Almost every industry leader has a successful social media strategy that strengthens their brand image and increases their visibility. Popular businesses like Nike and Mercedes boast millions of followers across multiple platforms, and even niche brands like Crocs post engaging and original content to Instagram or Facebook every day.
But, as an entrepreneur, developing a social media strategy usually ranks low on your list of priorities. This is understandable, as social media can be intimidating for the uninitiated, and mastering the skills involved in posting, interacting, and monitoring your social media pages is time-consuming.
However, social media has much to offer you. Over 55% of consumers learn about new brands via social media, and 68% of consumers actively engage with companies via their socials.
This means that developing social media skills is increasingly important, and mastering the basics should be a part of your overall growth as an entrepreneur.
Become Digitally Literate
Being digitally literate ranks highly amongst the most important skills in the “new” world of work. Improving your digital literacy also increases your value in the job market, and staying on top of trends and tech is a great way to ensure that your business remains relevant in competitive markets.
Spend time on social media platforms as a user to improve your understanding of each network’s strengths and weaknesses. For example, if you want to start a TikTok account to grow your business, you’ll need to abide by the best practices for use. Successful campaigns on TikTok are high-quality, relevant videos that involve collaboration with trusted content creators and aren’t obvious sales promotions.
Remember that digital literacy is a skill and, as such, takes time and effort to develop. If you feel overwhelmed, start small with a single Facebook page and focus on growing a clear brand image before diving into more complex issues like interaction, visibility, and content management systems.
Analytics
Using analytics is essential for all social media strategies. Fortunately, social media networks like Facebook and Instagram have inbuilt analytic tools that are user-friendly and fairly easy to set up. You’ll need to have a business or creator account to access analytic data, but getting access to these accounts only takes a few minutes.
Once you have a creator or business account, you can use analytics to assess things like reach, and engagement. You can use these insights to create better-performing posts that align with your overall brand image. For example, if you notice that the best-performing posts involve people using your product, try to create more content that involves customers or clients.
You can also use social media to determine your target audience and better understand their behavior. Feedback from ad impressions and Facebook’s “Insights” tool gives you a snapshot of everything from location to values and attitudes. This can be used to tailor your next marketing campaign and shift your product or service to better suit your audience.
Monetization
Monetizing your content can be a fantastic form of additional revenue stream for your business. Monetized posts and content look different on each platform, and revenue is generated in different ways.
It’s fairly easy to monetize your Facebook page. Meta — the parent company behind Facebook — has a free eligibility checker that quickly confirms whether or not your page is appropriate for monetization. Once you’ve passed the eligibility check, you’ll have options to collaborate with similar brands or place in-stream ads if you live stream at any time. Just be aware that you will need at least a few thousand followers to be eligible for partnership or in-stream ads.
You can also monetize on platforms like Instagram and TikTok, although these platforms are not built directly around monetization. Instead, your best option is to create brand partnerships and post sponsored content. To do this, you’ll need to post regular, quality content with decent reach and relatively high engagement.
Conclusion
Getting to grips with social media takes time and effort. However, crafting quality, engagement-rich social media content is a sure-fire way to grow your business and expand your reach. Start by researching the different platforms available to you, and get a good feel of your audience through analytics and engagement posts. Once you’ve got the basics masters, you can add income to your business by monetizing posts and partnering with similar brands.
