating a Facebook group – now is the time to do it as it will offer major social media marketing advantages!
With the radical changes occurring within social media – Facebook was hit the greatest. Their algorithm changed, making Facebook pages more challenging to grow or profit from.
Essentially, Facebook is saying you’ll be seeing more from your friends, family, and groups in your newsfeeds. And less “public content”, such as from businesses or brands.
Benefits of running a Facebook group:
- An increase in your website traffic
- Promote your products and services in a non-salesy way
- Engage and connect with your audience in an authentic way
- Build your email list
- Grow your business
2. Take Advantage Of Video Content In Your Strategy
We all know how important video content has become, especially when it comes to your social media marketing.
So, if you haven’t already, it’s time to make sure you’re all aboard that bandwagon as soon as possible!
There are many different ways to use video content in your social media strategy, but right now live videos appear to be the most popular and beneficial.
Live videos allow you to connect with your audience in a more real and authentic way that isn’t possible in other content formats. Plus you can repurpose your live videos!
People love to engage by asking questions, so you can connect to them on a more personal level by interacting with them during and after your live video.
According to Facebook, you’ll see 6x the interaction and engagement with a live video.
Read ‘9 Ways to Increase Productivity Working From Home During Covid-19’ here.
3. Update Your Bios
One of the best, quickest and easiest ways to revamp your social media accounts is to update all of your bios.
Make sure to include a link to your website, as well as a short sentence about who you are or what you do — ensure your bios are consistent across all of your social media platforms.
4. Start Collaborating
Social media is all about connecting and building community and so by doing this and collaborating with others you will also help to grow your social media community even more.
Continuously look for more ways to collaborate with any other like-minded small businesses.
For example, you could collaborate and host a social media giveaway for your followers. This is a great way to grow your following with customers who are likely to be interested.
5. Try Out Instagram Reels
If you were ever intrigued by TikTok, but weren’t quite ready to dive into it, Reels is the perfect way to begin posting more video content.
The easiest way to start out with testing Instagram Reels is by repurposing existing video content.
Here’s To Being The Queen Of Social Media In Your Biz!
Social media can sometimes feel very overwhelming, but it will seem a whole lot less daunting when you have more of a structure and strategy in place.
As a business owner in today’s age, we have to keep up with all the trends if we want our business to grow and social media is not going anywhere!
If you’d like a deeper dive into how to use social media for marketing your network marketing business, grab my book here.
I hope you found value in this guide and that it served you in some way.
Please feel free to share in the comments below and ask me any questions.
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With love,
Nat
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