Nearly 48% of the world’s population is on social media, and this makes social media an effective marketing strategy for all businesses. However, there are many social platforms, and as a busy small business owner, you may not have the time to stay active on all social media accounts.
Not only is the engagement to multiple platforms time-consuming, but also costly. That’s why it’s crucial to identify a few social media platforms and focus on them. This guide explores the four main steps that you should follow to determine the best social media platforms for B2B marketing. Read on.
1. Set Your Goals
A great social media strategy starts with goal setting. The goals should keep you aligned and focused on what you exactly want.
Why do you want to use social media platforms for marketing? What exactly do you want to achieve? A 2016 study found that brand awareness is the top reason why many marketers use social media.
Here are other practical goals that you could have for your business:
- Increase traffic to your website
- Generate more leads
- Acquire potential clients
- Grow your revenue through social media ads
- Increase your engagement with your clients
You can have more than one goal. Just ensure that your goals are objective, realistic, and easy to measure.
2. Identify Your Audience
Your audience can help you choose the ideal platform. Proper knowledge of your audience allows you to pick the social platforms that they use. Also, the knowledge can help you know what to post based on the interests of your audience.
Here are vital things to keep in mind when choosing your audience:
- What kinds of people buy your products/services?
- What is their education or income level?
- What’s the average age of your customers?
- Are they male or female?
Answers to the above questions should guide you to know your audience better. Also, it can be a good idea to go deeper into the personal characteristics of your audience.
Attributes like the lifestyle of your audience, attitude, and personality can help in target audience identification.
- Are your products affordable to your audience?
- Does your audience struggle to reach the products?
Note: it’s possible to have more than one target audience based on different characteristics. Be sure to capture the interest of each audience to offer the best.
3. Understand The Available Social Media Platforms
You need to understand the available social media platforms for you to choose the best for your needs. Now that you have your goals at hand, which platform can help you achieve those goals? Also, what media does your audience use? Let’s look at some of the best social media platforms for marketing to active users:
Facebook is the leading platform. Most people use Facebook to connect with friends, have fun and get news. You can therefore rely on the platform to increase your customer engagement and build more brand awareness.
You can use it to post your business, comment, use live sessions, and so on. Helpful tools that you can use on Facebook include messenger, paid ads, closed groups.
Most people use Instagram to post and edit their photos and videos. Instagram works best for visual-based businesses such as food, art, beauty, and so on. You can utilize it to post videos and images of your business products regularly.
To succeed on Instagram, you should utilize the store’s section well and focus on superior storytelling. Your post should also be qualitative rather than quantitative.
Most people use Twitter to get news and connect with other professionals. The platform utilizes hashtags to communicate key headlines, and so you should learn how to use hashtags to communicate your brand well.
Since the platform is excellent for news, you can utilize it to advertise your events. Helpful tools that you can utilize on Twitter include Twitter chats and live tweets.
Pinterest is a graphic-based platform. You can use it to post types of content like recipes, DIY ideas, beauty and style ideas. Since the platform is solely about graphics, you should ensure your pictures are large and clear enough for visibility.
YouTube
YouTube is a fast-rising social media platform for posting videos. In business, you can post how-to videos, explanatory videos, behind-the-scenes videos, and much more. The key is to keep your videos as clear and engaging as possible to attract the most views and subscribers.
With more than 347 million users, LinkedIn is a great platform to showcase your work and what happens there. It is a business-oriented platform, and so you can use it to post vacancies for your business and engage with other business professionals. Your posts should be confident, and you should post them during the weekdays.
Here’s a breakdown of the social media channels:
- Social networks – Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter
- Networks to share content – Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, TikTok, Pinterest
- Discussion platforms – Reddit, Quora
- Publishing and networking platforms – Tumblr, Medium, WordPress
Note: each particular platform has unique rules and regulations regarding its usage, the language to use, the videos, and copyright issues. Make sure you read through the rules of each website to stay compliant.
4. Monitor Your Performance and Iterate Your Strategies
With time, you may notice that the marketing strategies which used to work for you no longer work. If that’s the case, you should come up with another strategy. For instance, if your Q&A sections in Instagram are no longer working, you can decide to focus on the live sessions more.
Every month, you should measure your social media post performance to know which ones attracted the most likes, comments, and shares. Seek to understand what made those posts stand out from the rest and what you can do to make your future posts shine as well.
Grow Your Business with Social Media
It’s no doubt that social media has greatly helped businesses grow. Learn how to use different social media platforms for marketing and be consistent with your posting. If you have a busy schedule, find a social media manager to help you manage business accounts as you concentrate on other aspects of the business.
Are you ready to dominate the top social media platforms? Designzillas is here to help. We are a top digital marketing agency that helps businesses attract and convert customers online. View our digital marketing services, and allow us to help you grow your business.
