Building a Strong Social Media Presence that Customers Love

Building a strong social media presence is not rocket science.

However, still, many business owners find it difficult to create a social media presence that…

…their customers love because they underestimate its importance.

Or they overthink their overall social media strategy. Either way, they’re moving in the wrong direction.

When it comes to finding success with social media marketing, there’s little doubt that businesses need to have a real social media presence.

No wonder many small and large businesses are doing everything they can to join every relevant major social media site.

According to a study conducted by Simply Measured, Facebook is used by a whopping 98% of marketers.

Even a niche social networking site such as LinkedIn is regularly used by 64% of B2B marketers.

This just goes on to show that social media is serious business for serious entrepreneurs.

But in order to do so, you need to go beyond the superficial aspects of social media.

In other words, as a business, if you think that you need to invest a lot of money into producing great social media posts or…

…buy special camera equipment, think again.

The reality is, your social media content doesn’t have to be super professional or specially made to work.

Because remember, social media networks are made up of real people, who regularly share real and truly raw content. 

Your job as a business is to not appear artificial but blend in with content that people can identify with.

When your prospects and customers see you create and curate real content, they’ll connect with your brand at a much higher level.

Which will help you establish a better social media presence.

In order to make your social media presence more fruitful and achieve a better return on investment.

Your business needs to understand what makes social media special in the first place. Why do people use it?

Is it because of the ads? No.

Is it because of the number of big brands using it? No.

Is it because it has hundreds of millions of users? No.

What makes social media sites like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter special is the fact that people can connect to other people that they know.

Your customers are real human beings craving real human connections, and that’s why they are using social media networks.

If you truly want to create a social media presence that your customers love, then understand what these sites let you achieve as a business.

And that is building a meaningful community. A community that lets customers:

1. Have strong, relevant, and deep conversations with other like-minded people.
2. Share feedback (both negative and positive) about your brand, products, and services.
3. Consume your content and then share it with other relevant people in their own immediate network.

Keep in mind that creating social media profiles is free.

But it’s still a powerful medium to grow your audience and build a real business — only if you use it the right way.

Every social media network caters to a different kind of audience and offers a unique experience in itself.

Which means, as a business, you have a choice to decide how and where you want to build your social media presence.

8 Tips in Building a Solid Social Media Presence

#1: Set the Right Goals

Being a business, you should know time is money.

So when you’re investing in social media, you not only want to focus on achieving a higher ROI, but also a good ROTI (return on time investment).

By setting the right social media goals, you’ll know if you are making the most of your time, or if you need to change things.

But without any goals set, you’re only setting yourself up for failure.

Your social media activities need to be aligned with your marketing/business goals. There’s no other way around.

In order to set the right social media goals, and also increase your chance of achieving them, you need to ensure they are:

1. Specific enough so that you can not only plan well but also ensure you’re able to measure your actions as you move forward.

   Also, the more specific your goal is, the more clarity you will have. And with an optimum level of clarity, you’ll find it easier to take action.

2. Not extremely difficult, and at the same time not very easy.

   There has to be a balance in the goal you choose because if your goals are not reachable, your efforts will go to waste.

   And if they are too easy then you’ll not be achieving something significant.

Remember, any brand can start posting content on social media and be on the trending list.

But without a real purpose behind it, the content won’t help your brand build a social presence at all.

#2: Know Your Customer Well

Your prospects and customers have their own motivations/reasons for taking action.

Now, unless and until you understand what pushes them or influences them, you’ll not be able to experience real loyalty from them.

True relevance along with loyalty develops when your prospects/customers feel they have a connection to your brand and…

…are confident that they are being cared for.

If you want to build a strong social media presence, it’s important that you engage not everyone, but only your customers or potential customers.

However, in order to do that, you need to find out:

1. Who exactly falls under your target audience.
2. Which social media platforms they use the most.
3. What kind of interests they hold.

Every business that wants to effectively market itself using social media.

Needs to get in the shoes of their audience and truly know how they exactly engage with it. How do you do that? You need to…

• Know What they Share
  

People share and tweet a wide variety of content on social media, which can give us deeper insight into who they are and their preferences.

For example, if someone regularly shares video content and blog posts about startups, it shows that they are interested in startup-related topics.

They might be an entrepreneur, an investor, a startup enthusiast or anyone.

What matters is the topic they are interested in, as it allows you to target them with relevant offers.

• Know Who they Follow

Now, given the amount of data you have access to on social media sites.

It’s not difficult to find out who your customers’ are following or what kind of pages they follow.

By analyzing your social media followers in terms of what they like to follow.

You’ll be able to create intricate patterns that let you segment your audience into a relevant group of people that would be interested in your products.

• Know How they Engage

Building a social media audience is only one part of the equation.

The other part is keeping them engaged with relevant content so that they can connect with your brand.

Doing this isn’t complicated. Don’t be afraid to directly ask your followers the right questions through an email survey.

Or you can also look into your analytics to get a better understanding.

If you are unsure about how to do this, our team at LYFE Marketing can not only help you study/analyze your following but also…

…help you develop a loyal base.

Your social media presence will grow with time, given that you are putting in consistent effort.

However, without knowing your prospects/customers, you won’t be able to create the needed foundation for it.

#3: Develop a Multi-Channel Social Media Strategy

The importance of having a solid social media strategy cannot and should not be underestimated. It’s crucial for building a firm social media presence.

However, developing a personalized social media strategy is no longer a walk in the park.

Gone are the days when you could simply connect with people on your social media page, schedule posts, and everything would fall into place.

Today, there are multiple platforms out there, each with a different audience.

Many businesses think that coordinating their social media marketing activities across multiple platforms is easy.

But when they actually work on it, they realize that it can get complicated.

Which is why it becomes necessary to coordinate and plan your social media strategy across various, relevant networks and platforms.

When your brand develops a well-integrated multi-channel social media strategy, you’ll be able to:

1. Boost the level of engagement from your audience
2. Spread more brand awareness about your business
3. Improve the quantity and quality of conversions

Here’s how you can create multi-channel social media strategy:

a. Select Platforms Your Customers Frequent

One of the reasons why businesses fail to make an impact on social media is because they choose the wrong social networks to start with.

Eventually they end up spreading themselves too thin on every social media site out there.

You need to carefully select the platforms where you are likely to find your customers instead of randomly choosing one.

Build your social media presence where it actually matters.

As you move forward, you’ll realize that some social media sites are naturally “better suited” for your type of business and…

…the industry you are operating in.

To help you understand better, here are a few great examples from our friends at Hootsuite:

• Companies in the manufacturing business should leverage LinkedIn as it is the best social media site for effective B2B branding.
  

• Retailers should utilize the user base of social networks such as Instagram, Facebook.

  And, Pinterest because they are the easiest when it comes to sharing relevant visual content.

• Media/Entertainment companies need to build a strong social media presence on apps like Snapchat because…

  …that’s where the Millennials and influencers (their target audience) hang out.

The idea is to match your business interests with those of your social media audience.

And see which platforms can help you achieve your goal of building a solid social media presence.

b. Use A lot of Visual Content

Social media users are of all types, with different interests, at different ages. Which means the kind of content they like differs as well.

However, one common and consistent element amongst them, whether they are on Pinterest, Facebook or Instagram, is the love of visual content.

People on social media are more inclined towards images because humans are after all visual creatures.

Which means you should share more of visual content such as infographics, videos, slideshows, etc. so that you can get more likes/shares.

c. Tailor Your Content for Each Platform

Having a strong social media marketing strategy will help you get better results from a social platform.

And you don’t have to have a unique strategy for every social media network you are on.

However, if you truly want to build a real social media presence, you need to tailor your content for the platform you are focusing on.

If you look around, you’ll find that all social media platforms have different rules when it comes to content.

For instance, the character limit you have on Twitter is different than that of Facebook.

Which is why your message needs to be modified to suit each platform, keeping in mind it’s options & limitations.

Also, don’t forget to use hashtags on your social media posts to maximize its reach.

#4: Humanize Your Brand

Regardless of the size of your company and your niche, you need to work on humanizing your brand on social media.

Social media is about people having a relationship with people, not faceless corporations.

Your brand needs to showcase a real personality, or else your target audience will have a hard time connecting with it.

If you think people will get impressed if you present yourself as a huge, busy company, think again.

That might work on search engines like Google as you would establish yourself as a credible business.

However, when it comes to social media, transparency is everything. Especially knowing the fact that there are many scams going around.

Which is why people want to know the human side of your company. They want to connect to it on a personal level.

Many successful brands using social media know the importance of humanizing.

You’ll find brands helpfully replying to customer queries, sharing useful information, and even cracking jokes with their followers.

Your audience will expect your brand to have a human social media presence, or else they won’t take you seriously.

Helping people connect to your brand’s human side goes beyond carrying out a relevant conversation.

Many times it’s also about showing the face(s) behind the social media accounts.

Create a firm connection with your followers and getting personal with them becomes easier when you…

…share behind-the-scenes photos from your workplace.

#5: Maintain Brand Consistency

Let’s face it, one of the main reasons why you want to build your social media presence is to make your brand more recognizable.

You want your target audience to know who you are and what you stand for, which means mismatched photos and logos are a strict no-no.

The different social media platforms you operate on may have a variety of features and unique layouts.

But does that mean that your brand should try to be different on each platform? Of course not. In fact, it’s the opposite.

Your branding should remain the same across all social media channels so that there is a level of consistency.

Whole Foods, for example, using their recognizable logo as their profile picture across their networks, such as Pinterest and Twitter.

As you’ll notice, even their description is consistent.

Here’s why you should take brand consistency seriously:

1. When you create social media content, you want people to read it and share it. More importantly, you want people to remember you.

   Brands that are recognizable often get a better response to the content they post. And have a higher chance of being remembered in the future.

2. Having brand recognition helps you stand out from the rest.

   Which not only gives you an edge over the competition but also makes your brand memorable.

   If your branding isn’t consistent across different platforms, you’ll have a hard time setting yourself apart from other competing businesses.

3. Every serious business knows the importance of building loyalty and engagement amongst customers.

   If you want more of your customers to interact with your business.

   Give feedback and connect at a higher level, then being recognized and remembered goes a long way.

Maintaining brand consistency is not at all hard if you know what your brand stands for.

#6: Use a Content Calendar

Building a real social media presence is crucial for any business that wants to stand out from the rest.

And the best way to ensure that you’re on track to doing so is to use a proper content marketing calendar. Why?

Because it’s easy to scatter your focus across all social media channels you are on.

And having one can help you manage your business’ social media accounts in terms of creating and publishing content.

It gives you the needed clarity without overwhelming you.

The last thing you want to do is create content that delivers the wrong message about your business.

Having a social media content calendar not only helps you track your content’s performance.

But also lets you allocate your resources while being relevant to the interests of your target audience.

Using a social media content calendar basically helps you:

1. Save Time: In order to effectively build a social media presence, it’s important to manage time and use it efficiently.
   

   You shouldn’t overlook your posting schedule.

   A content calendar gives you ample amount of space/time to do your homework and produce engaging content beforehand.

2. Create Diversity: Armed with a social calendar, you can create and balance a diverse amount of topics according to what your audience wants.
   

   And brings down the chances of boring/overloading them with repeated topics.

#7: Post Consistent Content

If you’re just starting with social media, you may not be getting many things right. Which is okay.

But there are times when even businesses with experience in social media aren’t seeing results.

This is despite the fact that they have everything in place, right from the display picture to relevant content.

The real reason for their failing is they lack consistency in doing what needs to be done.

Just the way it is important to post quality and relevant content to your social media account, it’s also important to be consistent.

You may feel that your random social media postings at random times is working, when it is not.

You not only need to be consistent in posting your content throughout the week/month.

But also when it comes to engaging with your social media followers.

Lack of consistency will negatively impact your brand’s social media presence.

In order to build a strong social media following, and to maintain it, you need to post great content on a regular basis.

And once you have enough followers, you can tone down on it.

Whatever schedule you choose, daily, weekly or monthly, you need to stick to it.

You may post more or choose to post less. How often you do it depends on the type of business you run and the niche you’re operating in.

Remember, the real key to making social media work is consistency.

And if you’re thinking that doing this would take a lot of time and dedication, then you’re absolutely right.

However, there are now several social media scheduler tools for businesses available that you can use to help you. The most popular ones are:

1. Hootsuite
   
2. Buffer
   
3. Sprout Social
   
4. BuzzSumo
   
5. MeetEdgar
   

Using these tools will save you a lot of time by letting you plan and schedule your posts at once.

They also make monitoring and responding to your social media message easier and faster.

According to Buffer, ideal content consistency is a four-part formula or a four-slice pizza:

• Consistent Volume
• Consistent Quality
• Consistent Voice
• Consistent Topics

This just goes on to show that proper consistency is more than just good timing.

It’s also about the value of your content, the choice of your topics, and the trustworthiness of what you post.

#8: Focus on Helping, Not Selling

The biggest reason why you’re building a social media presence is to grow your business.

But that doesn’t mean that you should go out there and hard sell your audience.

Social selling is acceptable, but you shouldn’t use your social presence to bombard your followers with “buy it now” offers.

Even if you’re running an ecommerce business.

It makes sense to push deals/offers along with valuable content so that your approach doesn’t look salesy.

More important than that, you’ll have to answer the burning questions of your followers by replying to their comments/queries in a timely manner.

Or create more solution-based content that addresses the problem on hand.

When you’re doing social media marketing, you have the opportunity to position your brand as a strong authority.

You have the chance to impress your target audience and win customers for life. But that won’t happen if you pitch one product after another.

Offering real solutions to real problems makes you appear more helpful, and your products more genuine.

If you need help strengthening your social media presence, no matter which platform, our social media experts at LYFE Marketing will do just that.

Schedule a brief meeting today to discuss a customized social media marketing pricing plan just for your business.