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Are you looking for better ways to connect with your business clients and customers? In today’s world, reaching your customer base and target audience via social media marketing isn’t an option; it’s a requirement. In other words, if you’re not connecting to current and potential clients online, business growth and sustainability opportunities are extremely limited.
Read this article to discover how to make better business connections with customers and clients through social media marketing.
However, let’s first recognize that every company conducting business online will connect with their current customers, clients, and target audiences differently. And there are some guidelines we must take advantage of when incorporating social media marketing strategies with them.
When executed correctly, social media provides the ideal scenario for building lasting B2C and B2B relationships and making meaningful connections.
We’re discussing the following:
Social Media Marketing Still Works… When You Work It Right
Gone are the days when businesses considered social media too impersonal for establishing nurturing relationships and conducting business with customers or clients online. Yet, using social platforms as an extension of your digital marketing campaign efforts has proven to be the best way to make meaningful connections with current and potential customers!
In truth, SMM remains an innovative strategy for the following achievements.
- Getting to know your customers’ preferences and needs better
- Connecting with them in their preferred social spaces
- Reaching them when they’re already online searching for products, services, information, and for entertainment
First, set up your online social communities properly.
And the most critical aspect of starting a social media community is choosing the platforms your customers and target audiences use most. It also helps to ensure your social platforms best complement your business industry.
Choose Your Platform
For example, utilizing Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter offers various ways to develop connections with social media users. And even if your business already has its own social platform page, you can step-it-up a notch by establishing an online community exclusively for your followers and clients/consumers. Some social media platforms, like Facebook, provide a free option for creating social groups on your company terms.
Begin Posting with Purpose
And once you’ve set things up, it’s imperative to begin posting regularly with industry news, product updates, and interactive activities. As you build your online culture, you provide an avenue for current and potential customers to become a part of a vital community that shares their values and ideals.
Monitor Comments and Follower Feedback with Care
Lastly, ensure you stay on top of online responses and posted comments from your followers. When there is a problem, connect immediately and offer viable solutions to reassure them that you care and hear them2!
In addition, their comments and responses provide vital insights into who your customers are, what they like and need, and what isn’t working for them. Overall, social media communities offer another level of quality assurance and meaningful rapport for your customers and targeted audience.
What should you post? Pictures and videos and demos— Oh my!
When it comes to business social media posts, it’s not just about HOW often you post, but also WHAT you post! In truth, what you post is more important. Why, may you ask? Because what you publish must always create reasons for current and potential customers to keep coming to your platforms and end at your responsive website.
Show rather than tell. 
People prefer watching videos and demos about products and services rather than reading about them 8 to 1. So, instead of consistently creating text posts, shake things up by incorporating video3 content and demos that include creative details about the following.
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- Your Business
- The Culture
- Vital Industry News & Future Insights
- Product Uses & Features
- Excellent Customer Service & Testimonials
Make your posts about more than just business.
Another perk of employing SMM is the ability to be slightly informal online and more relational with your followers. Your posts don’t have to be all about business; instead, consider sharing personal stories about how your product or service made someone’s life better and more productive.
People love authenticity in posts. So, if your company has a remarkable culture and a well-knitted community of positive people4, be open to sharing business stories and outcome updates regularly. Followers enjoy viewing posts about the exciting things happening within the company and how the culture celebrates staff, leaders, and their customers/clients.
And in addition to company news, products, and services, consider promoting industry topics pertaining to key social media events happening nationally and internationally. Humorous, intelligent, insightful, and inspirational posts can merit significant boosts in your following!
When should you post? Well, it depends!
You can utilize a variety of factors to determine the best times to post. Hootsuite, for example, offers professional recommendations on what times are best to post on social media. Those suggestions are based on the following:
- Your industry type
- When your followers are most active online
- What times to post based on social topics/subjects
Speaking of topics and social subjects, you should always post about things your company supports, especially during real-time local events, national news, and social headlines. Posting about community trends and hot topics is a great way to support what you value most and display your business stance on the issues. But be careful in this, however, by keeping your content clean, insightful, and highly professional.
When your company rallies around critical issues or supports vital community organizations and causes, tell your followers about it! During those times, it’s okay to toot your own horn and rally their additional support towards the cause.
Whether you have a large corporation or a local business, there are plenty of entities to support that are bigger than you and help guide your followers to also rally behind something great! Collaborating with organizations and supporting something other than your business shows your audience that you CARE and helps create brand awareness.
Overall, these posts, including engaging pictures, content, and videos (when appropriate), should be launched in real-time or ASAP so people can engage in the moment.
Essential Social Media Marketing Tips to Consider
And on a fundamental note, consider the following three posting tips—
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- Best Times- Posting in the afternoons or evenings on Wednesdays, Thursdays, or Fridays is ideal, as followers are more likely to begin winding down their days.
- Track & Measure- It would help if you also considered checking campaign performances and visitor behaviors by viewing monthly reports and analytics. This data provides additional insights into when your followers are online, which platforms they prefer, and when they visit your website.
- Post Conveniently– When you know they’re on, that’s the best time to post.
Where can you find true social media marketing success? Look no further than BUILDINGBLOCKS!
Let us assist your business with social media and other digital marketing campaigns. We aim to ensure you receive a tangible ROI and accurate results!
So, connect with us online to schedule your meeting time, or call 281-203-0529 for immediate assistance.
References
- Featured Image- Social Media Business Collaboration. Image concept by Austin Distel. Thank You!
- We Hear You. Business response concept by John Tyson. Thanks!
- Facebook video capture concept by Sticker Mule. Thank you!
- Inspiring business post concept by Ian Schneider. Thanks!
