I often come across this question several times a month. Being a business consultant, I help many startups and entrepreneurs with digital marketing planning.
While many of them are really great (good heart, great ideas and awesome team to name a few), I’m very surprised that not many of them actually know much about social media marketing.
Today’s article is all about giving you a quick head start in getting yourself (or brand) a digital footstep.
How To Start Social Media Marketing
Decide on your social media platform of choice
There are a lot of social media platforms in the world today. Dozens and dozens of them to be exact.
You don’t have to be everywhere if you can’t afford to. You see, social media is expensive and very time-consuming.
You can do more good things for your business if you focus less time on social and focus more on the business. Unless you are willing to hire a third party (such as consultants or agency) or a full-time staff, you are going to do social media marketing yourself.
So, here’s a list of the popular social media platforms that you can decide or consider:
- Google+
- YouTube
If you are seriously short of time but still want to have a digital footprint, consider using Facebook and LinkedIn only. There is NO right or wrong when it comes to choosing social media platforms to participate on.
Setup or update your social media accounts
Most business owners I know don’t update their social media accounts with the latest information and this is a BIG no-no for digital marketing.
Take some time to setup your social media account because nearly everyone is using social media to search for information.
Even my wife uses Facebook to search for the best restaurant to have dinner!
Setting up social media accounts doesn’t take long but it is certainly an important step to have a strong digital footprint.
Plus, don’t forget that this is a huge advantage especially when your competitors aren’t doing it either!
Publishing content on social media
Here’s the fact. You don’t have to publish content 10 times a day. As a matter of fact, you just need to publish content on a very specific schedule.
In this case, fix a time and make sure you stick to the schedule. Make no mistake as even doing once a week content update on social media is challenging for a lot of people that I know.
Keep in mind that publishing content on social media is no longer an option, it is a need!
Typically, I recommend business owners to publish at least once a day (weekdays) to keep your social media accounts fresh.
Scheduling like a professional (even when you are not)
Do you know that most social media platforms allow you to schedule content in advance?
Yes, they do. All you need is prepare the content in advance and schedule it accordingly to avoid missing the schedule.
For me, I schedule my content once a week (every Sunday) and it takes me less than an hour to complete. You can even do that over breakfast or tea time!
If you face challenges and looking for more advanced scheduling tool. consider using tools such as HootSuite, Buffer or Buzzlogix for your marketing needs. Not only that these tools are able to schedule content, they are very reliable and you can even get detailed reports from your marketing strategies.
Social media is a two-way street
You can’t just publish posts constantly and hope that people will engage with your posts. As a matter of fact, chances are very slim when you do that!
Instead, you need to take the time to communicate with your audience. The best way for this is to reply to messages and help out in anyway possible.
When you engage with your audience on social media, they will automatically be more engaged with you and would be more likely to react to your posts. And the magic happens when they start sharing your posts!
Stop promoting yourself
I love to promote my services, brand, and stuff. I bet you do too.
But here’s the thing. This is NOT the right way to do social media marketing. What you need to do is to share informative content to build trustworthiness in you, in the eyes of your followers.
Regardless you are sharing the “top 10 tips for ABC” or, “why CDE is better than ABC”, make sure you are sharing content that are worth reading and shareable.
This matters a lot because the main goal in social media marketing is to share content that matters most to the public.
Advertising is no longer a luxury
Back in those days, advertising is a luxury for the big brands. In today’s world, advertising is a must for all sizes.
For small projects, you do not need to hire third parties to do your social media advertising. Instead, you can just do it yourself easily (thanks to the technology we have today).
And don’t worry about the cost. You can start with a couple of dollars to hundreds for starters. The best part? You can decide when to start and stop your advertising because there is no specific agreement to tie you down.
Most social media platforms allow you to tweak the advertising on the go with just a few clicks of the mouse.
And yes, it is just a myth that social media marketing costs thousands of dollars. Of course, social media marketing could cost a tenth of thousands of dollars but it doesn’t mean that the starting cost is high.
Summary
Do you know how long it takes you to get started on social media platforms? Assuming that you are a complete beginner, it would take you under 30 minutes to configure each account to best represent your brand.
Trust me, this would be the best 30 minutes of your life because you are taking action to grow your business digitally.
What do you think? Have any thoughts on this? Leave a comment below and let’s discuss it further!
See also: Social Media Marketing Mistakes That Might Be Killing Your Business
