Social media is an essential marketing tool for businesses, but it can be difficult to use it in the right way to see the results you want. In this Knowledge Is Power article, we’ll talk you through the three main components to success on any social media platform.
Before we do that though, it’s important to consider who your target audience actually is and that your business probably doesn’t need to be on every single social media platform. This is a mistake we see time and time again. So the first step to achieving your social media goals is identifying which platforms to be on.
What social media platforms should my business be on?
At Constructive Marketing, we look after a wide range of businesses’ social media channels and each one is on a different mixture of platforms. For businesses that operate in the B2B market, LinkedIn, Instagram and X is usually the way to go. Whereas one looking to target individual consumers needs to be on Facebook and Instagram or even TiKTok or X. This is only a general recommendation and where ‘knowing your audience’ really matters as you may find that a specialist platform, like Etsy, could benefit your business..
Of course, things aren’t usually that simple and for some clients we find that a two-pronged marketing approach works best for them. For example, some of our clients predominantly serve the B2C market, but can also supply to businesses. For them, a mixture of social feeds with varying content is the way to go. If you’re not sure where to start, it’s best to speak to an expert to make sure you’re on the right track.
The Three Main Components Of Social Media Success
With a combined social media experience of over 20 years, our social media team identified the three main components you will need for social media success. The great thing about these components is that they apply to each of the social media platforms and to any social media strategy. Regardless of what you want to achieve and on what platform you want to achieve it.
1: Accuracy
The first thing to understand before you start using social media for your business is who you are trying to reach. Whether you’re looking to increase brand awareness, sales, website visits or something else, you need to always start with that question – who am I trying to reach? Then you can move on to ask, ‘what is it I want them to do?’
This is the cornerstone of all marketing and is especially true for social media. The main aim of each platform is to show its users content they are most likely to engage with (and therefore keep them using the platform for longer and more often). So making sure that the content you’re creating will be liked by your target audience is key. This may seem like an obvious point to make, but you’ll be surprised by the amount of people that don’t do this. More often than not, people get carried away with creating content they like creating, or content that they would like to see in their own feeds. Rather than what is best for their target consumer.
2: Consistency
There are two ways that consistency is important to social media success: the amount of posts and the quality of the posts. Posting consistently is crucial to get the attention of any of the social media algorithms. Think of it like knocking on the door of a packed networking room. Eventually, you’ll be let in and be able to meet everyone inside.
Algorithms look for consistent activity so if you’re posting the same amount of times each week, your content will begin to appear to more people.
Making sure that the quality of the content is always good is the other way that consistency is key. We’ve written a whole blog post on why content consistency gets great results. In that blog post, we also give a couple of client success stories that show that it works.
3: Time
One of the misconceptions of social media is that it’s a quick fix that will secure sales straight away. Yes, a tiny percentage of posts do ‘go viral’ and create a huge buzz but in reality that’s not the case. Building interest and reputation through organic social media activity is a long game. Remember that, above all else, the aim of social media is to build a relationship with your current and potential customers, and this takes time. You wouldn’t walk up to a complete stranger, ask them to marry you and expect them to say yes, (unless you’re on ‘Married At First Sight’ of course!).
It’s the same with social media; why should you expect people to buy from you after you’ve put out just one post asking them to? Instead, you need to take the time to build a relationship with them and gain their trust before they even consider becoming a customer. Your post also needs to direct that potential customer to a credible source of more information, such as a specific landing page on your website.
There are lots of different factors at play that impact the time it will take so it’s important to trust the process. One of the mistakes business owners make is cutting their social media budget too early.
Implementing these components into your social media
It’s best to put the components into practice in the order we’ve listed them in. Identifying who you’re trying to reach and what you would like them to do is an important first step to getting the results you want from social media.
We offer a diagnostic service that involves a half-day meeting with one of our experts to identify where you’re going wrong and what you need to be doing instead. Once that’s been done, we’ll produce a non-obligatory strategy that we can help you implement or you can take elsewhere. If this sounds like something you would benefit from, get in touch with us.
Once your audience has been identified, you need to make sure that they will like the content you’re producing. This is where the consistency component comes in and, as we said, there’s a whole blog post on our website about why content consistency gets great results. Which we recommend that you read to gain a better understanding of what good content is and why posting it consistently will help you succeed.
When it comes to making sure you post the same amount of times each week, it’s important to pick a realistic amount for you. There’s no point aiming for a post a day if you’re not going to be able to stick to it. Not to mention the fact that a post every day isn’t the secret to social media success. Instead, why not start with a high quality post once a week?
Time was the last component in our list and for good reason. Once you’ve implemented the first two things, the next thing to do is wait for them to pay off. There’s no set time frame for this which is why it’s important to constantly measure your social media and make changes where necessary. By all means, give things time, but make sure you’re reacting when things aren’t immediately working.
Know when it’s time to bring in an expert
Social media is often seen as something that anyone can do and as such, business owners are reluctant to pay an expert to run it for them. If you’ve got to the end of this article and you’re still a little confused, there’s no harm in asking for help.
Using social media for your business is a must in the modern world so it’s important that you get it right. It will not only support business growth, but also protect your business’ reputation.
Getting the help of an expert doesn’t need to be a full-time thing, it could instead be just a half-day meeting to establish the right strategy for you which you can then implement yourself. A common mistake we see people make is getting a non-professional on-board to run their social media.
While you may think that it’s great because at least you’re posting to your social channels, not having a social media expert on-board often means that the posts aren’t part of an overall strategy. Which makes them less effective at doing what you want them to do.
Start seeing the right results from social media
Get in touch with us today to find out how getting a social media expert on your side can revolutionise your social media results.
Whether you’re just looking for a strategy, someone to write longer pieces of content that can be made into social media posts, or an outsourced team to look after your social media communications, we can help. Give us a call on 01903 686858 or email social@constructivemarketing.co.uk to have a chat about how we can help.