Are You Optimizing Your Business’ Social Media Platforms?

Whether your business is large or small, a franchise or a “mom and pop” shop, you understand the importance of online presence and reputation. Your online branding and personality is your virtual storefront. Social Media platforms and review sites never close so your workday is never truly done. A customer or a prospective customer may be reaching out to you with questions or leaving reviews that need to be acknowledged any time of the day or night.

Finding time to look over each platform while having coffee in the morning and before bedtime can be overwhelming but time is of the essence and it needs to be done. If you don’t respond quickly to a question you are giving prospective customers time to shop elsewhere. If you don’t reply to a review quickly, your online reputation could be in jeopardy.

Big businesses aren’t the only ones benefiting from a strong Social Media presence. Smaller businesses see an average of a 40% increase in their customer base from the Internet when their online accounts are managed well.

Here are 5 ways that are often overlooked that can help your business achieve the goal of increasing your customer base. These tips show you how to use Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and LinkedIn more efficiently to reach your target market.

Your business can follow other businesses and community pages.

Communities flourish when companies encourage each other by showing support. Following other businesses’ Social Media and local community pages will also expose your company to potential clients.

Your business can like other businesses and community posts.

Visiting other businesses and local interest pages and liking their posts shows you are interested and supportive.

Your business can comment on other businesses posts and engage in conversation.

Commenting as your business encourages people to click on your company’s page. When engaging in conversation make sure that you are not advertising. Your comments should be sincere and show interest in the topic. Do not spam or promote your business on other pages.

50/40/10

We recommend the philosophy of roughly 50/40/10 when it comes to posting on Social Media platforms. 50% of your posts should be content shared directly from your website and 40% of your posts should be content created by you. Other shares can be fun, interesting and trending content coming from outside sources such as local news and Youtube.

Invite people to like and follow your business.

When someone likes one of your posts you can see if they follow you. If they don’t, invite them to.

On Facebook, for example, check the list of people who like a particular post and invite them to like your page if they haven’t already. We’ve found that people tend to like posts they see in their timeline but don't necessarily go to the source of the posting. The invite to follow your page is a polite way to say, "hey, you liked our post, check out our page".

By doing these 5 steps regularly, you will have a significant increase in organic followers that are within your target market.

There is a new feature on Facebook that can be very beneficial to your business. Some Facebook groups are now allowing pages to join and participate. Whether your business is a restaurant, clothing store or you offer a service, you can join gardening groups, buy and sell, or community newsgroups. You cannot advertise in a majority of the groups but you can comment and participate in a conversation “as” your business, which is a great way to expose your company to new customers and followers!

It’s important to remember that your website represents your business and your Social Media accounts represent your online reputation and behavior. Do your best to avoid local and national political content and ads.

Stay local to your target market, stay social, stay organic, stay active.

How many days would you wait for an estimate that you requested? How many hours would you wait for a reply? Put yourself in the place of your customer. It’s likely that you’re not the only company they will contact, which makes your response time crucial. It’s important to stay on top of your online inquiries and messages.