Do you want to try using social media for business but are you unsure where to start? If your audience is on social media, you should be too. To help you get started, here are the first four things every brand should consider before getting stuck into social media.
1. Identify Your Target Audience
Your number one step when getting started on crafting social media for business is to identify your target audience. It’s crucial that you understand who you’re trying to reach on social media before you even think about creating content.
Your target audience is essentially who you would like to reach and who you would like to buy from your business. This may be different from your current customer if you’re hoping to expand to a new demographic, or it may be the same as your current customer base. If you’re a brand new business, you may not have a customer base to target on social media. It’s important that you identify this and choose a target audience for your marketing efforts.
To help determine who your target audience is, ask yourself the following questions.
We recommend using this information to create an audience persona; a fictional profile that represents groups of people within a target audience. Give them a name to make it easier to visualise your audience, and keep them in mind when you build your content strategy.
2. Choose Your Platforms
Next, you’ll want to select your social media platforms. The first thing to consider when choosing your platforms is your target audience’s online behaviour. What platforms do they favour? There is very little point in posting content everywhere online if your target audience isn’t present on certain apps.
It is easy to spread yourself too thin on social media and your content will take a hit if this is the case. Select two or three that you feel are best suited to your business and your audience, and then focus on making the content you post the best it can be.
Before getting started on content creation, you’ll want to gain an understanding of the nature of each social platform. Social media for business is not one size fits all, and each platform will require different types of content. For instance, Twitter is ideal for super short, real-time updates, whereas Instagram and TikTok are the place to be if your business is inherently visual. If you plan to post long-form text content, LinkedIn and Facebook may be suited to you. Take some time to research each platform to ensure the content you are creating will work there.
3. Set Your Posting Schedule
Your next step is to decide how often you will post on each social media platform and create a posting schedule to adhere to. Consistency builds momentum. Being consistent on social media is the key to growing an engaged audience and building brand awareness. Whether you choose to post once a week or five times a week, the most important thing is that you are consistent.
It can be easy to fall into the trap of posting consistently for a short period of time, then to stop entirely and go weeks without any content, but this can actually damage your organic reach. Choose a schedule that is achievable for you and your business. If you don’t believe you could keep up with daily posting, opt for a less frequent schedule.
4. Optimise Your Profiles
Next, it’s time to create and complete your social media profiles. A complete profile looks professional, whereas a profile lacking a profile picture or bio can appear untrustworthy. Make sure you upload professional, crisp and correctly-sized profile and header images to avoid blurriness, and use the same name across all platforms to make it easier for people to find you. Check your bios for spelling and grammar mistakes, and ensure you’re not stuffing them full of hashtags. Keep things clear, simple and easy to understand. Optimising your social media profiles will not be a particularly time consuming or difficult task, and it is well worth doing for consistency.
You should treat social media as your shop window, showing your business in the best light and aiming to bring in new customers. If used correctly, it has incredible potential and can help grow your brand, increase brand awareness and bring in leads. It doesn’t have to be a daunting undertaking and, with these tips, you can start your social media journey with strong foundations.
Talk to Victress About Social Media For Business
If you’re looking for further guidance on how to build and maintain a professional and consistent social media presence for your business, get in touch and book a free consultation with a member of our team.