5 Steps to better social media marketing

In 2019 Use the Power of the 5 Ps in Social Media Marketing

December 23, 2018/in Content Marketing, Facebook, Instagram, Social Marketing, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Tips, Twitter /by Mark Toney

Are you covering all the essentials within your social media marketing strategy? How can you know that you’re starting from the right foundation with your planning? One way to ensure you’re on the right track is by applying the ‘5 P’s’ methodology, which can help to outline the essential strategic elements.

The ‘5 P’s’ are usually used in reference to content marketing, but I feel they apply to social media marketing also (and the two go hand in hand more often than not). The ‘5 P’s’ of content and social media marketing are a basic starting point for any new social media strategy.

If you’re looking to ensure your 2019 is on track, this can be a great starting point – here are the 5 P’s of Content and Social Media Marketing.

1. Plan

Planning and organizing are the building blocks to success. Start with your objectives, and work from there – think about the best ways to maximize your return, the creative that you’ll need to create your campaigns, and any tools or technology you will need for your social media accounts.

This is also a good time to consider your goals and/or benchmarks, and how you’ll measure the success of your social media presence or content specific campaign.

2. Produce

Next, it’s time to get your hands dirty – or to hire a content creator. Think not only about your main content piece/s, but also about any images or videos you want to create to promote your material. You can produce content and messaging and have it all ready to go for the next step which is…

3. Publish

Now that you have a campaign plan (or social media schedule) ready, and have created content, you have to have somewhere for this content to live. Choose where you’ll host your content based on your objectives.

Are you trying to increase web traffic? You can publish your content to a blog. If you want to grow you email list, you may want to gate the content on a landing page on your website. If you want more reach on your social channels then solely publish it there (Think IGTV, Twitter Moments etc.)

4. Promote

Promoting is how you give your content legs. And while you no doubt correlate “promote” with “money”, this isn’t necessarily true – posting on social media organically is promoting your content.

Other strategies for promoting your content can vary from sending an email to your subscribers, to including it in your email signature. Of course, if you want to give your content an extra push, putting aside a budget for social media ads is always helpful.

5. Prove

The last step is to prove whether or not what you did worked. Here’s where those benchmarks and goals come in handy – keep track of your analytics, hashtags, clicks, downloads, or any other key performance indicators you may have identified. Finally, quantify all that information and put together a report of how your content did to prove success.

This article originally appeared here

Social Media Marketing for New Businesses

July 17, 2018/in Case Studies, Content Marketing, Digital Marketing, Facebook, Google My Business, Instagram, LinkedIn, Paid Social, paid social media strategy, Paid Social Strategy, Small Business, Social Marketing, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Twitter /by Mark Toney

For most entrepreneurs and business leaders, social media marketing is an important tool. You need to be forward thinking and have a forward-looking approach towards it. However, having worked with many small businesses, we notice that many of them don’t take enough advantage of this amazing marketing channel. This is why, we have developed an easy social media strategy for startups, which everyone can implement.

Why should my business have a social media strategy?

The first and most obvious reason to do social media marketing is to avoid your startup to fail. You might have heard that, in the 3rd quarter of 2017, Facebook has reached 2+ billion monthly active users while Instagram reached 700 million, Snapchat 350 million, Twitter320 million, LinkedIn 500 million and Pinterest 150 million average monthly active users. Most marketers will tell you that a social media strategy is crucial for your business. The issue is that many entrepreneurs do not have a technical background and don’t see marketing or growth hacking as a serious tool. Social Media Marketing is the top channel to get your business discovered. Whether you are building a business from scratch or you have a more advanced business, social media needs to be part of your marketing strategy. Don’t miss out this opportunity. Luce Media can help with all your Social Media Marketing needs in McKinney.

Which social media channels should your startup use?

Each social media platform has its particularities, and your target might be using Facebook but not Instagram, Twitter or SnapChat. It is fundamental for you to know your target to choose which social media channel you should be using. To know more about social media, you can check social media demographics.

Social media marketing in McKinney has a huge potential to drive traffic, get new leads and increase sales. There are many ways to promote your content on social media. But, with a lack of understanding and without effective tools and tactics, you’ll struggle to get results.

Using social media marketing in McKinney, TX will improve your brand recognition, make your voice heard and connect you with your potential users. Word-of-mouth is known as being the most effective channel to get new customers. You have to picture social media as word-of-mouth on steroids.

Having a social media strategy for your business will make you connect with potential and current users in a more personal way. If you do it right, you will build brand loyalty and create more leads and sales.

Define your message and identity

To reach the right audience, you should have a relevant identity. If you are in the banking industry, have a professional profile picture and post about FinTech, BlockChain or funding; if you are in the sports industry, talk about sports. This might seem obvious to most, but a lot of people use social media in the wrong way and don’t deliver the right message, image or branding.

If you want a successful Instagram marketing strategy, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest or else, it’s key that you define your identity.

Engage and interact with your potential or existing users

You need to interact by following potential users on social media, posting interesting and relevant content, sending discounts, reposting content from others, answering your followers or commenting on their posts. Social Media Marketing is all about creating a relationship with the user. You should also be interacting and joining conversations on social media with people who may need your products or services. Staying active on social media will allow you to get direct answers and feedbacks about your startup, idea or concept. Luce Media provides Digital Media Consulting in McKinney, TX.

Create unique content for your startup

This takes time, but content creation should be part of your social media strategy. It could be blog posts, visuals or infographics. By creating your own content, you will deliver a message and build your startup branding. The goal is to interact with your audience and see their reactions about your content. You can apply growth hacking to your social media strategy in order to A/B test what you post and according to the data or feedback you get, you can optimize your content. The content itself should be relevant to your business industry but it could also be informative, funny, shocking depending on what your goal is. There are many content marketing tactics you can get inspiration from to create perfect content. Remember that you should find the right spot between what you want to tell and what your readers are looking for.

Should your business pay for social media ads?

It really depends on what stage your business is at. However, we love A/B Testing and I believe that you should A/B test social media ads for your business, even if it is as little as $ 1 / day. This will help you understand how social media ads work, as well as train you to understanding data and even give you some insights about your users that you wouldn’t have known without testing. Testing, tracking, and measuring is key for your business’s social media strategy.

What you learned about implementing a social media strategy for your startup

Graphic showing Digital Marketing Services in McKinney, TX provided by Luce Media

Having a social media strategy is essential. If you want to outperform your competitors, you need to create better content than they do, engage with your community, etc. You learned that social media is a must for your business to get your first users’ feedback and also to get traction. There are top social media marketing tips out there, don’t hesitate to apply what you learn. On social media, you need to curate great content, create and share compelling content as well as being personal and talking directly to potential users or customers.

Social media is a great marketing channel and needs to be A/B tested in order to take the best from it. You have to know that social media is only 1 marketing channel your business can use and you can define a marketing strategy around it. Social media should be part of a bigger picture and is an essential element of inbound marketing. At Luce Media, we are experts in the area of Digital Marketing and Social Media Marketing. We are kind of social media hackers if you want. We will A/B test different social media, grow your community with our growth hacking methods, improve your business’s brand image, interact with your users, analyze the data, get users feedback; all this in order to accompany your product development growth and success.

If your business needs help with social media marketing in McKinney, TX., please call us at (469) 907-1057. Luce Media has deep expertise in Digital Marketing, B2B Marketing, Internet Marketing and is a well-established Digital Media Consultant in McKinney, TX.

10 Things You Need to Know Before Going Live on Facebook

June 23, 2018/in Content Marketing, Digital Marketing, Digital Presence, Engagement, Facebook, SEO, Social Marketing, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Video Content Marketing, Video Marketing /by Mark Toney

Since its launch in April 2016, Facebook Live video has swept the world.

As a platform, Facebook Live has unparalleled reach when it comes to reaching fans organically. Facebook’s News Feed algorithm highly prioritizes Live video, meaning your followers are way more likely to see one of your Live videos than any other content you post.

That’s why it’s not a half-bad idea to consider making Facebook Live a part of your social media marketing strategy.

You might be wondering where to start and what to do. That’s why we’ve put together this list of 10 Things You Need to Know Before You Go Live on Facebook!

Let’s get started.

10 Things You Need to Know Before Going Live on Facebook

1. Set a Goal

While celebrities, influencers, and more prominent brands have the gravitas and fanbase to use Facebook Live for more casual purposes, like broadcasting their surroundings or going Live for a few minutes at a time to interact with fans, chances are you don’t have the same resources.

Because of this, you need to focus the time you spend on Live.

Ask yourself what goal you’re trying to achieve with the video, as well as if and how the broadcast will help you make it.

If you can, try to choose an objective that’s more specific and results-driven than “social engagement” or “brand awareness.” Though these things are great, they should be secondary to other goals like lead generation or sales.

Once you and your team have settled on an objective, plan your video with that objective in mind. It should reflect in the topic you choose, as well as the way you present it.

For example, if we were putting together a Live video for a fitness center that wanted to highlight the benefits of personal training, we might choose to do a Live Q&A with one of our trainers, showing off his knowledge and encouraging viewers to sign up for a training session.

2. Have an Outline or Direction

Even though Facebook Live is relatively spontaneous as far as content mediums go, it’s still a good idea to craft at least some sort of outline, depending on the intent of your video.

This goes hand-in-hand with having an objective in mind, like the way you organize your speaking points should point Live viewers towards your goal – don’t go Live for the sake of going Live!

Before you go Live, outline your talking points and go over them with your co-host (assuming you have one). Get at least a rough idea of what you want to say, as well as any specific points or examples you’re sure you want to include.

My colleagues did a Live video a few months back about using content upgrades to generate leads for our sales team. Though it wasn’t without its hiccups, one “victory” of the broadcast was the way we organized it. It was clear and structured, highlighting the different steps of the process and the tools (within our product) viewers could use to generate leads for their own team.

Having an organized outline based on the goal of communicating the value of Wishpond and driving signups helped immensely with the quality of our broadcast.

That being said, don’t be afraid to go off-script – it is Live, after all! Be loose and have fun with it!

3. Prepare a Pre-Show

Even after you’ve announced your live video, many of your would-be viewers won’t show up right at the start of your broadcast.

Because of this, you’ll want to put together some sort of pre-show to fill time in your Live broadcast leading up to the start of your presentation (whatever that may be).

Don’t jump right into the meat of your content the moment you go Live. Either go Live 15-20 seconds before your scheduled start time to let people come in as they get notified, or start on time but don’t get into your content until a decent amount of people join your show.

You can do a couple of different things for this “pre-show” portion. If you’re not up to entertaining, feel free to pop in a countdown timer to get people ready and waiting. If you do feel like interacting (and we recommend you do), talk to your viewers. Welcome them to the broadcast, answer their comments, and get them excited for the show to start.

This is also a prime time to get your viewers to share your video – remember, Live videos get a massive boost on News Feed placement, so getting your fans to share your Live broadcast can significantly increase its organic reach.

4. Interact with Your Viewers

One of the principal benefits of Facebook Live is the fact that it allows you to interact with your fans in real-time, meaning you’re about as close to face-to-face as you can get without actually meeting them.

Though it’s not necessary, we’d recommend you put at least some effort into responding to fan comments and answering questions! It’s an easy way to make your Live broadcast super engaging, and it makes fans feel appreciated, meaning they’re more likely to stick around and watch.

At the start of your broadcast, greet people by name as they join. You don’t have to get to every single person, but acknowledging your viewers gets them pumped up for the upcoming broadcast.

As far as questions go, we’d recommend you set aside breaks in your broadcast or save for them the end, as opposed to answering them on the fly, which could put a serious wrench in your broadcasting flow and make your broadcast feel disorganized.

5. Promote Your Live Video

A Live video is a special occasion, and as far as promotion goes, you’d be well off treating it like a webinar.

By this, we mean you should put as much effort as you can into getting as many people as possible to show up for the Live broadcast as people, even though they’ll be able to watch it back later once the replay has gone live.

Here are a few ways you can make sure your Live video reaches as many people as possible:

Send an email: One benefit of having a mailing list is that you can reach out to them in cases like this! Send a simple newsletter a week or so before your Live video to your subscribers, linking them to your Facebook profile and letting them know when they’ll be able to catch you going Live.
Post on social: If you’re doing a Live video on Facebook, it makes perfect sense to promote it there, as well. Create a set of posts that count down the days to your Live broadcast to remind fans to tune in.
Advertise!: Though you can’t boost a live post, you can boost an announcement in the days leading up to it. Though it’s not a sure-fire way to get people to watch as you go Live, it opens the door for new potential fans to check out your broadcast.
Go Live beforehand: Do a short Live broadcast informing viewers that you’ll be going Live in the next few days. Though this might seem silly, Facebook’s News Feed algorithm heavily boosts Live video, meaning more people will see it. On top of that, you can prompt viewers to turn on Live notifications for your Page so they are reminded when you go Live next (and in the future).

6. Recap As You Go

Live Videos are unique in that people can join anytime during the broadcast.

It’s great in the sense that people don’t need to be ready beforehand – they can jump in as soon as they see it on their News Feed.

On the other hand, it can be tough as a content creator because people who join your video late might not be able to follow what you’re saying.

Because of this, it’s important that you periodically recap what you’ve been talking about as you go. Every so often, you can say something like “if you’re just joining us now, we’ve been talking about [recap].” This will help retain viewers who may otherwise leave because they have no idea what you’re talking about.

7. Check Your Hardware

There’s no worse feeling in a Live broadcast than having your audio or video randomly cut out, or watching your broadcast back and realizing everything is blurry, or you can’t hear anything.

Luckily, these are all issues you can easily avoid!

Before you double-check your setup, put some effort into making it as good as possible. Aim for high quality and reliability – an iPhone 7+ camera might be better than your 2012 MacBook’s webcam, but it also has a higher chance of dying while you’re broadcasting.

Pick a reliable setting as well – bright, solid-color backgrounds work great (see below). If you can, do a practice run-through with all of your hardware to make sure it’s all working.

Here are some quicker audio-visual rules of thumb:

Adequate lighting: Making sure your subjects are well-lit means you’re not left with two silhouettes on an overexposed background. Use some additional lights if you need them.

The sound is everything: Seriously. People can deal with 360p video (remember 2008?), but if they can’t hear you, they’re going to leave. I guarantee it. If you can, use an external mic (like a USB condenser mic) for your audio – it’s dozens of times better than your laptop’s built-in mic.

Use a tripod: Unless you’re live-streaming an event, you want your video to be as steady as possible. Thankfully, a tripod takes care of this easily.

8. Use Third-Party Broadcasting Software

Though we don’t condone or recommend it, there is a way to stream a Facebook Live video without actually being Live.

Without going too far into detail, Facebook allows you to broadcast Live to your page using an external program, such as Open Broadcasting Software (OBS). Because OBS can stream video and audio from a number of sources, you could technically stream a pre-recorded video to Facebook Live using the software, just as Tesla did in the example below.

Third-party broadcasting programs like OBS can also be helpful if you’d like to edit your videos slightly before they go Live. These cases might include adding overlays (like logos or graphics, as you can see below) or if you’re just not sure you’ll get it right on the first take.

That being said, don’t chop up your video or stream a professionally edited video as if it’s Live – your fans will know, and they probably won’t like it.

9. Get Viewers to Subscribe to Live Notifications

If you’re considering making Live video a big part of your social media marketing strategy, it’s essential to maximize the number who show up to your broadcasts.

One way to increase the chances your fans will tune in is to get them to turn on Live notifications. We touched on this earlier in the article, but it’s important enough to merit its own point.

We’d create a post or graphic with the following information, and maybe append it to your Facebook Live announcement mailout, too.

Here’s what your viewers need to do:

Visit your Page on desktop or mobile
Click the “Notifications” button under your cover photo
Pressing the “edit options” pencil icon in the drop-down menu
Turning on notifications under “Live videos” for “All Live Posts.”

And that’s it! It’s super simple, and you now have the benefit of having your fans be notified every single time you go live.

This increases the effectiveness of future Live broadcasts, too, and your viewers only need to do it once (though we’d add this information to every Live announcement for new fans or people who haven’t already done it).

10. Add an Ask or CTA

Finally, add some sort of CTA to your Live broadcast. This is a tactic that will give you the best chance at generating some kind of immediate return on Facebook Live.

Either add an “ask” to the end of your video (or sporadically throughout it) to direct viewers towards your ultimate goal, whether that’s your e-commerce store to get them to buy the product you’re highlighting in your video, or to a sales page to get them to book a call.

One great way to add this without needing to bring it up during your video continually is to use OBS (or another software) to add it to your broadcast as an overlay. Make it unobtrusive, so your video is still the primary focus of the broadcast, but visible and enticing enough that people will act upon it.

Either way, make sure you give viewers an avenue to convert in some way – trust me, driving a sale or demo from a social media marketing strategy is a good feeling.

Wrapping it up

There you have it – 10 awesome tips and strategies to think about when you’re planning your next Facebook Live video. Hopefully, you’ve learned something new about this rapidly growing video format!

If you have any questions about Facebook Live (or just Facebook in general), we’d be more than happy to answer them in the comments below.

20 Creative Ways to Market Your Business on a Budget

June 21, 2018/in Content Marketing, Digital Marketing, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, SEO, Social Marketing, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Twitter /by Mark Toney

High-quality marketing is expensive. However, it doesn’t have to be. Thanks to the Internet, the playing field has been significantly leveled for a small business, which now has access to the reach and influence formerly only reserved for the big brands. There are actually many low-cost methods for reaching out to your customers and spreading the word about your business. Here are 20 creative options to market your business online on a budget that you can try.

20 Creative Ways to Market a Small Business On A Budget

#1 Run Contests

Contests are a fun and highly interactive way to get greater visibility for your small business. Some suggestions include caption contests and giveaways. Caption contests are good for a laugh and you can provide a small prize for the winners. Giveaways are great for growing your e-mail lists via the entry form. Polls are also helpful because they not only draw attention to your business and its plans but also provide you with valuable data.

#2 Write Guest Blog Posts

Pursuing guest post opportunities is an important way for a small business to grow your influence without spending any money. You may even get paid for your content. These posts benefit both parties because they give the host opportunities for new, unique content from different contributors and they benefit you by reaching a wider audience. Quality backlinks from these sites will also improve your search engine rankings, giving your business further exposure.

#3 Answer Questions on Forums or Answer Site

It costs nothing to offer advice or answer someone’s question. Doing so will establish you as a knowledgeable professional and help you gain the trust of clients. Sites like Quora and Reddit are full of people with questions. Answering a question also offers longevity. These questions and your answers remain up on the site, so anyone looking for a similar answer in the future is bound to stumble across it.

This is really a great way to market your business online on a budget. Why? Because this will show your expertise in your industry, you might become a thought leader if you’re consistent and this will help you generate leads.

#4 List Your Business on Online Directories and Review Sites

Customers use these directories when looking for a business, and so it is important to make sure your company is listed on them. Heavily trafficked sites to list your information on include Facebook, Google My Business, Yelp, Angie’s List and Apple Maps. These sites are free to list on, although you may need to meet some of their requirements first and prove your business is legitimate. Luce Media has a very cost-effective program to get your business on the top 50 online directories. To check what your online visibility looks like, click here.

#5 Join Industry Groups and Communities

Industry groups and communities are very helpful places for building your network, growing your authority and both giving and receiving advice. There are industry-specific groups present on sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Google Communities on Google+. If you can establish yourself as a helpful contributor to these groups, your influence and reputation will grow. You never know what kinds of cool insider tricks you may learn as well.

#6 Leverage Pinterest

Pinterest, like many social media sites, is free to use and should not be underestimated as a significant marketing force. It is especially useful for sharing images of your products, displaying infographics and driving traffic to your site by linking to it from the image. Pinterest is a great channel to grow and what’s amazing about it is that marketers don’t use it that much yet. This is why Pinterest is a great way to grow your business online on a budget.

Visual media tends to attract the eyes of customers more often, so one of the largest image sharing sites on the Internet should not be overlooked. A staggering 87% of Pinterest users have purchased a product because they saw it or heard it recommended on Pinterest.

#7 A Small Business Should Heavily Use Referral Marketing

If you don’t have one already, you should work on forming a referral program within your company. This encourages your loyal customers to spread the word about your business and bring in more customers. According to Nielson, 84% of customers around the globe believe that friends and family are the most trustworthy sources of information about products.

Referral marketing is a cost-effective growth strategy that can bring you explosive growth. There are many referral marketing examples you could get inspired by.

#8 Actively Participate on Social Media

The interest of marketers has clearly been captured by social media. Facebook, for example, has 8 to 9 times higher click-through rates than regular web ads. Instagram is the fastest growing social platform out there today. But posting occasionally is not enough. It is equally important for a small business to give regular updates so users are continuously being reminded of your presence and what you do.

I recommend any business of any sizes to have a large social media presence. Social media is inexpensive and is a great option to market your company if you’re on a shoestring budget. You should also get involved in the community, such as by participating in themed hashtag days, for example. You never know what other professionals and customers you might connect with.

#9 Give Out Free Stuff

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that people love free stuff. Some people love it so much that they frequent deal sites. For example, if you are selling a book, giving away free books on a major platform like GoodReads will increase exposure for both your book and your company. Giving away occasional freebies also gets your products into the hands of potential customers and may win you loyal fans.

#10 Create Lists of Statistics

A post consisting of interesting statistics about your industry is a relatively easy way to drive traffic to your blog. People find statistics interesting and love to share them. You don’t even have to go out of your way to do this – it can come naturally from market research you have done or other high authority sources of information you came across while learning more about your industry.

#12 Interview Experts

Interviewing experts in your field is another way to increase your authority. You can interview them with set questions, such as over e-mail, and write up the interview in a blog post to share. The people you interview will also likely post your interview, which shares it with their followers and widens your reach. This is one of my favorite ways to market your business on a budget because by interviewing experts in your industry, not only you’ll leverage their community, you will also connect with them.

#13 Write How-To Guides and Ebooks

There are always people looking to get started in your industry, whether as an employee or an entrepreneur. Writing how-to guides and ebooks for this audience can be a significant source of income as well as grow your influence and establish you as a professional in your field. You might not have the time for this, so it might be worth looking into hiring a ghostwriter. Remote collaboration between content editors and ghostwriters is often highly successful.

#14 Leverage Your E-Mail Signature

In your e-mail signature should be your name, what you do, your contact information and links to your website. You can also include your company’s slogan and social media accounts. Make it colorful, eye-catching and interesting. This reminds or announces to anyone you contact this way that you exist, and thus serves as a good marketing tactic.

Your email signature is just one email marketing tactic. You’ve got a lot of email marketing strategies you can integrate into your campaigns. Plus, email marketing has a great ROI!

#15 Offer Limited-Time Discounts

You have probably noticed how often major companies have sales, which is at least a few times a year, if not more. They do this for a reason – it works. Customers are more likely to take a chance on a new product or service when it is on sale.

As a small business, you need to plan your sales carefully and space them evenly throughout the year. For example, discounts at specific times of the year, namely holidays, are popular. For online businesses, participation in Cyber Monday in November is practically a must.

#17 Ask for Testimonials and Reviews

For most people, testimonials and reviews weigh heavily into their decision-making process when choosing which company to do business with. The New York Times identified that, on average, 65% of a company’s new business comes from referrals. The best way to get referrals is to ask. Also, make sure to ask a customer’s permission before using their testimonial in your marketing or posting it to your sit

#18 A Small Business Can Offer Free Consultations

If you provide a service, whether you are a personal trainer or an attorney, offering free consultations is a great way to bring people in. They can then meet you and see if you can provide what they need. Use this opportunity to impress them so they will want to go forward with working with you.

#20 Comment on Other Blogs

You likely read many blogs to stay up to date on what is going on in your industry. Simply leave comments and start discussions about these posts. Doing so shows that you are actively engaged in the community and lets other users know that you are a professional.

So, how to market your business online on a budget?

Effective marketing is not just about the money. To be successful takes a lot of time and effort. Plus it helps to understand the latest opportunities that digital marketing and social media marketing have to offer. At Luce Media, we encourage your small business to focus on what you do best and let us do for you what we do best. Never stop looking for new and creative ways to reach your customers, and you will find a winning combination that works for you. Luce Media specializes in helping businesses on a budget grow. We use growth hacking, digital marketing, data, product development and a lot of creativity to do so. If you want to see your business reach new heights, give us a shout at Luce Media now and we’ll start growing together! We provide digital marketing and social media marketing in McKinney, Frisco, Plano, and Allen.

Luce Media - Digital Agency & Social Media Marketing McKinney, Frisco, Plano, Dallas

Social Media Marketing for Small Business

April 22, 2018/in Digital Marketing, Facebook, Instagram, Social Marketing, Social Media, Social Media Marketing /by Mark Toney

Social Media Marketing for Small Business

Every small business needs customers. Without qualified customers, it would be hard for any type of business (big or small) to survive in the long run. What’s the best way to acquire customers? Social media marketing for small business.

While there are many reasons as to why you should use social media marketing for small business to enhance and grow your company, the most obvious being, it will help you win more customers. And help your company gain more prominence.

With the growing popularity of social networking, there is little doubt that your potential customers are using major social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. And the best part is, many of these social media users (your prospects) visit these platforms every day.

Here are some stats to help you understand the importance of social media marketing for small business and why you need to take it seriously.

According to a survey conducted by eMarketer, 88% of businesses use social media.
96% of the people who talk about your brand online aren’t following you on social media.
Customers spend 20% to 40% more on products/services by companies who engage with them on social media.

When you use social media marketing for small business you can easily reach out to your target audience and build a long-lasting relationship with them. This is a highly effective way to build a brand that people trust while getting more bang for your buck.

Also, when compared to traditional marketing techniques, with social media marketing for small business you have a higher chance of getting a positive return on investment. This is due to the fact that marketing via social media is much cheaper for a small business, especially one with a limited budget.

Being a small business owner, you should see social media as a robust tool that can help build strong awareness, increase the number of sales and build a real customer base. When you truly understand the potential of social media marketing for small business, you will see that the results that you achieve are far more better.

Social Media Marketing for Small Business: What Works

Let’s look into four relevant social media marketing for small business tips that will help your company gain an edge over the competition.

#1: Have a Clear Plan in Place

When it comes to social media marketing for small business, having a strong and a clear strategy is the first step towards finding success. There are many reasons why a business may fail to get results with social media marketing, but sometimes it is only because they did not know what they were doing.

Every action you take towards building your social media presence and marketing your brand should be carefully planned. It doesn’t matter what kind of business you run or who your target audience is, as long as you have a plan laid out, you will find it easier to overcome any challenges that you come across.

Here’s how you can create a solid social media marketing plan for small business plan.

A) Set The Right Social Media Goals

What do you want to achieve with social media? When using social media marketing for small business, it is important that you set goals and objectives that actually help you grow.

For instance, if you are marketing on Facebook, you should not only focus on getting more likes to your posts and your page but also try to boost the number of leads and sales you’re getting. Try to align your social media goals to your business goals.
When leveraging social media marketing for small business, it is easy to get stuck on vanity metrics rather than improving the bottom line of your business. But do understand that social media will only be beneficial to your small business if you’re ultimately getting more customers using it. Or else it’s simply a waste of your time, money, and energy.

B) Conduct a Proper Social Media Audit

In order to get the most out of social media marketing for small business, it is crucial that you know which of your customers and prospects are already connected to you on the major social media platforms, and how they perceive your brand. It gives you a better idea of your position in the social media arena.

By conducting a proper social media audit, you basically understand your current social media following and also learn which platform is mostly used by your customers so that you can tap into it.

A social media audit also gives you knowledge of the areas that you need to improve on. And a better perspective on how your competitors are building their social media presence. Remember, the more you know about your customers and your competition, the easier it will be for you to win the social media game. Which in turn helps your business survive and grow.

C) Build Up Your Social Media Presence

If you don’t already have social media accounts for your company, it is time you create them. However, it is extremely important that you only work with social media networks that will directly help your type of business to grow. In other words, the social media network that you dedicate your time to should suit the goals of your small business.

Once you are through this step, you will need to build your social media presence on the network of your choice. This does not mean that you post any random type of content on your social pages. Every single step that you take to enhance your presence should match your big and small business goals.

Your social media activities should also be in line with the likes and dislikes of your target audience. Regardless of what you want you to achieve with your social media marketing activities, make sure that each of your accounts reflects your objectives and your core brand values.

D) Get Inspired by Other Brands

When you are doing social media marketing for small business, it is easy to get confused and misunderstand what your audience is looking for. This can lead you to create content that does not go well with your overall business goals. Which is why you need to spend time looking and analyzing the type of content other businesses are posting to their social media accounts.

These companies can be your direct competitors or may even compliment your business. The idea is to get a clear understanding of the type of content that is working for them. Look for patterns and see what’s fetching them the most social response.

You can also leverage social listening to find insights about your prospects and what they want to see from you. This not only ensures that you create appropriate content on a regular basis, but it also helps you stand out from the crowd.

When seeking inspiration, it is not necessary that you only stick to analyzing other small businesses using social media marketing. You can also go beyond and actually learn from industry leaders and bigger brands such as Starbucks, Oreo, Netflix, Apple, etc. It allows you to grab some real social media soci lessons firsthand.

Remember, these big companies have huge budgets that they allocate for social media and a lot of what they do is backed by real research and understanding. When you grasp their way of doing things and see how they are implementing their social media tactics, it gives a real inspiration to formulate your own strategy.

E) Create a Social Media Calendar

Creating quality social media content is not enough. You also need to make sure that it reaches your followers on a consistent basis. An effective way to share the right kind of content is to use a social media calendar. Without complicating things, a social media calendar is nothing but a detailed schedule of the type of content you will be posting to each of your social media accounts. It gives you the much-needed clarity to post social media updates that matter.

There are multiple ways to create your social media calendar. You can either choose to go the simple way by using a spreadsheet or calendar in your Google Drive, or use a more robust approach by using a paid tool.

It doesn’t matter what tool you use to create your calendar, what actually matters is how detailed it is and how you will be executing it. Because ultimately your precise execution plays a major role in making your efforts successful.

Having a clear social media calendar allows you to stay accountable, be consistent, save a ton of time, get more productive, and achieve peace of mind – all of which contributes to building a results-oriented social media marketing approach.

#2: Choose the Right Platform

One of the things that can impact your social media marketing for small business results is the choice of your platform. In order to get the most out of social media marketing for small business and make your brand stand out from the rest, it is crucial that you choose a platform that is suitable to your business goals. If not, you may end up spending your time and money on a social network that will most likely not give you a favorable return on investment.

Do not make the mistake of selecting a social media platform based on a wild estimate or on what others are doing. It is important that you take into consideration your target audience, their preferences, and other demographics before starting to work with a platform.

Let’s look into three of the major social platforms, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn and what makes them different.

Platform 1: Facebook

One of the reasons why Facebook is an attractive option for social media marketing for small business marketers is because it has over two billion monthly active users, which makes it huge market to tap into that a small business may not otherwise be able to reach.

The kind of reach you can experience with Facebook cannot be found with any other social media website. Which is why having a strong presence on Facebook, can help your small business go to the next level.

Another important thing to consider is the fact that these days a lot of people are searching for products and services directly on Facebook. That’s right, gone are the days when Google was the only search engine on the Internet.

Today, Facebook has given people a new option to search and find what they are looking for.

Here are some key Facebook demographics for you to consider:

Facebook users largely fall into the 25 to 34 age bracket.
When it comes to genders, 47% of Facebook users are male and 53% of them or female.
Talking about senior online users, 56% of baby boomers (65+ in age) are found on Facebook.

Facebook has become a center for businesses and brands to connect with their target audience. It is THE social platform that gives you access to a large number of eyeballs even with a limited budget.

This is exactly why the advertising system that has been created by Facebook is one of the most efficient ones out there. The level of targeting that you can achieve with Facebook ads can help small businesses like yours get the best return on their investment.

Having a strong presence on Facebook is as important as having your own website. It gives you an edge over other small businesses in your niche that do not use Facebook to do market the business and build new relationships.

The best part about Facebook is that it helps you connect with a large number of relevant people at a fraction of a cost. These can be your potential customers that you may not have reached without Facebook.

Facebook also has live streaming features that allow you to reach out to your audience in real time. This is a great way to grow and nurture new relationships and improve the level of trust people have in your brand.

Last but not least, Facebook also allows you to integrate your e-commerce business and helps you increase the number of sales in the long run. Obviously, this depends on how efficiently you leverage Facebook and the kind of effort and money you put into making your brand’s presence felt.

Platform 2: Instagram

If you are active on social media in any way then you should know about the popularity of Instagram. Instagram is a photo-sharing app and a social network that is owned by none other than Facebook.

When you see Instagram’s overall mission and how its parent company Facebook wants to position it in the market, you will be able to understand the true potential that the social network offers. It is much more than a photo sharing app. Which means as a small business, you should be able to find your target audience on it and also connect with them visually like never before.

Every Instagram user knows that being an Instagrammer is all about sharing and spreading attractive visuals in the form of images, videos, and stories. And they’re doing their part. Which is bringing in more users day in and day out, and increasing the level of engagement?

Slowly and steadily Instagram is becoming one of the most important places on the Internet to connect with other people by sharing visual content that actually matters to them. More and more brands and small businesses have started to use Instagram creatively to not only spread awareness but to also generate sales.

Here are some key Instagram demographics:

Gender wise, Instagram has more males than females. About 51% of Instagram users are male and 49% of them are female.
The US. is a popular market for Instagram as 55% of Its users fall into the age bracket of 18 to 29 years. This means Instagram is being dominated by millennials.
After the millennials, the users who have the most share on Instagram come in the 30 to 50 years age bracket, making up to 28% of the overall user base.

Instagram will work amazingly for your business if you have the right visuals to share. For example, if you are an e-commerce website catering to a female audience, then Instagram is a great place to share pictures of your physical products and engage with your potential customers.

What makes Instagram different from the rest of the social networks is that it allows you to showcase and present your products the way your prospects actually want to see. People want to connect to a product on a visual level before investing in it. By creating and posting relevant visuals, you will be able to tell a story that your target audience can experience in a unique, memorable manner. What could be more appealing than that?

You can also leverage Instagram’s unique stories feature and take people behind the scenes. Show them what they would not normally see. For instance, you could give them an office tour or show them how your team works in the background. This is a perfect way to document your business’s journey and share it with your photos to grow your brand.

Instagram allows you to communicate with your audience in more than one away. You can even go a step further and communicate with your followers on a much deeper level by leveraging the power of direct messaging. This way you can connect to your audience in a more personal manner. Which can obviously have a positive effect on your business and how people perceive your brand.

Platform 3: LinkedIn

LinkedIn is where the web’s professionals hang out. It is a social network that lets professionals of all levels connect with each other and create more opportunities along the way. Some people see it as an official version of Facebook, with the exact tools you need to grow your brand’s reach.

There is absolutely no doubt that LinkedIn gives you access to users that you may not be able to identify on other big social networks like Facebook and Twitter. It is where business happens. No wonder Microsoft spent more than 25 million dollars to acquire it in 2016.

Some more demographics to help you get a better picture:

About 56% of LinkedIn users are male and 44% of them are female.
25% of regular users on LinkedIn fall into the 18 to 29 age group.
More than 60% of LinkedIn users come in the 30 to 65 years age bracket.

LinkedIn offers some of the most relevant and user-friendly features for a small business to take advantage of.

First and foremost, LinkedIn has a community of professionals that love to engage with other professionals and brands. They have a keen business sense and understanding of how to connect and work with others.

It’s a social media platform that offers you a professional type of setting to build connections with other businesses that are also active socially. Which means as a small business it’s easy for you to become a thought leader by leveraging the power of the LinkedIn community.

You can use LinkedIn to increase your brand awareness and get more people to show interest in your business by creating a dedicated company page.

Even when you are looking to hire someone for your small business, LinkedIn allows you to create and post targeted job vacancies that can be found by the right candidate.

Yes, the LinkedIn advertising platform is a little expensive than that of Facebook, but it can be worth it, especially if you are in the B2B sector.

Use the above information to analyze and find out what social media network would work best to help you grow your small business. If needed, you may have to spread out your efforts over multiple social media sites. One or many — your decision should depend on your business goals.

#3: Work with Buyer Personas

Your social media marketing for small business “adventure” will be short-lived and outpaced by your competitors if you fail to understand your target audience. You need to know your audience like the back of your hand to get a better picture of their pain points and also of what excites them. You need to know their goals and objectives.

How well you know your audience can be clearly seen in the social media content you create. If the content doesn’t offer value to your audience and doesn’t help them in a worthy manner, then they will avoid reading it. Which will obviously affect the number of social shares and followers you get in the future.

When you understand your potential customer and what they are looking for, it becomes easy to connect with them on a higher level. Your business will be able to generate more numbers and add to the bottom line with each customer you connect with.

If you look around, you’ll find that more than half of the businesses haven’t worked on creating a buyer persona, which is the first and the most basic step to knowing and serving your audience. The more you know about your customers typical day and the hurdles they face, the easier it will be for you to live up to your promises and give them worthwhile solutions to their problems.

Step 1: Research Your Audience

To know your audience, you need to do some research about them. This allows you to create a realistic and precise persona. This leads you to learn about the important details of your customers that you wouldn’t have found otherwise.

Begin by understanding your current customers and how you interact with them. Learn about their habits and how they interact with your brand. Do you have some customers who are a big fan of your products? Do some of them buy from you again and again? What traits make them different or similar to others?

Asking yourself the right questions can help you discover the common points between some of your most valuable customers. Based on this information, you would be able to create a strong persona that helps you connect with potential customers on social media.

When you’re using social media, you also have a unique opportunity to connect to customers that have complained about your product/service on Facebook or Twitter. These customers with a bad experience can offer you a lot of unique advice on where you’re going wrong and how you can improve.

Step 2: Develop Separate Personas

Once you have the minute details that you find common between the best customers, it’s time to organize them into different personas, which helps you target with more precision when using social media marketing for small business.

You can easily do this by creating a list of customers within your audience that share the same kind of goals and face similar challenges. Create separate groups out of these customers and categorize them. Each category you add is nothing but a unique persona that you will be leveraging later on.

For instance, if you are a yoga teacher, some of your students may want to do yoga to perfect their posture while others may aim to do it for building muscle strength. While both of these customers want to do yoga, but for different reasons or goals. Which is why it makes sense to create two different personas for them.

Step 3: Name Your Personas & Add Details

When you give a name to your buyer persona, you’re achieving two important things: first, it will be easier to connect with your buyers when you feel that you are actually interacting with a real person. Secondly, it can help you create far better content that is personalized or customized to the right set of audience.

Businesses that take buyer personas seriously make sure that they focus on the details. So if you can, add a picture to each of your buyer personas to make them easier to connect to. The more realistic, the better.

#4: Don’t Ignore the Power of Promoting Via Social Media

Many small businesses think that social media is only about building a brand and growing awareness. But did you know that by not leveraging social networks for promoting your products you’re actually leaving money on the table? That’s right. Social media is huge and when used the right way, it can bring in a ton of sales to your business.

Now, if you’re thinking that promoting via social media is just about sending out a tweet or sharing a photo on Instagram, then you’re wrong. You need a targeted strategy to make sure you reap the best results from your efforts.

You have to cater to your social media followers by balancing valuable content with promotional content. In other words, most of your social media activity should be non-promotional to build trust and add value to your follower’s lives. A small percentage (say 20 percent) should be focused on actually increasing your sales numbers. For every 8 engaging and informative tweets, share 2 promotional tweets that help you increase your customer base.

You should also leverage the right type of content for promotion based on the social network you’re working on. Each social media site is different in terms of the content its users share. You have to fit in and create content that goes with the overall theme of the network. If you need more advice on how to implement a strategy for social media marketing for small businesses – that’s our specialty! Check out our social media management services and then schedule a time to talk about how you can leverage all the potential customers out there waiting to see your brand!

This information was originally posted at https://www.lyfemarketing.com/blog/social-media-marketing-for-small-business/

Two women working with a laptop that has the words Social Media on the screen

How Small Businesses Are Using Social Media Marketing in McKinney

April 12, 2018/in Content Marketing, Digital Marketing, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Research-Data, Social Marketing, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Twitter, Uncategorized /by Mark Toney

A survey of small business owners reveals that businesses budget modestly for social media marketing in McKinney and elsewhere around North Texas – which may be a mistake, according to industry experts.

Most small-to-midsize businesses in the United States are now using social media for marketing purposes, according to a recent survey by Clutch, a B2B research firm. Social media, website marketing, and email marketing were key areas of investment.

Some 71% of respondents say their firm uses social media, and 16% say their firm is planning to in the future.

Facebook is the social platform SMBs use most (86% use it). Instagram is second (48%), followed by YouTube (46%), Twitter (44%), LinkedIn (31%), and Snapchat (25%).

Just over half (52%) of SMBs that use social media marketing post at least once a day.

Many small businesses may not budget much for digital marketing because they have so few employees and limited resources to invest. More than half (57%) of businesses surveyed reported annual revenue of less than $1 million.

In addition, in-house digital marketing teams may not be “teams” at all: 30% (the largest group) of small businesses only have one employee working on digital marketing. This finding suggests that in-house digital marketers may lack the time and resources they need to market efficiently. This is one of the most important reasons if you are doing social media marketing in McKinney or elsewhere in North Texas, Luce Media is able to improve on what you are currently doing. We have programs and plans to fit virtually any small business marketing budget.

The adage “you must spend money to make money” is true for digital marketing.

Although the concept is familiar to most small business owners, many still struggle to choose the best marketing methods or to afford marketing at all.

OTHER FINDINGS FROM STUDY

The majority of small businesses use both social media (62%) and a website (61%) to market themselves.
The majority of small businesses (80%) do not invest in content marketing, and experts warn that they are missing a key marketing opportunity.
Websites (54%), social media (51%), and email marketing (36%) are the top three digital marketing channels that small businesses will invest in during 2018.

Over half (54%) of small businesses surveyed will improve their websites and engage consumers through social media, while 36% will direct more resources to email marketing in 2018.

Content Marketing Lags, Despite Cost-Effective Results

Fewer than 1 in 4 small businesses plan to invest in content marketing in 2018, but experts caution that failing to perform content marketing is a mistake for small businesses.

Creating content–such as blog posts, whitepapers, and videos—is a highly cost-effective way to build brand loyalty and boost a business’ ranking in search results.

Keith Gutierrez, vice president of marketing at Modgility(link is external), reminds small businesses that in developing a content marketing strategy, quality is more important than quantity.

“[Content] just needs to be great, quality stuff you can’t find anywhere else,” says Gutierrez.

Small businesses already have what they need to start creating content: they should consider their unique advice and data, then package that information into useful content.

Virtual/Augmented Reality Marketing Sees an Investment Bump

In an effort to keep up with new technology, some companies (12%) will increase their investment in augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) marketing. AR/VR marketing is especially effective for products that benefit from in-person tours, like real estate and travel booking.

Clutch’s 2018 Small Business Social Media Survey included 351 small business owners or managers from across the U.S. with fewer than 500 employees.

To read the full report and source the survey data, visit: https://clutch.co/agencies/digital/resources/small-business-digital-marketing-survey-2018.

To get more information on Social Media Marketing in McKinney and other communities in DFW, please call (469) 907-1057 or send us a note at our website. To find out how we can teach you and your employees to deliver on social media marketing, read more here.

Significant Changes to Instagram and Facebook

April 4, 2018/in Facebook, Instagram, Social Media, Uncategorized /by Mark Toney

Facebook is entering a tough transition period where it won’t take chances around data privacy in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica fiasco. That’s why it’s moving up the shut down of part of the Instagram API. It’s significantly limiting data available from or requiring approval for access to Facebook’s Events, Groups, and Pages APIs plus Facebook Login. Facebook is also shutting down search by email or username and changing its account recovery system after discovering malicious actors were using these to scrape people’s data. “Given the scale and sophistication of the activity we’ve seen, we believe most people on Facebook could have had their public profile scraped in this way” Facebook’s CTO Mike Schroepfer writes.

Instagram will immediately shut down part of its old platform API that was scheduled for deprecation on July 31st. Instagram refused to comment, leading to developer frustration as their apps that analyze people’s followers and help them grow their audiences stopped working. This means if you are using a third-party product, app or connection to post to your Instagram – there is a good chance it no longer works as of today. Several social media sites report hundreds of posts about people’s Instagram accounts not loading today. Here are some details released by Instagram today.

The APIs for follower lists, relationships, and commenting on public content will cease to function immediately. The December 11th, 2018 deprecation of public content reading APIs and the 2020 deprecation of basic profile info APIs will happen as scheduled, but it’s implemented rate limit reductions on them now.

There are changes at Facebook as well. Chief among them is the function that allows Search by phone number or email will no longer work, as Facebook says it discovered malicious actors were using them to pair one piece of information with someone’s identity. Of all the changes, this may be the most damaging to the user experience.

There is a lot more information on the overall impact on users in the next 24 hours. Please follow us on Facebook and Twitter to get the latest information.

For a detailed (very technical) description of what happened today go to TechCrunch.

Social Media Marketing for Small Business – The Lucé Media Academy

March 31, 2018/in Content Marketing, Digital Marketing, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Metrics, Social Marketing, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Twitter, Video Content Marketing /by Mark Toney

Woman at laptop hands up in frustration over doing social media herself

Can a Digital & Social Marketing Agency Grow Your Business?

January 31, 2018/in Content Marketing, Digital Marketing, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Social Marketing, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Uncategorized, Video Marketing /by Mark Toney

The explosion of social media has driven companies to put a big focus on social media marketing over the past few years. As a small to medium sized business owner, you’ve probably thought or had a discussion in your company at one point or another and said, “we need a social media presence.” The next discussion may center around which person in my business is the best at Facebook or Instagram or Twitter. Soon, you have put up a dozen posts and not one person has responded to what you are posting.

The rise of the internet, indexed search (think Google) and the explosion of social media networks have changed the way that businesses of all sizes communicate their value proposition.

Where once, legacy tactics such as yellow page advertisements or print ads drove traffic to your front door, modern consumers armed with mobile technology expect real time access to information and make buying decisions in a matter of a few keystrokes on their devices.

This means that companies need to ensure that their branding messages are well executed, easily found on the web by sites that attract attention and convert eyeballs into real leads.

If you’re an SME (small to medium enterprise) looking to increase exposure and drive traffic to your website or premises, here are a few things you need to know about working with a digital and social media company.

There are literally billions of people worldwide using social media on a regular basis. Its benefits as a marketing tool are indisputable.

Businesses who take advantage of this can interact with and attract new customers if they are active and take part in social conversations.

In general, the more regularly you can post to your social media channels, the higher engagement and ROI you’ll see. This could mean dedicating around an hour each day to monitoring your social channels, posting relevant content, participating in conversations and growing your following in the process. And there are many times when you do that for several months and the Facebook and Instagrams of the world suddenly change their algorithms……and the rules change.

According to the 2017 Social Media Marketing Industry Report, 64 per cent of marketing teams report spending six or more hours each week on social media.

For a small business owner who is already spending most of their time on business development and operations, finding spare hours to strategise and dedicate to social media can be difficult.

That’s why outsourcing your social media management to a knowledgeable third-party is so important – it can take one key business-building task off your plate.

Here are just a few tasks a social media marketing company could take care of above and beyond simply posting messages:

Social media strategy – including posting frequency, types of content, keyword research, influencer research etc;
Set-up and branding of new or existing social profiles – consistent branding and voice across all your channels is crucial;
Sharing and commenting on third-party posts that are relevant to your brand;
Engaging in conversations with other users – be it existing or potential customers;
Social media monitoring – keeping an eye out for mentions of your company and interacting with those posts;
Social customer service – responding to questions or complaints from users;
Following relevant industry influencers or potential business customers/clients;
Content marketing – helping to develop your own original images, memes, articles, blogs and resources that can be promoted on social media;
Newsletter marketing – a round-up of your company news and most popular social posts and interactions.

While that list is probably incomplete, it is just a sample of some things a well round digital and social media company can do for your business or enterprise. Ask yourself if you have the time and/or inclination to learn all of these individual elements yourself. So, often you are left with a choice: either hire an employee or hire an outside agency. In many instances, business owners lean towards hiring an employee because that has been the de-facto process in the past to solve an immediate need. Additionally business owners may have the perception that an outside agency is far more expensive than hiring in-house staff. The problem with this rationale is that most of the time, owners don’t have a true basis for comparison.

Let’s take a closer look and see what really happens when you compare the two. Disclosures: We used the job position of Marketing Manager for the comparison. Many marketing professionals specialize in one area of marketing, like a social media marketing manager, and may not have the experience that a marketing manager could have. All the salary data is based on the National Average salary for a Marketing Manager in the USA, and was taken from Salary.com.

While the numbers are averages and should be adjusted based on your needs, location of business, etc. The numbers in the following Infographic should give you a better understanding of the approximate costs of hiring each one.

Essentially, the budget needed to hire the right person, purchase all the right marketing tools and implement a digital and social media strategy designed to meet your business goals, become too cost prohibitive when trying to assemble an internal team.

Hiring an knowledgeable marketing agency like Luce Media allows business owners to focus on running operations and increasing the bottom line, not messing around with Facebook, Twitter or trying to build out a website. In the end, the bigger question maybe isn’t can I afford an experienced marketing agency, but rather how much am I costing myself in time, money and lost opportunity by trying to do these marketing services in-house.

Blue Arrow with Words Social Media Makreting

WHY USING SOCIAL MEDIA AS A MARKETING TOOL IS ESSENTIAL IN 2018!

January 13, 2018/in Content Marketing, Digital Marketing, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Research-Data, SEO, Social Marketing, Social Media, Twitter /by Mark Toney

Some business owners still believe that social media is merely gossiping and hanging out on Facebook. Once again, social media for business has nothing to do with simply hanging out on social media. But using social media marketing gives even small businesses real marketing advantages and opportunities.

In 2018, not using social media as a marketing tool is like saying you still rely on yellow page ads. It doesn’t work that way any more. Yet some people are stubborn and ask: Why is using social media good for me? Why do I need that again? Here are some of the most compelling reasons why:

SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING DRIVES TARGETED TRAFFIC

Creating a new page on your business website is like taking a really great selfie. You want the world to see it, but you don’t want to beg for attention (or worse, pay for it). That’s why for selfies and landing pages, well-placed social media posts can make all the difference.

SOCIAL MEDIA BOOSTS SEO

Search engine crawlers know which pages are consistently earning traffic and which are just floating out there, forgotten and ignored. A killer content strategy for SEO is the most important part of earning top spots in search engine rankings, but driving traffic to your optimized pages will cause them to climb much faster in the search engine results pages (SERPs). Don’t forget that Google considers your social activity to be a top ranking signal.

SOCIAL MEDIA LEADS TO RELATIONSHIP BUILDING

Part of what makes Twitter and Instagram marketing so cool is the interaction you can have with your consumers; you can read their tweets and status updates to get real-time insights into their daily. What products are they buying and why? What are they doing on the weekend? What kind of posts do they love to share, and from which brands?

Using social media as a tool for connecting with complementary, non-competing businesses, thought leaders and influencers in your industry, as well as journalists who cover your industry, is another benefit. You never know what a simple retweet or comment can lead to. Compliments work especially well.

SOCIAL MEDIA USERS ARE RECEPTIVE TO MESSAGES

People view Twitter and Facebook as social networks, not marketing machines. As a result, they’re less likely to see what you post as an advertisement and will be more likely to hear what you have to say. This translates to serious web traffic when you link to your site and posts that market themselves as your friends and followers share what you’ve posted.

SOCIAL MEDIA ALLOWS FOR RETARGETING ADS

One of the reasons using social media is important is because of the highly customizable nature of social media ads. Facebook ads, for example, allow you to target users by things like location, education level, industry and even purchase history and the pages they’ve liked.

SOCIAL MEDIA GETS EVENTS NOTICED

Whether your business is sponsoring a local charity fundraiser or attending a major international trade-show, there’s no better way to leverage your presence than using social media.

SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING BUILDS BRAND LOYALTY

Brands using social media have more engaged and loyal customers. When you’re engaging and interacting on social media (not just tossing your posts out onto the web hoping someone will stumble upon them) you become less like a big corporation and more approachable to potential consumers.

MOST LIKELY YOUR COMPETITORS ARE SOCIAL

According to AdWeek, 91% of retail brands are using more than one social media platform. This is something you need to keep in mind, because it’s much harder and more expensive to catch up than it is to get in on the game ahead of your competitors.

If your competitors get to your potential customers first, they’ll earn their loyalty and you’ll have a hard time winning them back. If you’re active and engaging on a variety of social platforms, you can gain those friends and followers first and your competition will be playing catch up to you.

SOCIAL MEDIA LEVELS THE PLAYING FIELD

Some brands may have bigger marketing budgets than others, but all businesses start off on pretty equal footing when it comes to using social media for marketing. Nobody knows you, and you are trying to get noticed. The businesses and brands that thrive are those with the most clever, attention grabbing tactics and the most relevant and informative content.

In short, they’re providing value to their target audience while also showing personality and being entertaining. If you really want to get lots of traffic and increase your online presence, you will have to outwit, outdo and outsmart your competition while offering superior products and customer service.

SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING INCREASES SALES

According to MarketingTech, 70% of business-to-consumer marketers have acquired customers through Facebook. Or that 84% of CEOs and VPs say using social media helps make purchasing decisions.

Using social media as a marketing tool doesn’t just keep your brand in front of potential consumers; it also gives you the opportunity to provide them with incentives to purchase. Share coupon codes, with a unique code for each social channel – you may be surprised at which social network drives the most sales.

FIND NEW CUSTOMERS THROUGH SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

If you set up streams to follow keywords in Twitter (Hootsuite makes this simple), you can find people looking for the products you sell and direct them to your site. Using Twitter for social media marketing is great that way; telling consumers wanting your products how to get them is just an @yourbusiness away.

NEW CUSTOMERS FIND YOU THROUGH SOCIAL MEDIA

If you are using LinkedIn or Facebook marketing you most likely belong to groups related to your products, industry and target audience. By posting in these groups you can help influence potential customers to check out your site. Answering questions on platforms like Quora is another strategy.

According to WordStream, the average cost per click on Google Adwords is between $1 and $2. Depending on the keyword targeted you can actually end up paying $65 or more for a single click. And that’s real money for any business that we know!

At the same time, you can send traffic through Facebook and Pinterest for as little as $0.12 per click. Why pay up to ten or twenty times as much for each visit when using social media is so much more cost-effective?

Simply put, using social media as a marketing tool is part of doing business in 2018. If your business isn’t already active on social networking sites, now is the time to start.

Let Luce Media provide a FREE Digital and Social Media analysis of your efforts.

This information was originally posted here.