Should I use social media for my business?
Posted on 25th February 2021
It can be easy to dismiss social media as only being important for online business owners, but in today’s world it can play a vital role in marketing for your business no matter what type of products or services you sell.
More and more people are spending time on their phones which makes it even easier to get in front of those potential customers, and it's free which makes it even better than the more traditional ways of marketing.
Benefits include:
Valuable customer insights
Increased brand awareness and loyalty
Run targeted ads with real-time results
Generate higher converting leads
Provide rich customer experiences
Increase website traffic & search ranking
Share content easier & faster
Build relationships
There are many social media platforms and it can become a bit overwhelming trying to work out which one to use or whether you should use all of them.
So which platform is most suitable for my business?
Facebook
Facebook is one of the most popular platforms with over 1 billion daily users and 2 billion monthly users. Try sharing a variety of content on your Facebook business page and ensure you post regularly so that you keep your customers and potential customers regularly updated. There is a fine line between overposting and not posting enough. One post per day is the maximum recommended for most businesses. Keep your posts conversational but add value in order to spark interest.
LinkedIn
With over 250 million active monthly users it is the most used B2B (business-to-business) platform. If a user is following your company profile on LinkedIn then it is likely they are interested in seeing updates. Try to post regularly and share helpful content.
Twitter
With over 500 million tweets sent daily, it isn’t a platform that should be dismissed. It also has over 320 million active users each month and reaches a worldwide audience. It is a great platform to post promotional content on as well as online competitions, and funny thoughts related to your industry. You can be a little more lighthearted on Twitter and have fun with the content but still providing value. It is advised to post multiple times a day on here as it is easy to get lost in all the tweets!
Instagram
This platform has over 500 million active users! It is great for visual content in either stories, reels (short videos) or the regular posts. Posts should be photos or images that reflect your brand, your brand values and give insight into your company story. Stories are a great way to show ‘behind the scenes’ to your audience and for them to become more familiar with your business. Posting consistently and using eye-catching images are recommended for this platform.
YouTube
YouTube is a massive social media platform with over 1.9 billion monthly active users and over a billion hours of video content watched daily. By creating video content it can increase your audience, drive people to your website and increase the credibility of your brand. Most people search up ‘How to’ videos on YouTube, you can re-use content from your website and the recommended length for a video is 2 minutes. Make sure that you make full use of the keywords and SEO optimisation as this helps you to be found by potential customers.
Once you have been using the various social media platforms for a couple of months, you can work out whether some work better for your business than others.
Next steps
Get in touch with us today if you’d like advice on any aspect of running your business. We aren't social media experts but we can make recommendations, and you can follow my LinkedIn page to see how I use social media for Effective Accounting (LinkedIn is my favourite!). Feel free to give us a call or drop us an email. We’ll be more than happy to help advise you, taking your individual circumstances into consideration.
Written by
Nicola J Sorrell -
Effective Accounting
Founder | Xero Champion | IR35 Expert
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