7 Tips to Build a Trusted Profile for your Business using Social Media
“Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid egg cackles as if she laid an asteroid” — Mark Twain
Are you someone who has a Facebook account that has been dormant for months? Did that initial high of likes and comments by your family and friends give you enough dopamine to not post anything again? Then this article will be your saviour.
A lot of SMEs and MSMEs, quite often neglect their online brand building. With a great focus on offline and word-of-mouth marketing, they fail to start creating meaningful content online. This delay in going digital can make or break your business. Especially in a situation like the COVID-19 pandemic, it is imperative that you start executing your social media strategy as quickly as possible. Consumers rarely buy from strangers, so it is time you engage with them on a conversation.
Here are 7 tips to build and manage a trusted profile for your business using social media:
- Stop overthinking. Start taking action
This simple solution is most often the toughest to execute. Building castles in the sky is fun but does not translate to results. You might have the grandest of all ideas but without execution they are meaningless. Let perfection not be the enemy of good. Even if it’s a simple post about why you built your business, just go ahead and post it. It could be a blog post, a story on your Instagram, or a post on Facebook. Hit that post button and plunge into the vast ocean called social media.
2. Build a tribe. Build a community
Now that you’ve started, focus on the right things. The content you put out represents you, your company, and what you stand for. Let that do the talking. Love your audience and they will love you in turn. A magician who tries to fool people can never be as successful as a magician whose focus is on entertaining the audience. Stop ‘generating’ content for your customers and start making useful content for people who will benefit from your business. Build a community that enriches your life as much as you do theirs.
3. Show the real you
You might be in the most crowded sector but nothing trumps originality. Show the real you. Don’t get into shortcuts and false marketing gimmicks. Understand that once the content is online, nothing is stopping anyone from copying you but, the more genuine and organic you are, the harder it is for someone to reproduce the same thing. Here’s a tweet we love on this topic!
4. Tailor content based on the platform
By now, you have an idea of what kind of content to post. Where do you think you should be posting actively? There are a lot of platforms and you have to figure out what works best for your business. If witty content is your forte, then all you need is Twitter to shine through. There will be a point in your digital foray where you will have content to post on multiple platforms. Don’t fall into the trap of posting the same content on all of them. You might be talking about the same thing but, tailor the content to cater to the needs of the relevant audience. Don’t use Twitter as Instagram and vice versa.
5. Plan your Content Strategy
Having a plan can save you a ton of time in the long run. The few hours you spend on planning your social media content can help you be consistent with your posts and stay away from anxiety about not having anything to post. Bring in various aspects of your business and utilise that to plan your weekly or monthly social media calendar. This also works well if you are working with a team. Engaging topics with a genuine desire to contribute to your community can make all the difference between you and your competition.
6. To focus or not to focus on the numbers
Revenue, sales, cost — these numbers are what impacts any business but do you have to measure social media metrics with the same yardstick?
Impressions, engagements, likes, views, reach, etc., can be mind-boggling and like money, never enough. This is what makes social media addictive. The constant dopamine rush in the form of virtual likes has made our minds numb.
We will not tell you to not focus on numbers but know that they are just metrics to help you stay on track. Use it as they were meant to be used — to understand if you are growing or have plateaued. Use insights to keep you and your team on track and to focus on what is working and what is not.
7. Build a team or DIY?
Know that you don’t have to make things happen by yourself. Most often than not, entrepreneurs and founders shy away from delegating their work and want to be the one-person army who did it all. But at what cost? If you have the means to expand, building a small team or hiring freelancers can be the best decision you make. You are banking on reliable people who do their best while you are focusing on the parts that you are good at. A win-win situation.
Do you think we have missed anything? Do let us know!
MangoLeap is a ‘digital personal-trainer’ to help SMEs acquire and retain more customers using the troika of technology, analytics, and social media.
To leap your business forward, get in touch with us on connect@mangoleap.com
