Social media is so much more than simply posting a photo of your carefully crafted latte or seeing what your friends were up to last weekend. Social media gives you the power to reach millions of individuals with your brand, cause, products and services. With an entire world waiting at your fingertips, it’s time to harness its virtual power and increase awareness with social media.
According to GlobalWebIndex, 54 percent of social users research brands on various platforms. That’s good news for your brand, especially given that there are approximately 420 billion active users on social media. That’s a whole lot of people who have yet to hear about your organization or company!
When used properly, social media can be vital to helping you increase awareness and connect with potential donors or customers on a personal level. If you’re utilizing social media in an attempt to grow your mission or business, consider these five tips for success.
1. Focus on them, not you.
When your customers or donors feel like they’re a part of your story, you’ll be better equipped to achieve your goal. Nonprofits need to “stop talking about me, me, me, and start talking about them, the donors,” shared Invisible People’s Mark Horvath in an interview with HootSuite. “This connects back to your nonprofit’s story being about your donors and not just the organization.”
The same logic applies to for-profit companies. Your marketing efforts should not be about how great of a business you have, but instead about what you can offer your customers. This helps them visualize what you can do for them.
2. Make it a team effort.
Luckily, you don’t have to tackle social media marketing alone. You can enlist the help of a social media team and even other supporters and team members. Start by developing a brand voice and guidelines for your social media platforms. That way, multiple people have guidelines on how your brand sounds, what types of words you use and so on. It means that although multiple people may be posting or interacting on your social media handles, the public will see a cohesive brand.
You can also enlist the help of your valued supporters, biggest fans and additional team members. Start by leveraging content that your audience is already posting about your business or organization and reshare that content. This is a great way to have an authentic presence on social media, all while building trust with your audience. When you are using what others are already saying, it adds a human element behind the post. Your posts are then coming from a person instead of a brand, which allows your audience to put themselves in that person’s shoes.
3. Show your passion.
You’re undoubtedly passionate about your business or mission. And expressing your passion on social media is vital to your online presence. Be authentic with your voice and the words you’re using. A rule of thumb with your posts or ads is to read them out loud. Does it sound like something a person would say? Often brands focus on being professional and forget to use a human tone. Talk about real things that matter to your customers instead of avoiding the tough topics. Your audience will thank you.
4. Interact.
Simply posting and walking away from the screen is a one-sided conversation. However, you know better. The very existence of social media is about building connections. Use this as an opportunity to build a community and connect with fellow organizations, potential customers and some of your biggest advocates.
To ensure two-way dialogue, you’ll need to reply to comments on your posts, like posts from others, retweet, reshare and comment on others’ posts. This helps build your brand’s identity online and gives you a distinct voice.
5. Don’t get stuck on statistics.
At times, you may find yourself getting sucked into your website’s analytics or the number of likes and comments on your posts. However, it’s important to look beyond those numbers. What matters is how your fundraising numbers are doing or how many sales your posts are driving.
Technology exists today where you can track the people who looked at and clicked on social ads and then purchased from your company or donated to your organization. Consider tracking what you can, but don’t get too hung up on how many people are liking and commenting on your posts. Some people simply like to click through to your website without interacting with the social post first. The likes and comments may not be an indicator of how successful the campaign really is.
If you’re ready to develop your social media strategy, we can help. When done correctly, social media marketing can help deliver a return on investment no matter the type of business or organization. A fruitful strategy is waiting, and we’re waiting to help.