Do you own a small business and are in search for effective ways to help it grow? Do you want to attract more leads to your startup? Or have you heard about the power of social media and are wondering how you can leverage this power to enhance your business performance?

Well, small and medium-sized business owners face many challenges such as minimal support staff, limited capital, and generally having too much work to handle within a very short time.

So, how do such busy business managers and owners grow their businesses without overspending on marketing? One of the easiest ways is to use technology. And social media is among the most powerful tools you can use.

Here is everything you should know as a marketer or small or medium-sized business owner to start making better sales using social media.

Generally, social media marketing involves the use of social media platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, MySpace, and Google Plus to reach to a new audience and successfully create a specific product brand awareness.

By spreading a positive word regarding a product from one user to another, social media marketing aims at gaining greater legitimacy for a marketing message. This is because the message will be shared between trusted friends and followers.

According to professional digital marketers and various studies, Facebook and Twitter are the leading social channels for social media marketing. YouTube holds the third position, followed by LinkedIn and Google Plus. Note that these networks are associated with a large bundle of benefits to small and medium-sized business owners.

The primary goal of social media marketing is to make your brand get noticed and offer value to your audience. To achieve this goal, marketers and business owners must create an effective social media marketing game plan. This is the process that involves just a few but well-formulated steps to help in achieving the primary goal of social media marketing.

Note that social networks can help you achieve the following;

  • Share with your audience and prospective clients details regarding anything new regarding your organization. It is advisable to give your audience valuable information and they will be encouraged to share it with their friends and followers.
  • Create strong relationships with your clients. It is easy to lose a customer if you don’t speak to them. Social media presents a good opportunity for you to connect with your audience and keep conversations flowing
  • Share great content that will compel your followers to share it with their friends
  • Build a very strong brand within your region with a consistent message.

Therefore, it is recommended for business owners and marketers to create a Facebook account, LinkedIn account, and Twitter account. Experts recommend that you should tie your site together to have all your Facebook posts tweeted and probably published on LinkedIn.

You can also create irresistible high-quality videos and your business and upload them on YouTube. Remember, videos are powerful and show well in search results because many marketers and business owners are not using this feature.

It is also recommended to create a great blog and keep your community informed about your latest product, a great offer, and other details related to your company. Ensure that your social media profiles and blog are linked back to your company website.

It is time to start creating and posting excellent Facebook posts, Tweets, and sharing information with your audience on other great social networks. Here are the top social media marketing best practices for both marketers and business owners.

1. Start with a well-designed plan

Every effective business strategy starts with an outstanding plan. And social media marketing strategy isn’t an exception. Remember, it is easy for anyone to use social networks and it might be tempting for both marketers and business owners to dive and begin posting without having a good plan.

Unless you have a great plan, it will be challenging to track your efforts and achieve your social media marketing goals.

Here are tips to help you create an effective social media marketing plan.

  •      Use the SMART framework to create your social media marketing goals
  •      Conduct thorough research on your competition
  •      Conduct an effective social media audit
  •      Create a realistic social media marketing calendar.

2. Choose the right platforms for your business

Never make assumptions regarding where your target audience, particularly millennials, spends their time when surfing the web. Probably your instincts are telling you to ignore Facebook and focus on Snapchat and Twitter.

However, a recent study by PBNPilot reveals that 82% of millennials are still using Facebook. Note that you can always use various social networks to reach the right audience or meet your business audience.

3. Know your target audience

The use of social media allows marketers and business managers to micro-target their audience. But first, these professionals need to know who their target audience is.

By acquiring data on your current clients, digging deeper into your social networks analytics, you create a clear picture of the customers purchasing from you and the people interacting your brand online. Having such information will make it easier for you to create a great social media marketing plan.

4. Build strong relationships

One of the unique benefits of social media compared to other digital marketing channels is that it lets you, the marketer, to talk directly to your followers and customers. Focus on using this chance to create strong relationships over time instead of bombarding your audience with promotional messages every day.

A recent report from Twitter and Research Now shows that 93% of social media users following SMBs on Twitter intend to purchase from these businesses.

When your audience interacts with your ads and organic content on social media, you can always respond and that can help you build trust. Creating Facebook Groups is also a great way of building a big community, establish lasting relationships, and successfully create brand loyalty. It is wise to establish connections and relationships with other influencers and entrepreneurs in your industry.

5. Prioritize quality over quantity

Let’s face it; the sheer number of social media advertising options for SMBs is quite overwhelming. However, you don’t have to do it all. It is wise to create quality content on a few social media platforms. This will help you connect with your target audience rather than having minimal presence in all social networks.

You should also make sure that the posts you are creating and posting on your social channels offer value to your clients. If you just focus on telling people to buy from you, there will be little or no motivation for them to follow you. Keep in mind that social media marketing is all about establishing great relationships. So, be human, honest, and offer great content.

6. Use the right social media marketing tools

The hack to highly effective social media marketing is taking advantage of various tools that help you to automate and make all your marketing tasks achievable. There are many tools you can use to achieve better engagement management, analyze the performance of your social media content, create high-quality graphics, monitor the overall performance of your social media marketing campaigns.

Conclusion

For most marketers and small business owners, social media marketing can feel overwhelming. However, you no longer need to rack up tens of millions of fans or followers or overspend to make your marketing campaigns more effective. When used correctly, social media is a great marketing strategy that can help your business grow. Implement the best practices discussed here.