Building Your Business With Social Media Marketing

You know that social media can be a powerful tool to help you build your business. But how does that work, exactly? Do you just open a Twitter account or a Facebook page, post some stuff, and then sit back and watch the customers beat a path to your door?

Oh, if only it were that simple! This article originally appeared on lightningstrikestudios.com. If you’re reading it anywhere else, it’s stolen. Please let me know at jules@lightningstrikestudios.com

Using social media as a tool to promote your business isn’t difficult, but it does take time. Basically, there are 3 phases to this.

Establish Contacts

The “social” in social media requires interacting with people. You do this by following other people, liking and commenting on their posts, and sharing them. Some of those people may view your profile, follow you back, and like and share your posts. A few may visit your site.

Should you share content from your competitors? That depends. Is the other business really a competitor? Do they provide a service similar to yours, but for a whole different geographic area? Or do they cover the same region, but provide a different but complimentary service? Especially if the latter is the case, sharing content from such a business could actually help you. They may be inclined to share your posts in return, which would increase your exposure. It could even lead to an exchange of business.

Draw The Right People To Your Site

You do this by posting your own content and linking back to your site. These posts need to highlight the value of your business, showing the benefits of the services you offer that people may not be able to easily handle on their own, or the benefits of the products you provide that people need.

Your posts should have real value. Entertaining posts, or posts about controversial subjects that have nothing to do with your business may generate views, but are unlikely to attract paying customers.

Once People Are On Your Site, Turn Them Into Customers

You’re not going to see the results you hope for unless your site is able to convert visitors into customers, to convince them to do business with you. Building an effective website that does this is an art in itself, but here are a few basic points:

Have a visually appealing, easy-to-navigate site with quality content.
Highlight the benefits of your service and establish your expertise.
Make sure that each page has a single, clear focus.
Make sure that each page and each blog post has a call to action, linking to your contact page.
Make your content worth sharing and easy to share, with properly functioning social media buttons.
Ensure your site is fully responsive, easy to see and easy to use on a small screen mobile device.

Related platforms, such as your YouTube channel, should have a look and feel consistent with your own website. Your profile on those platforms and all content should link back to your site. Here, too, your content should reflect your business. If you want to share your liked videos, playlists, and subscriptions, do so under an entirely separate personal account.

This list is by no means an exhaustive How To; there’s a lot more involved, but you get the idea. And if you haven’t realized it yet … Yes, this all takes a lot of time. But in today’s online, internet-centric world, investing this time is often essential to building your business.

LightningStrike Studios can help you design and build an effective website that will convert visitors into customers, and then help you use social media to drive visitors to your site. If you don’t have the time, contact us. We’ll be pleased to help.