5 Ways Social Media Works For Your Business

The trick that you should know when using social media is to engage consistently with your audience. Making conversations with them is key to building meaningful relationships. By reaching out and responding to their comments, you can set the agenda. Social media can help you promote your business through these five easy steps. 

It is also advised to learn a little about the channels you are interested in before picking the platform you will be using.  Each social media platform has a different characteristic and therefore, it's different how you can best present yourself. Instagram, for instance, is more visually oriented than all other platforms. LinkedIn is known to be more popular in the business world and has a very large international following. Twitter, on the other hand, is very newsworthy, has quick comments and responses. Facebook has many business accounts; however, the approach is more social. Thus, it is important to find out the best social media platform where your customers usually spend their time on because that is where you need to be.

1. Be authentic.

Simple. Just be yourself. Share, tweet and post things that interest you. You don’t have to try to be what you think others want you to be. Additionally, you don’t need to work hard on making everything perfect because if you do, you’ll never put anything up, or worse, break trust with your customers. It doesn’t matter if you’re using Twitter, Facebook, or Pinterest, what matters are your thoughts. Always keep in mind to post things that genuinely interest you and your community.

2. Engage

Your goal in using a social media platform is to build relationships and add value to the business. This is where most businesses fail. They work so hard to create content and push it out, but then they fail to step in and engage with their audience. Try to talk with people more often and really engage with them. Respond to comments and share your perspective and point of view.

3. Document – don’t produce.

Overproduced content tends to turn people off on social media. A lot of people do not need too much content simply because they don’t have the time and resources to put it into production and make it look fancy. People don't usually care about what you created last week. They want to get to know you, experience your day with you and relate to you. 

4. Don’t oversell.

Don’t try to be that guy at parties who wants to sell you insurance. Do not use push marketing to anyone you meet. Get to know people, honestly, engage with them and join the conversation – don’t dominate it. You can give advice and offer suggestions that can help them to portray that you are helpful, knowledgeable, and trustworthy. Let other people ask you about yourself, rather than just telling them about yourself, and they’ll be more receptive.

5. Commit to a daily “hour of power”.

Using the available technologies can be quick and easy. Creating an account literally costs nothing, and posting content is free. Within a couple of minutes, you can be up and running. In an hour, you can already reach out and connect with your friends, co-workers and even customers. Try to commit one hour per day during your launch engaging with the community. Try to also be consistent in engaging with them as it can create a potential payback in exposure and attention that is incalculable.