{"id":24185,"date":"2021-02-15T08:49:32","date_gmt":"2021-02-15T06:49:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.reliablesoft.net\/?p=24185"},"modified":"2021-06-29T08:29:46","modified_gmt":"2021-06-29T05:29:46","slug":"market-business-without-following","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reliablesoft.net\/market-business-without-following\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Market Your Business on Social Media Without Following"},"content":{"rendered":"
Social media can be one of the most effective marketing channels for all kinds of businesses.<\/p>\n
The biggest social media platforms have a large audience base and make it easy to target users based on their interests and personal characteristics.<\/p>\n
While a big social media following can be beneficial, you don\u2019t need to have a huge following to market your business on social media.<\/p>\n
In this guide, I\u2019ll go through how to market your business on social media even if you have zero followers.<\/p>\n
Benefits of Having Social Media Followers<\/strong><\/p>\n There are several benefits to having a large number of social media followers<\/strong><\/a>. To start, it indicates popularity. A social media profile with 10,000 followers is obviously more popular than a page with 1,000 followers.<\/p>\n Pages that are more popular appear more trustworthy, which is key to standing out in today\u2019s competitive landscape.<\/p>\n Pages with more followers also have a wider audience base to reach with organic posts. Not all your followers will see your posts as social media platforms continue to update their algorithms to cut down on the number of people you are able to reach with organic content.<\/p>\n But even if your organic posts only reach 4% of your followers, a page with 10,000 followers will reach ten times as many people as a page with 1,000 followers.<\/p>\n Before you invest the time and money to market your business on social media, it\u2019s important to understand that not every business should focus its attention on every social media platform.<\/p>\n Each platform has a different purpose and functions in a different manner. Each also has a unique user base as different demographics prefer different social media platforms.<\/p>\n Producing great social content and maintaining a highly-active presence won\u2019t do much good if the people that you want to reach are not present.<\/p>\n You should find the best social media networks for your business by defining your customer profile and understanding the prominent demographics of the user bases of the most popular social media platforms.<\/p>\n Defining your customer profile<\/strong><\/p>\n Your customer profile should list all the traits that your ideal customer would have.<\/p>\n Start by analyzing your current customers to find common attributes among them.<\/p>\n Here are some of the attributes you should look for:<\/p>\n Once you have defined your target customer profile<\/strong><\/a>, you can compare it to the predominant user base of each social media platform to find the best matches for your business.<\/p>\n Social media platform demographics<\/strong><\/p>\n Let\u2019s take a look at the core characteristics of the audiences for each of the most popular social media platforms.<\/p>\n Facebook – <\/strong>Facebook is the most popular social media platform (not counting Youtube) and has a healthy amount of users across all demographic groups as over 50% of all age brackets (except those 65 and over) use the platform. It is also equally popular among men and women and different levels of income.<\/p>\n Instagram – <\/strong>Instagram is predominantly used by people between the age of 18 and 29 and is more popular among women than men. The audience is spread fairly evenly among income brackets but is slightly more popular in urban areas.<\/p>\n Twitter – <\/strong>Twitter is more popular with younger age groups and is used equally among men and women. Individuals with at least some higher education use the platform more than those without it.<\/p>\n Pinterest – <\/strong>Pinterest is more popular among women and people ages between 18 and 49. Pinterest\u2019s user base also has a higher average income which can make it a very effective channel for businesses selling luxury goods.<\/p>\n Linkedin – <\/strong>As a social network for professionals, LinkedIn is most popular among users between the ages of 18 and 49. Like Pinterest, users have a higher income on average when compared to platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. LinkedIn is popular among decision-makers at companies so if your business sells B2B products or services it can be a great channel for generating high-quality leads.<\/p>\n Resources to Learn More About Social Media Marketing<\/span><\/p>\n Once you identify the social media platforms that present the best opportunity for your business, you will need to create your accounts and begin optimizing your business pages so that they have the intended effect.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s examine the different elements of your business pages you should optimize before creating content and trying to grow your following.<\/p>\n As I break down the key components, I will use USAA\u2019s Facebook page<\/strong><\/a> to give some firsthand examples of a business optimizing its profile appropriately.<\/p>\n Up to date info<\/strong><\/p>\n This may seem obvious, but many brands create their social media accounts and never complete their profiles. You\u2019ll want to create a high-quality description of your business, filled with accurate information.<\/p>\n Locations and contact methods should be up to date and if your profile is linked to a store catalog, only available products should be present.<\/p>\n Facebook will take the longest to complete as it has more profile fields than other social media platforms. The core information such as locations and contact details should be the same across all your social media pages.<\/p>\n Your business description doesn\u2019t need to be exactly the same as you can make slight adjustments to account for the design and audience of a particular platform. But there should be consistency across platforms as you should use the same keywords and present your brand in the same manner.<\/p>\n If you look at USAA\u2019s Facebook page you\u2019ll see a complete and up to date description as well as current contact information.<\/p>\n Images<\/strong><\/p>\n Images are a core part of any business\u2019 social media profile. They help convey your brand\u2019s messaging and are effective for engaging your target audience.<\/p>\n Images on your business page should be high-quality, relevant to your target customer profile, and consistent. Consistency across your images will establish your brand identity and make it easier for your customers to recognize your business on sight.<\/p>\n Upon scanning the images on USAA\u2019s Facebook page, you\u2019ll see a consistent use of the company\u2019s blue branding color throughout the photos.<\/p>\n Friendly URL<\/strong><\/p>\n For business profiles, having a clean URL (or social media handle) is important for maintaining your brand image. Friendly URLs also make it easier for your audience to search and find your business page.<\/p>\n In the same way, consistency across designs and images can increase brand recognition, consistent social media handles\/URLs across can have the same effect.<\/p>\n If you look at our example USAA Facebook page, the handle is as simple and direct as can be:<\/p>\n https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/USAA<\/p>\n Any visitor who wants to contact the company through Facebook Messenger can simply type in @USAA to pull up the chat.<\/p>\n If you look at the URLs for the company\u2019s Instagram and Twitter profiles, you\u2019ll notice they are the same with a simple \/USAA.<\/p>\n Profile image, logo, and cover photo<\/strong><\/p>\n Your profile image and cover photo are usually the first things a visitor sees when landing on your business page. It is generally a best practice to use your business logo as your profile to provide immediate brand recognition.<\/p>\n Each social platform has different requirements for image dimensions for cover and background photos so you want to be aware of the differences so that your photos fit with each platform.<\/p>\n Contact points<\/strong><\/p>\n Your business page should make it easy for your visitors to know how to contact you. The important contact points to provide on your page include:<\/p>\n Platforms like Facebook and Instagram have contact points built-in to the platform with Messenger and Direct Message.<\/p>\n For these communication methods, it is important to actively monitor and respond to incoming messages as these are channels many visitors will use when they want to reach out to your business for the first time.<\/p>\n Call to action<\/strong><\/p>\n If you want to eventually turn your visitors and followers into leads or customers, eventually you will need to get them to take some actions after landing on your business page.<\/p>\n By adding a relevant call to action you can get your visitors to take the step down your marketing funnel<\/strong><\/a>. This could be visiting your website, signing up for an email list, or purchasing something from your Facebook Shop.<\/p>\n Going back to USAA\u2019s Facebook Page, in the About section you can see a CTA directing users to their site with the following message:<\/p>\n Find out how we are supporting our members and the community at usaa.com\/coronavirus.<\/p>\n After you create your social account for the most relevant platforms and optimize your business pages, you\u2019ll want to begin adding content to your pages.<\/p>\n Doing so will make your business appear active to any visitors instead of having pages that look deserted and unmaintained.<\/p>\n If someone were to land on one of your social media pages and the most recent post was weeks ago, that person is unlikely to follow you or come back and check for updates.<\/p>\n After all, what\u2019s the point of following a business that isn\u2019t posting content?<\/p>\n You can start by posting links to content on your website, whether it\u2019s blog posts or product pages.<\/p>\n If your business lacks relevant content to post, you can get started by sharing other pages\u2019 content to add some activity to your profile.<\/p>\n If you begin posting content on social media without a coherent plan, you are not likely to find success.<\/p>\n To ensure that you are getting the most of your social media marketing efforts, you\u2019ll want to define your marketing goals and determine how you will measure your progress towards those goals.<\/p>\nHow to Market Your Business On Social Media Without a Following<\/h2>\n
\n
1. Choose your social media networks<\/h3>\n
\n
\n
2. Optimize your business pages<\/h3>\n
\n
3. Add some posts to your pages<\/h3>\n
4. Set your marketing goals<\/h3>\n