The power of Social Media

Social media isn’t just there to grow your brand and connect with old friends, when done correctly, the big platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and Instagram can play a key role in creating new business leads and attracting new customers.

Let’s take a look at how Trumps triumphant yet surprising win in the USA presidency last week has been marked as ‘the first true social media election’ of all time. We know that social media is forever growing in users; since the USA election in 2012, Facebook now boasts more than 60% monthly active users along with Twitter’s influx of more than 185 million users. This substantial increase in active users made social media the obvious option for reaching voters and creating global conversation. The Wall Street Journal summed the situation up nicely when it said the “traditional media” and the Democratic and Republican parties have lost “dominance” of public opinion to the “digital revolution.”

Trump and Clinton succeeded by getting people to talk both about and with them. Both candidates had an on-going relay in campaign messaging, barely missing a day without updating Twitter. The power of social media has had a similarly positive impact on helping businesses create leads and reach new consumers, just like Trump and Clinton searching for voters. We see typically between 5% and 15% of our clients web traffic coming from social media to see whether you are achieving this you do of course have to monitor the evaluation tools of each form of social media and google analytics.

Some of the key features on social media can allow businesses to create free engaging content, set up paid for adverts, upload 360 degree imagery and post live footage in order to potentially reach thousands and thousands of people.

We’ve listed a few pointers to help your business shine on social media:

1. Keep content regular – It is important that you’re constantly posting on social media, we don’t mean every minute of everyday but enough to ensure your business is being seen and your content is fresh in users mind.

It can take a little while for you to build social media followers, it never happens in an instant but the more engaging content you upload the more interaction you are likely to receive thus driving website traffic and increasing likes, comments, click through’s and shares. Focus also on growing a relevant audience and not just chasing numbers for numbers sake.

What level of frequency should you aim for? We suggest you begin sharing up to two Facebook posts, 10 – 30 tweets and 3 – 5 Instagram posts a week.

2. Be engaging – The most engaging content on social media requires images, videos, links and graphics to be uploaded with your posts. This will increase the chances of your content being seen as users are more likely to interact and click play to watch short videos than they are to engage with words on there own.

3. Do your research – These days you’ll find the majority of businesses are using social media and moving their marketing budget towards digital and social media advertising but we are a big believers in doing research first, then testing and evaluating..

We recommend you distinguish where your audience is online, what platforms do they use? What is their daily routine, the times when they are online? Can you find key hashtags being used in your industry? Are there any popular conversations or weekly Twitter chats you can join in on?

4. Stay connected and honest – As well as posting your own content and driving traffic to your website, the key to creating new business leads on social media is to keep up to date with users in your industry, stay connected, follow competitors and find the top influencers that can help your content be seen by others.

Building an honest and positive brand reputation online is crucial. Once your live on social media pretty much all your content can be seen, reviews can be read and follower stats can be found. Consumers look at social media accounts when deciding on a purchase, make sure you are delivering content that says what’s exactly on the tin. Also finally, don’t forget the value and benefit of watching social media, it is not just enough to post and share, you need to respond to and interact with your customers.

We offer various levels of social media management as well as social media training, so if your social media marketing could do with a boost please get in touch.