If you haven’t already planned out your business’ digital footprint, particularly on social media, you shouldn’t be psyching yourself out by reconsidering the worth of social media marketing.  As a small business, you might feel overwhelmed by the work you already have on your plate growing the business, but let us tell you that the time and energy it takes to grow a business using social media is much less hardcore than doing it through traditional means.

Here are some tips that you can use to start up your social media marketing campaign without breaking a sweat, or the bank:

Brainstorm about Content

A social media account is useless if you don’t have anything interesting to post for followers who aren’t already customers.  You’ll need to figure out what you need to do to get more brand recognition and build rapport with the community.  Nobody likes it when business accounts just post sales and product promos in raw infomercial form.

A good starting point to get ideas on how to present your brand to the public is to follow your competitor’s feeds.  There’s no shame in a little imitation, as long as you are bringing your own unique flavor.

Interact and Socialize

It sounds obvious, but what you should do, before you do any type of marketing campaign on social media, is get involved with conversations that are happening in your industry.  Have an opinion about news and give advice to people to gain those followers naturally.  Retweet, share, like, and favorite posts to show that you’re not some corporate PR head and that you are a brand that understands your audience.

Inject Value into Posts

You must learn how to format your social media posts so that they are both eye-catching and valuable to your audience.  You could create informative posts that give solutions to problems, which may or may not include your products or services.  If your content follows too much of a predictable promotional formula, people are not going to respond well to that and you may lose your followers. 

Try utilizing infographics and memes wherever possible.  People respond well to visual information and are more likely to click on your links.

Don’t Focus on Short-term Results

It’s going to take a lot of time and dedication to grow your social media marketing reach, if you are doing it the honest and natural way.  Never settle for buying followers if you want your social media presence to become an authoritative voice of your niche.  You can experience a lot of growth from your fan base if you have someone assigned to managing your accounts and keeping them active every day.

For more information and tips & ideas, visit www.annekgroup.com

The Annek Group: It’s Your Brand. We Create the Buzz!