Social Media 101: 5 tips for any business trying to market themselves

As a business, you’ve probably heard that social media can be an important and powerful tool to drive brand awareness and revenue. It’s not all about personal social media accounts anymore. But, before you take over the world, we’re counting down the top 5 tips that can help you create a meaningful and engaging presence for your business:

5. Consider advertising

The best way to grow your following and ensure engagement on social media: run an ad. Unless your business is well known, or goes viral, you will initially struggle to gain followers. Social media ads can be cheap, and effective. Start with a few dollars and see what ads can do for you. 

4. Have a consistent identity

Much like a mid-life-crisis, brands often struggle with identity crisis. Spend a few hours each quarter and think about how you want your business to look and sound on social media. Don’t know where to start? Look at what others are doing. Follow brands you like on social media and take note of what they are doing well. What does their Instagram profile look like? Is there consistent styling to their photos? How do they write their posts? Take note and begin building an identity for your brand.

3. Engage and listen to what your audience has to say

Do you know what it’s like to talk to a brick wall? Most of us don’t waste our time engaging with people (or in this case, things) who don’t engage in return. By replying or liking user generated content, you are showing that you appreciate those who took the time to show their support for your company.

2. Create valuable content others want to read and engage with.

One of the biggest mistakes I see on social media: oversharing. Unless your social media following is in the millions (yes, millions), it’s difficult to justify publishing a post on social media without a clear call to action. If it doesn’t have a call to action, there needs to be a clear and significant reason behind the post.

Bonus Tip: When sharing photos of employees or partners, include a link to your business’ website to “Learn more.”

1. PLEASE shorten your social media posts.

Did you make it to the number one tip? Few people reading content will make it to the end – and less will read the entire article (scrolling to the end doesn’t count). If you retain any of the information presented here, let it be this; shorten your social media posts as much as you can. By shortening your posts, you are increasing the likelihood that the user will read the post in its entirety, increasing the chances of a click-through (if a link is present). These days, you can’t expect social media users to make it to the end of anything, so if you’re reading this, I congratulate you.

We hope you find these tips useful. Drop us a line in the form below to let us know what you thought of this article.

About the author: Jenny Miletics has worked with countless small, medium, and large businesses across the country for over a decade. She provides digital marketing strategy and architects digital marketing campaigns for Weidenhammer clients. Want to work with her? Contact us to get in touch.