Summary: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube are some of the most profitable businesses today that enjoy some of the highest viewership numbers. Let us analyze how to utilize them most efficiently, to make them an asset for your business too.

Social Media is the new bandwagon to the future, that mostly all millennials from Generation Z are riding. They are spending most of their fruitful day (more than 3 hours) on these apps and the numbers are saying it all:

• There are more than 4 billion people currently using one or more social media platforms growing at an average rate of 10% annually.
• 4% of Millennials, 77.5% of Generation X, and 48.2% of Baby Boomers are active social media users.
• As per reports across businesses, 71% of consumers who have had a positive experience with a brand on social media are likely to further recommend the brand to their friends and family.

In simple terms, a business with no social media outreach is like a bird taking its flight, with clipped wings. How will it take off with the add-on pressures of market competition and product and service launch deadlines, escalating costs of mobile app design and development, timely growth, etc.? Social Media, when well managed, ensures that businesses reach their intended audiences with ease and efficiency.

Why is social media so important for businesses worldwide?

Social Media coverage ensures that businesses receive their due in terms of fame, conversations, and opportunity to make it big in this ever-expanding digital market. The reason why they enjoy such a formidable presence in the digital marketing world include:

1. Its accessibility and approachability: As the above-stated numbers indicate, everyone is on one or the other social media handles. It’s where they spend time and in course of time, money as well. Understanding the importance of this time for marketers and businesses alike, many best social media apps like Instagram now allow them to offer direct sales options to their viewers. It helps businesses reach good numbers in terms of both sales and traffic.

2. Affordable: Social media platforms are so famous, because they offer their basic plans to users, completely free of cost. Businesses can also register with them free of cost and pay for advertisements on these platforms on a pay-per-click basis; as per their set budgets and goals.

3. Helps to build brands: People ‘talk’ about brands and social media enables these conversations for businesses. Not only do these platforms enable faster reach to your target audience; but also help attract user attention when they are focused on other things.

4. Direct Connect with your audience: Social Media handles allow businesses to post about their products, services, values, mission, projects, industry, etc. regularly; to develop content-related communication with the intended customers. This helps businesses develop a following, even before they might launch. Social Media apps nowadays also provide businesses and customers to connect directly on a one-on-one basis through their chatbots, messengers, and direct message services.

5. Get Reviews: If you wish to know how audiences are reacting to your business, its products, and services; it could be easily done through the business’s social media handles and the very genuine reviews that genuine buyers post there.

6. Collect market data: Social media and its tracked data are utilized by businesses to understand user requirements as well as expectations from businesses and brands. It helps entrepreneurs get a broad, yet realistic view of the market and audiences react to various industries and their nuances.

As the above stated, pointers are all important requisites of business development; social media tends to play an important role in the evolution of brands. But, effective social media strategy is easier said than done. Let us now analyze how you should be maneuvering these handles for maximum effectiveness.

Social Media Strategies that you should be Harnessing

Like every other business aspect, social media handles require a proper strategy and storyline in place to help businesses develop a loyal following. The below-stated options could help you achieve this target:

1.   Effective Content is Key

There are more than 4 million apps and more than 1 billion websites out there. So, the competition is fierce. To stay viable and progressive in these times, businesses prefer connecting with customers in as many ways as possible and social media takes center stage amongst all of them. With its prowess to develop a genuine following, social posts are vital for businesses in terms of traction and outreach that they may garner. Quality content ensures that a business handle connects with its customers and effectively develops an ardent following in time. It should be able to:

• Grab user’s attention
• Interesting for a viewer to read and look at.
• Shifts user’s focus towards the business at hand
• Seems realistic to readers.

Your content, apart from being plagiarism-free should be entertaining and, if possible, aspirational for the followers. It shall help you develop a positive image on your social media handles. Also, ensure that all your content is posted with actionable links or buttons, to provide options to viewers to directly reach your website and mobile app; as and when they might wish to.

2.  You should post some videos

Videos are known to garner much more viewership, are much more engaging, and are retained in the user’s mind than any amount of text. As a business, you need to leverage these facts. You can begin with downloading the best free apps for Android for Social media on your devices and register on them. This video can also be posted on your mobile app’s landing page and would get you more brownie points in terms of app store optimization as well. Well, videos, hook viewers to themselves, so a string of interesting video content is definitely a good idea for your social media handles.

3.  Paid Ads are always a good option

Paid ads are a great way to introduce a brand to tentative customers. As initial market days are important for every business to penetrate, paid ads tend to be the most effective. As organic traffic takes time to develop (unless and until some of your posts go viral), paid ads help you stay atop social media handles, helping to grab user attention even when they may not be looking out for you in particular. Social Media Handles like Facebook provides businesses with ample marketing scope as they track user data and provide entrepreneurs with options to customize their marketing campaigns as per their requirements and budget. With personalized dashboards, these platforms also provide entrepreneurs and marketers with insightful information about users and the strategies and timelines that could bring in the highest returns on investments.

4.  Social Media influencers are effective too

Social Media influencers are new-age celebrities. Every industry has its own set of famed experts and influencers. With a loyal following, that seems to visit their pages regularly; these experts tell their dedicated audiences (which generally runs into millions of followers) about the products and services they endorse and trust and their viewers tend to follow suit. Getting one or a few of these influencers to endorse your products and services on social media, could be a good way to reach their set of followers.

5.  Use social media handles as per their prowess

Every social media has its effectiveness and audience and they should be utilized as per these specialties to maximize returns on your efforts.

• Facebook: In terms of all social media handles, Facebook enjoys the maximum effect and viewability with more than 2.5 billion subscribers worldwide.

It allows businesses to develop their business page and join various business groups. These groups are in themselves huge platforms to buy and sell online. Facebook also allows businesses to post maximum types of content including text, images, videos, infographics, etc. The paid marketing Vertical of the platform provides its users with a dashboard to customize and maximize sales and traffic. So, a post daily on Facebook helps generate organic traffic directly.

• Instagram: Instagram is all about visuals, images, and videos. It has more than 600 million users globally and business-friendly features like direct sales option through ‘shop now’, story reels that end themselves within 24 hours of publishing, options to include engaging videos, contests, amongst others; makes it one of the social media platforms whose scope just cannot be missed.

• Twitter: If you wish to see real opinions, mindsets, and reviews, Twitter should be your best friend. The platform allows only 140 characters ‘ tweets’ to be posted at a time, but it seems to influence opinions worldwide. With user-friendly advanced search options that help businesses find relevant keywords, accounts, hashtags, and locations to connect with prospective users; it is one of the most effective ways to reach a larger audience.

Apart from the above-stated forums, you should have accounts on Youtube, Snapchat, and nowadays Quora too, to ensure you reach the maximum audience within the shortest time period.

6.  Contests and Giveaways:

If you are already an established business or a startup with some following, you could organize surveys and contests to help understand your customers better. Moreover, offering giveaways to your followers on social media, could help instantly raise your account viewership and thus, website and app’s traffic, downloads, and sales.

Social Media is a Must

More than 75% of marketers believe that businesses must harness social media platforms for business and building brands. Generating organic traffic and loyal followers might take time, but it is definitely worth the effort. If possible, go for it even before your product or website or app is launched. The earlier, the better!