Social media is a great tool for connecting with friends and family, sharing everything from pictures of your kid’s soccer games to checking in at your favorite restaurant. For businesses and marketers, social media can be even more significant: it’s an opportunity to reach and connect with customers and clients.

Social media is a key way to develop your existing customer base and expand your network by gaining new “fans”, “friends” and “followers”. It’s a relatively low-cost tool that can greatly extend your network and complement your paid digital marketing strategy. As prospects see your company and it’s products or services on multiple marketing platforms, the performance of each multiplies. Get seen everywhere and your brand will bubble up to the top and take a leading position among competing companies.

Here are 15 tips to help up your game in social media marketing.

1. Keep in touch. Social media is a great way to keep your brand in front of current and potential customers. Marketing’s “Seven Times Factor” states that potential customers need to see an ad seven times before the marketing effort begins to register with them. Social media can greatly enhance that effort. An effective social media strategy will include regularly scheduled posts, usually several times a week. Hopefully some of your followers will spread the message further by forwarding or commenting on your posts. Each interaction is an additional opportunity for you to reach your customer base.
2. Know your audience, and cater to their likes and wants but don’t try to be everything to everyone. When planning for a post, always put yourself in your customer’s shoes and talk about your products or services from their perspective – things that benefit them, not you. Connect with your customers in a strong, clear way, and do it regularly and often.
3. Create value. Use social media to provide a service to your customers and potential customers. Share information that is valuable to them. It can be tips, trivia, quizzes, coupons or anything else they find valuable.
4. Build trust. You can become a service provider for your consumers by giving them helpful, accurate information. Don’t sell, exaggerate or mislead.
5. It’s not about you. Yes, you want to build your brand and eventually sell something. Social media is a good tool for that. But don’t put the cart before the horse. Your social media feed shouldn’t be just a long infomercial about you. Give your audience useful, helpful information that they want. They will keep reading and eventually, they will trust you.
6. Make it easy to buy or find more information. While your feed shouldn’t be all about you, you also want to make it easy for people to connect to you and buy from you when they want to. If they find you and your social media feel helpful, educational or entertaining, they’ll probably want more. Design your websites and social media feeds in a way that allows them to quickly and easily find more information, connect to your other platforms and buy when they’re ready.
7. Network. Comment on other people’s posts. Collaborate with other users. Find ways to take advantage of the social aspects of social media.
8. Follow influencers. Follow and interact with the high-profile social media users in your area. Such efforts can help build visibility for you and your brand, and it also helps your audience by giving them access to information the influencers are providing.
9. Be strategic. Effective use of social media can complement and enhance your other digital strategies, including search engine optimization and paid advertising. In your social media efforts, write about topics and use keywords you’re promoting on other platforms.
10. Highlight charitable behaviors. While you don’t want your social media feeds to be only about your brand or organization, it’s important to show customers your civic side. Highlight charitable giving and other civic contributions.
11. Focus on customer service. Encourage both positive and negative comments. Ask for opinions and evaluation. Respond quickly and appropriately to both.
12. Address negative comments quickly and rationally. Addressing concerns can build loyalty and respect if it us handled properly and respectfully.
13. Know your media. Each social media platform has its own audience and style. Communicate accordingly.
14. Keep up. Social media and digital marketing trends move quickly. Try to keep up. Study, learn and pay attention to what others are doing.
15. Analyze and optimize. Study your results. See what works and what doesn’t, what times and days are best to reach your audience, what style or tone is most effective.

If you’d like to learn more about how to use social media to enhance your brand, naturally attract customers and build loyalty with your existing customers, we’d love to help. Feel free to drop us a line at (203) 682-4585, shoot us an email at info@adedgemarketing.com or Contact Us and let us know how we can help.