Social Media Marketing Tips for Beginners

Social media marketing is the process of building brand awareness around your product or website by means of using social media platforms. You probably have one goal in mind when marketing via social media, and that is to drive traffic to your site as a means to gain more sales. However, there are other things to think about as well when developing a social media marketing plan.  In addition to assisting you in gaining new prospects, social media can assist you with customer service, as well as to help build your brand identity and a community of supportive & loyal customers.

To start with, you should really understand why social media marketing is important for the business person. Be it a blog or a product website, social media marketing has many pros that help to establish your business successfully:

  • Fastest way to spread the word about your product, service or site.
  • Social media is a growing trend among every household member.
  • The new way to influence people; many turn to social media to learn what’s popular.
  • Your investment, in both money and time, has a higher return on investment (ROI).

Now that you have a larger understanding as to why social media marketing is important for your business, it’s time to dive into some social media marketing tips for beginners:

  • Determine Which Social Media Platforms to Use – This is the key to success! Learn which platforms are being utilized by your target market/ audience and will benefit your product, service or site. Then setup profiles on those platforms.
  • Search Engine Optimize All Profiles – Using key messages and unique branding keywords in your social media profiles will be vitally important in business growth. Many social media profiles and posts are now searchable, especially LinkedIn.
  • Connect Site to Profiles – These days there are a lot of automated ways to connect your business to your social media platforms for auto-publishing of new content. Also, Pinterest allows you to connect your site to see analytics.
  • Add Social Media Icons to Your Site – Have a way for users to easily click over to each social media platform to follow you and share their favorite things from your site. Make sure they are visible on every page and not hidden on a contact page.
  • Find and Follow Influencers – Research the best of the best in your niche market and follow those users, as well as follow those who follow them to build your numbers.
  • Follow Users Back – Keep a balance between the number you follow and those who follow you, this makes you look like a reliable, trustworthy business.
  • Share Interesting Updates – Have fresh content on all social media channels daily. Keep a mix of images and text updates to increase the chance of re-shares from your following.
  • Don’t Overshare – Learn that not all platforms need constant updates. While you can update Twitter frequently, stick to 2-3 updates on all other social media platforms.

The key to learning social media marketing as a beginner is to take one step at a time and focus on the long-term goal – more sales and exposure of your brand. If you take time to follow each step listed here, then you will be well on your way to success in business online.