Social media is and will continue to be the cheapest, fastest and easiest way to promote your business.
Trouble is, we ALL know this and chances are your competitors do too.
So how do you stand out from that competition and create content that really speaks to your target audience?
In this short article we want to highlight 3 things that have worked for our business over the last couple of years.
Personality
As a new business your biggest USP is likely to be YOU!
You are the person with the passion, the ideas and the experience to make your business a success, so make sure you use it.
I noticed that in the beginning, I was very conscious of trying to push content out from my new business pages which I thought would chime with my audience.
The problem with this approach was that the message and 'tone' of the content I was producing was overly corporate and impersonal, usually only getting 'likes' from my partner & mum! ??
Typically this content was a bit like 'Did you know...' or using stock images and visuals.
The big change came when I started making the content about me.
I would talk about my journey as a business owner, my background and even why I started my business.
All of a sudden people would start commenting, liking and even sharing my content.
These posts gained even more traction if I uploaded a simple picture of myself smiling or at work. I can't say for certain but I'm fairly certain the social media networks LOVE photos, especially of humans, so the more you can get up there the better!
Make the business about you, because it is about you! Try this and let me know how you get on.
Consistency
If there is one thing that puts off potential customers & even the social media networks themselves, it is out-of-date pages and inconsistent posting.
Now, we are all very busy people and the prospect of posting multiple or even once per day might fill us with dread!
You don't have to though and it is totally fine to have 2 / 3 posts per week about your business, as long as you are doing it with consistency.
Consistency also means the nature of your posts on different channels.
Ask yourself. What type of brand am I trying to create?
Serious?
Funny?
Helpful?
Caring?
A mixture!?
Your content should try and reflect this, taking care that once your followers have got used to 'hearing' your brand in a certain way, you are sticking to that.
You should also be mindful of fonts, colours, and images on posts you are using. Software like Canva can really help you with templates that can be edited to match your brand colours and style.
Adding value
It's called 'social' media for a reason!
Your audience will care about your page because you are giving them something.
Maybe it's an idea, a feeling or even some free information. Whatever the post the point is that you are doing it without any expectation that you will receive something in return.
This is called 'adding value'. By doing this you are able to build trust, credibility and loyalty among your audience of followers, helping them to get to know you and what you stand for.
At this point, I hear you screaming - 'yes, but I need to sell stuff too!'. That is totally fine and lots of people use social media to promote their products and services, particularly around busy periods such as Black Friday or Christmas.
I would encourage you to think about how often you are doing that though. Always try and put in more than you take out, a little like a bank account! If you are doing that your customers will notice and reward you in the long run.
Thanks for reading and hopefully you can apply some of these points in your marketing.
Give me some feedback and let us know how you get on.
William
