If you’re a business owner, you need a website. And if you have a website, you can’t ignore the power of social media marketing to expand your business reach. Most business owners these days are already using social media to promote their services… But the truth is, many of them have no idea how to really do it effectively.
But there’s good news! It’s not hard to learn a few tips and tricks to boost your social media and reach new clients. It all starts with having a goal, knowing your target audience, and from there, it’s as simple as giving them what they want.
Here’s what you need to know to start expanding your reach and boosting your success using your social media.
Why Is Social Media Marketing Important for Businesses?
Pretty much your entire target market is on social media. If you’re selling anything to anyone under the age of 80, then they’re online (albeit in different places online). The simple fact is nobody turns to books, encyclopedias, libraries, phone calls, or visits anymore when they need information or services.
They turn to the internet. This means when your target market is looking for your product or service, you can bet they’re searching for it online. Online means Google, but it also means social media.
This means your social media channels can be a valuable tool for driving website traffic, engaging with your audience, building confidence and trust in your brand, and ultimately, increasing sales.
How Can Social Media Marketing Help You Expand Your Business Reach?
One of the great things about social media is the opportunity to share. If you’re putting our valuable, shareable content that your target audience enjoys, it doesn’t just stay with you—your people will share it to their own networks.
This means that if you do social media right, you’re essentially leveraging the audiences/connections of the people who are already your fans. That means you’ve got a huge range of people who could potentially become customers right at your fingertips.
How to Create a Social Media Marketing Strategy
The key to reaching those potential customers in your current audience’s friend groups is to create shareable content. But in order to do so, you’ve got to know who you’re talking to.
From there, it’s a simple process… Although be warned, you need to give it at least a few months of consistency before you’re likely to start seeing tangible results.
Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to create a social media marketing strategy to start expanding your reach and gaining new customers and clients.
Understand Your Target Audience
You can’t create shareable content if you don’t know who you’re creating it for. What appeals to you might not appeal to your audience, so it’s essential to know your audience! Try to nail this down as definitively as you can.
A fun trick is to create “customer avatars” that embody your audience and make them as human as possible. This will give you a great indication of your real customers’ pain points and worries, so you can address them upfront.
Let’s assume you’re selling a “Muscle-Building Mastery” workshop for middle-aged people. Here are a couple of potential avatars you might use:
Bob
Bob is a middle-aged man with a wife and few kids. He works long hours, so he doesn’t have much time to get to the gym. He’s got a “dad bod”, with a bit of extra weight that he’d love to get rid of. Bob would like to feel like he did in his 20s: energetic, strong, and attractive to his wife. But he’s worried about finding time to work out, and he doesn’t know where to start.
Jane
Jane is a middle-aged woman with a husband and three kids. She works a half-day job and tends to the kids in the afternoons, leaving her feeling tired and without a lot of time for herself. She’s 20 pounds overweight and self-conscious, but she just doesn’t have the energy to go for a run. She’s heard that weightlifting can be a great way for women to lose weight, but she’s not sure that’s true… Doesn’t it make them bulky?
Choose the Right Social Media Platforms
Once you know your target audience’s age, demographics, and interests, it’s easier to figure out where they might spend time online. Older generations tend to favor Facebook, creatives enjoy Instagram and younger generations like TikTok.
Figure out where your audience is hiding and go there. You can choose one or two platforms to focus on—there’s no need to be on everything. In fact, it could be overwhelming and make you less efficient, so choose one or two wisely.
Create a Content Calendar
Plan and create your content upfront. You should be working a month or two in advance, at least! This means if you do have to skip a day due to illness or unforeseen circumstances, you’ve still got plenty of content to go out.
You can put out any content you want, but make sure it’s relevant to your audience and your niche. Here’s a quick tip: check out what National Days are coming up that could be appropriate to create content around. Also, think about content that would solve a problem for your reader.
Set Goals for Your Social Media Marketing
Goals can help you see if you’re on the right track. Set small ones in the beginning, like “Get more traffic to the website”. Set a time frame too; we recommend two to three months. At the end of your time frame, see if you’ve achieved that goal.
In this case, you’ll need to know roughly how much traffic you were getting before so you can compare it to how much you’re getting after those few months.
Creating Engaging Social Media Content
There are two keys to social media content: value and engagement. You provide value to your audience and encourage them to engage with you in return.
Your content should fulfill a purpose for the reader. It can answer a question, solve a problem, make them think, give them new ideas, or simply be an enjoyable read. But there needs to be something to attract them and keep them interested in the post.
When someone leaves a comment, likes your post, or shares it, other people see that. And that’s extremely helpful to expand your reach. Encourage people to engage as well, and make sure to reply to/like as many comments as you can!
Paid Advertising on Social Media
In the beginning, paid advertising is worthwhile. The idea is to eventually gain enough organic traffic that you don’t need paid ads, but an ad a month can be valuable in expanding your audience.
Call to Action
Your CTAs (calls to action) need to be effective. The main gist of your content should be to provide value to your audience. But you NEED to have a compelling CTA at the end. This is your invitation to get more—buy your product, sign up for your services, read a blog post, check out your website…
You can have multiple different CTAs in your content. BUT—you should only have one CTA per piece of content. Direct your reader/listener exactly where you want them to go at the end of your content and give them a compelling reason to go there!
Analyze and Measure Results
Pouring your effort into social media is pointless if you aren’t analyzing your own results. Is your social media having a positive effect on your business? You won’t know unless you’re analyzing some metrics.
Keep an eye on your social media metrics, as well as on your website traffic and where it’s coming from. Remember the goals that you originally set—these will be your markers for success.
Your goals may change along the way, but as long as the data shows progress, then you’re on the right track. Keep going—social media is a long game, but one very worth playing!
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