A friend is not just a friend these days. Your business can have friends, followers, fans and other supporters in your local area and far beyond with so many social media apps available.
There’s no doubt social media can be the perfect advertisement for your business, build your search engine optimisation (SEO) and help to attract new customers. It’s an important element in the marketing mix – and the good news is that you don’t always need to be a digital marketing guru to do social media well.
Here are some tips to help keep your online messages on-track.
Think about what’s relevant to your customers
If you run a café, a food truck or make money online through some kind of health-related business model, your customers would probably love to see a picture of that smashed avocado you had for breakfast.
If not, it’s probably best to share your breakfast photos with family and friends who follow your personal Instagram account and stick with business-related posts for your customers. This doesn’t mean you should only post about your products and services. Just think about how you help your customers, what the purpose of your business is and what information is relevant to them in this way.
It’s ok to show some personality
Everything you post is a reflection of your business and your branding. You’re allowed to have a sense of humour about your business or be sad if some awful world event has happened. Just be professional about it. For best results, don’t be offensive, derogatory, defamatory or mean.
Use hashtags wisely
Hashtags are a great way for your posts to find a bigger audience on social media channels such as Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. This can translate to more traction and more customers for your business.
Like many things in social media marketing (and in life), moderation is the key. Too many hashtags on every one of your posts could mean that your messages get diluted or that people start to ignore or unfollow your posts. #followyourinstincts
Angry or stressed? Don’t respond yet
If someone’s feedback on social media makes you feel angry or stressed, take a breath before you act. One unhappy customer could lead to an unhappy online community if you respond in a way that’s not appropriate.
Take a look at our advice on how to respond to negative reviews. It’s important to act promptly so you can handle the issue but it’s even more important to have the right response ready and to be calm and professional about it.
Learn more about digital marketing
If you want to learn more about digital marketing, including social media apps Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, attend our digital skills and sales and marketing small business workshops.
