Social media has grown from being just an outlet that we once occasionally dipped into out of curiosity, to transforming the way businesses communicate to their target demographic. Understanding factors like search engine optimisation are now crucial for businesses to grow. Here at Thunderbolt, our social media marketing team have the experience and expertise to capitalise on your brand’s social media Guildford or London presence and use it as a drive to increase customers to your business.
It can be hard for a business to crack the challenge of standing out on social media so as experts on controlling and managing our clients social media accounts, here are our top tips for using social media.
- Pick the right platform
With so many social networking platforms available, it can be confusing and difficult to decide which one is right for your business. Don’t just choose them all; it is about quality not quantity so it’s worth finding out who your customers are and where they are online. If you are looking to grow your presence on social media Guildford customers can call on Thunderbolt Digital and our team can make sure that you are utilising it to its fully capacity and then implement changes to improve it.
- Increase website traffic and search ranking
Social media can give an extra boost to the search engine marketing of your business’ website. If you use social media wisely, it can drive more traffic to your company website. The more social media shares you receive, the higher your search ranking increases.
- Choose the right name
Whichever social media platform you choose for your business, you will need a ‘handle’ (account name). You should make yours consistent and available for you to claim on each network that you want to have a presence on.
- Be social
It may sound obvious but when you join a social network, you need to be social. You shouldn’t just be preaching to your audience, but engaging them and interacting with them. Get involved in discussions and reply promptly to any messages or comments. You can find out more about your customers and their needs by interacting with them and showing the friendly ‘accessible’ side to your business.
- Hire a social media manager
To use social media properly it takes time, valuable time. Working with an online marketing company like Thunderbolt you can take away the stress of your social media planning and networking and instead be able to get on with the rest of your business.
- Use analytics
There are hundreds of tools to analyse your social media campaign success and failure. Many are free and a part of the site itself, while others provide a third-party analysis. To make analytics work for us, we don’t just collect reports, but we share and analyse them before implementing our response for improvements.
- Beware of trolls
There is a downside to social media and unfortunately that’s what’s known as social media ‘trolls’. Once you start gathering a big following, you may start receiving negative and contentious messages on your social media. You must handle them professional and recognise when to publicly respond and when just to ignore.
- Use hashtags carefully
When posting online it can be tempting to include a clever hashtag every time but just using a good hashtag that ties all the elements of your campaign together can be more efficient. Make sure the hashtag isn’t be used for something else and remember to use a hashtag that is easy to spell and remember.
- Offer social media customers something special
Offering your customers an incentive like discounts and giveaways for being a follower or liking your social media account or ‘favouriting’/’re-tweeting’ your posts can result in a growth to your social media numbers grow enabling you to expand.
- Post in a timely manner
Make sure you know the best days and times to post for as a business for your targeted demographic. It might be that Monday to Friday from around 10am and 4pm is best for you. But this will vary depending on who you’re targeting so make sure you do your research.