Social media rules the world. Don’t believe it? Look up from your device, and I bet at least half the room is scrolling TikTok or Instagram.
Recent stats report that 4.7 billion people are on social media. Typically, the younger the generation, the more active they are.
Check out the stats from e-Marketer about how many members of each generation are spending time on social media:
- 49% of Baby Boomers
- 77% of Generation X
- 90% of Millennials
If you have a Gen Zer in your house, you already know they are glued to their devices. Stats show that members of Gen Z spend nearly 3 hours a day on social media, which is approximately 30 minutes more a day than members of any other generation.
As a side-hustler with a rockin’ new website, the world’s obsession with social media is excellent news for you. People like scrolling social, and social media influences 71% of consumers’ purchasing decisions.
Tips to Grow Your Business Using Social Media
1. Make INTERESTING Business Profile
This seems like a no-brainer, but you’d be surprised at what you might be missing out on. Unless you’re going for an ultra-minimalistic look, your brand’s Facebook Page should be filled out. Add a monthly check-in to your social media checklist to explore new features.
In the About tab, you have space to add links, including other social networks’ profiles. The Story section allows you to give more information about your company in a storytelling format.
2. Hashtags for Your Brand
Instagram recently added the ability to link other accounts and hashtags to your bio. Originally, people had to make do with memorizing the hashtags or creatively using an emoji. Now, you can use the space to promote other location-specific accounts and add hashtags.
These hashtags can be your standard branded ones or special hashtags, like for a contest.
3. Follow us Channel
Some of the easiest cross-promotion for cross channels is occasionally reminding your followers that you have other social media accounts. You don’t need to be shy about asking people to follow you on social media, or on other networks. This can be as simple as a link to a given social media page accompanied with a call-to-action asking people to follow the account.
For a more subtle approach on cross-promotion, use space in your bio to mention that you’re on other networks. For Snapchat-heavy users, a profile photo change to their Snapcode works well.
4. Be Unique
If customers are searching for you, your website is usually the first to pop up in the search results. Make it simple for them to find the social networks that you’re on. Many website themes now incorporate social media icons that you can easily fill out.
Take the icons a step further by adding your brand’s graphics or colors to it. Some websites use short banners while others are happy with changing the color.
5. Create Targeted Ads
There are many ways to target someone with ads on Facebook. To begin with, you can add the Facebook Pixel to your website. Once you’ve done so, you can set up ads to target website visitors automatically.
Take advantage of Facebook’s audience data to target interest groups. If you’ve recently shopped online for shoes, you may notice that you’re receiving more shoe ads than before. That’s because Facebook noted your shopping habits and added you to that interest category.
Once your ads are set up, you can manage comment that you will receive on your Facebook message.
6. Provide Social-Only Discounts
In traditional advertising, you see weekly deals in the newspaper or receive discounts in email. Social is no different. These discounts are served to a certain segment of your audience and end after some time.
The simplest way is to offer a code in a post. Experiment around with social-only discounts. Try doing flash deals with limited quantities in Instagram Stories or posting an Offer on Facebook.
7. Contests & Giveaways
These are a no-brainer for brand awareness. Setting up a low-barrier contest for your brand is simple and there are many examples of successful contests. The easiest giveaways are those where the fans have to do very little to enter. These are also the highest in engagement. If you’re just starting out on contests, we would recommend this route.
Conclusion
There are plenty strategies that you can use to promote your business via social media. Above are only few examples. Maybe you have other interesting ideas. Please let us know!