Growing your business with Social Media is one of the easiest things you can do in 2022. This is not just because of the growing popularity of Social Media. It is largely because most Social Media platforms are adding more business-friendly tools.
According to Statistica, the number of worldwide users on social media is projected to hit a whopping 4.12 billion active users per month by 2023. That’s more than one-third of the world’s entire population! So, it’s obvious that the social space, more and more, is engaging the majority of the world’s citizenry.
Also, the COVID-19 pandemic helped in many ways to get more people active on social platforms. And this is a robust opportunity for businesses. My job in this article is to help you with unique strategies that will help you grow your business on social media.
Building Your Social Media Presence
As a business owner where to start is building your social media presence. With so many people now on the social space and more predicted to come, you need to take your social media presence seriously.
I believe you already know how important social media is to your business. Let me now show you how to take advantage of the opportunities that it brings. I know how difficult it is these days to get accurate information online. Like many others, I have fallen into “information overload” myself. There, I will help you navigate these milky waters.
With Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Youtube, and other platforms, plus videos, blogs, etc. as options for online marketing these days. An obvious observation is that businesses are struggling to identify the most profitable social media strategy to use for their business. So, I singled out several eminently successful businesses on social media and observed their strategies for effective online marketing.
Here are the four strategies they are using on social platforms to fuel business growth:
1. Use Social Media to Drive Traffic
So much has changed on the social landscape since the pandemic. Many businesses are actively driving traffic from their social platforms to some very unusual destinations. Brands now drive traffic to Whatsapp instead of their main website. They even use WhatsApp as their e-commerce store.
Many businesses are doing so well with Whatsapp marketing that they have totally forgotten about their website. It is what most brands (big or small) are actively doing right now. Check their Facebook, you will see a WhatsApp messenger icon, asking visitors to chat with them on WhatsApp. On Instagram, their bio link is also their WhatsApp link.
This is most probably because the easiest platform to close sales today is WhatsApp. Bringing anyone to your WhatsApp automatically exudes trust. Besides, WhatsApp is a direct messaging platform with the highest open rate in the world.
Related Article: All You Need to Know About WhatsApp Marketing in 2022
Action Step: Create your WhatsApp link and make it the central platform to drive traffic to, from all your social platforms.
2. Use More Video Contents
To keep your audience engaged and growing on the social platform, you will need lots of engaging videos. Text and images are good but videos are super interesting as well as engaging.
A quick visit to your favorite social media platform will convince you that video is the effective content now. Go to Instagram and you’ll notice that the feed of most businesses is replete with video content instead of text and images. In fact, algorithms have changed, evolving to prefer video content over other content formats. And that’s something the leading brands have noticed: A whopping 86 percent of businesses already use video on their website, and 77 percent use video on social platforms, according to Vidyard statistics.
And beyond video content, more and more businesses are following the algorithm recommendation of smaller videos. Tiktok started with reels and Instagram tried it, saw that users loved it and it becomes the yardstick of video content. You too can start using lots of video content to attract more business.
Action Step: Go to your analytics to see how well your videos are doing.
3. Influencer Marketing
You can 10x your business awareness just by using targeted influencers on social media to market your products for you. Make sure you pick the right influencers that compliment your business.
What influencers will do for your business is to help you establish trust authority. Their followers trust them and just by being associated with your business, your business will gain their trust too. Trust is a rare commodity in the social space, and influencers can help you get it.
Influencers marketing begins with awareness and will gradually develop into consideration and then trust. What this means is that you need a strategy to use influencers. My recommendation is that you use one influencer again and again until his/her followers can trust you before going to use another influencer.
Before choosing which influencer is best for your business, you must first consider two things. First, find out if that influencer has the kind of followers that will be interested in your business. Second, look beyond the number of followers to the number of engagement.
Action Step: Find an Influencer in your niche. Start with a micro-influencer if you are low on budget.
4. Value and More Value
The general rule on social platforms is to make sure you provide massive amounts of value before asking for anything in return. In other words, don’t ask anyone to buy anything from you until you have provided loads of value.
Never forget that customers hate being “sold” to, but love to buy. One surefire way to have your customers line up to do that is to provide a massive amount of free value before asking for a sale.
Arguably the leading expert of the value-first concept is Gary Vaynerchuk, author of Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook, in which he explained how to provide free valuable content to your audience on social media to build trust and entice visitors to buy.
Action Step: Decide on the value you will consistently give and then the hook-line you will inset afterward.
Bonuse: Story Telling
Use social media to tell your brand story and successfully differentiate yourself from the competition.
People generally love great stories. Your potential customers also love stories. We all love stories because our everyday life is filled with stories. Also, it is because stories are so simple we can easily relate to them. In stories, we find ourselves and live through the life of those in the story.
“This means, if you want your brand to stand the test of time, you need to be telling your brand’s story across social media to differentiate yourself from competitors, build deep connections and trust with customers and earn your customers’ loyalty.”
Let people remember you with your story.
Whether yours is a personal brand or a company brand, you can use any social media platform to tell your brand’s story, and quickly differentiate yourself from the competition. No matter how many social media transformations we see in the next decade, we humans are going to be drawn to the same fundamental things. This means customers being drawn to stories they can relate to and brands they can deeply connect with.
