When it comes to growing your business, social media can be a great ally. It’s a fast and affordable way to expand your network of customers and build recognition for your brand. However, not every business is going to be able to take advantage of this; for example, if you have little experience building your brand or if you run an offline business that doesn’t have the time or resources to invest in growing it online. Luckily, there are still many businesses that don’t have access to these resources but are still able to succeed with their digital strategy. In order for your small business to grow successfully on social media, you need a plan. Lots of them. Here are some of the ways building a community on social media helps improve the growth of your company:
Get user feedback quickly and consistently
If you’re running a social media marketing campaign, you want to know what your customers think. Whether it’s to find out how your product or service is performing or to get user feedback about a new idea, you want to hear back from your audience. But how do you find out what your customers really think if you can’t find them? The beauty of social media is that you can easily find an audience and interact with them without having to rely on a marketing department to track down leads. You can find your customers on social media and start conversations that will lead you to discover what they think of your products and services.
Provide consistency in your messaging
As mentioned, when you’re growing your company on social media, you want to find a way to consistently reach out to your current customers, and build new relationships with new customers. There are a few ways you can do this. You can create a social media calendar so that you’re able to plan out your posts and establish a scheduled content schedule. With a calendar, you’ll be able to schedule social media posts to go out at the same time each day, which will make posting consistently much easier as you’ll be able to focus less on creativity and more on posting with your other duties such as marketing, sales and administration. You can also use tools like Hootsuite, Buffer or Sprout Social to help you schedule social media posts, track social media metrics like the number of views, comments, and shares, and schedule your social media management.
Build brand awareness and credibility
One of the best ways to build brand recognition is through partnerships and community. By establishing partnerships with other businesses in your field, you’ll be able to offer a content exchange and get exposure without having to advertise your brand. By working with other businesses, you can offer a community exchange that will help build brand awareness and increase credibility by providing a voice for other businesses. By working with other businesses, you’ll be able to provide great value to other businesses and build brand recognition. Partnerships and community is a great way to build brand awareness and increase credibility.
Increase sales and engagement with content marketing
With a community on your social media, you’ll be able to find content ideas from your customers and build a library of content that you can repost at any time. To get started, take notes on posts you find on social media that are useful to your customers. Search for blog posts, product reviews, images, and other types of content that you find helpful. As you scroll through social media, take notes on posts you find interesting, helpful or funny. When you’re ready to build a post, you can use content from these notes to create a post that helps your customers and provides value to your audience. By finding the things your customers are interested in and sharing those posts, you’ll be able to create a variety of content that will help drive engagement.
Extend sales through event management
With an engaged community, you’ll be able to create and host events. An event is defined as any type of gathering or programme that you hold at a specific location. To host events, you’ll want to start with content. While there are a variety of ways you can host events, the most effective way is to create useful and helpful content that will help your audience
Grow your company by developing partnerships
With a community on social media, there are many opportunities for partnerships and community development. When building partnerships and community, you would want to find other businesses who are in similar industries as your company.
Improves customer relationships
Social media can be a great tool for building relationships with your customers. When looking to build these relationships, choose those that are interested in the same things that you are. Find the social media channels that your customers use and engage with them on those channels. By participating in conversations with customers on social media, you can build a relationship with them and provide great customer service.
Builds brand recognition
Building brand recognition and creating community are two of the best ways to help your company grow on social media. Through community building, you’ll be able to find content and repost it so that your customers can see it. This content can be useful to your customers and repurposed from other sources. By creating useful content and repurposing it from other sources, you’ll be able to build brand recognition while helping your current and new customers.
In conclusion:
If you’re not already using social media to build a community for your business, you’re missing out on a valuable opportunity. A strong social media presence can help you connect with customers and potential customers, generate buzz about your products or services, and get feedback about what’s working and what isn’t. An active, engaged community can also provide your business with free marketing and publicity. When members of your community share positive experiences they’ve had with your business, their friends and followers will see it too. This kind of recognition can be invaluable for small businesses that are looking to grow their customer base. So, if you’re not already using social media to build a community for your business, now is the time to start. You’ll be glad you did!
About the author: The author is a trainer and digital communications strategist. He has over seven years of experience serving in diverse communication roles with international non-governmental organisations, government agencies, impact consulting and NGOs in North, East, West and Southern Africa – offering value to their projects through capacity-building and by making their projects visible, audible and influential through the use the appropriate tailored strategies, content and channels.
Twitter: @ghanabakwamena
LinkedIn: Cecil Ato Kwamena Dadzie
Email: [email protected]
