How to create a Social Media Strategy for your business

The social media is an electronic communication platform where people interact with one another to create awareness about an idea. In this context, the idea is business. The social media platforms include: Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, Blogs, and Websites. The social media space has gone beyond what it used to be. Nowadays, people do many things with people virtually, as they prefer to sit in the comfort of their homes to get things done. People will always be online. The social media space is more than a physical market as there is no fixed time that everyone leaves and then resumes. Knowing people are always available to know what services you render is the reason why you need to create a good content strategy for your business.

Here are 9 Guidelines and Illustrations to create a Social Media Strategy for your business:

1. Establish and Manage a Social Media Presence:

Having known the business you want to engage in, and making available the services you want to render, the first thing to do is to take your business online. Everything is now becoming digital, and that is the way to take your business forward. Create social media accounts for your business where your potential customers can see what you have got. You do not have to be on all the social media spaces. Take it one or two at a time, so as not to get choked up, because it all does not stop at creating a social media account, there are still more processes to follow.

2. Create a Good Content Strategy:

Because you are neither the first person to start the business nor the only person engaged in such business is consequential to you having to focus on branding your business. Branding your business is what makes it unique and seem like what people want. To brand your services, you have to create a good content strategy for it. Here, content involves many things: e-flyers, ads, copywriting, guest posting, etc.

E-flyers and Ads:

In content marketing, your e-flyers and ads should project what your business is about. What services are you rendering? Create good graphics that make people aware about your business. A beautiful one that will put people's attention on hold. The one they see, and will not pass. Let your design illustrate well what you do. Also create ads and pay social media platforms according to your budget to display it on media platforms, sites, and blogs. Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Instagram, TikTok, Search Engines, among others help display business ads.

Copywriting:

It is simply persuading people to patronize you. Before you started to render such services, there are other brands that your potential customers have been patronizing, and there are others who do not even engage such services. Your content must be persuasive enough to make people buy from you, and how do you achieve that? List the benefits before the features.

Make people aware what they tend to gain if they patronize you.What you have that others do not have. Why is your brand different from others? Replace the "you" factor with the "they" (your customers) factor. Let them know that the brand is for their utmost satisfaction, and that is what you are here to give them. For instance, you render cleaning services. Instead of writing "Atowash Cleaning Services. We clean private and public places at the best rate, and services, and we are nationwide. Patronize us now!" You can write it as "Do you need more comfort to get your things done? Atowash Cleaning Services render cleaning services at the best rate for you. Tell us where you are, and we are right there. Your comfort is our priority! Click here to see our reviews (under that) Click on this link to get our services." This is a way to write a persuasive copy for your brand to lure people to market with you. You have to be specific. This is what I do. This is what we do. Do not beat around the bush, and do not create too many icons to click on. Target the emotions of your audience. Your audience wants your services to be for them. They are not concerned about what it is to you. Include customers reviews, they help strengthen your worth.

Guest posting:

In this context, guest posting is when you write on blogs that are in the same area of business specialization with you. Still illustrating with your cleaning services brand, you can write on lifestyle and health blogs. How do you do that? You will send an email to the person you want to guest post for. For instance, "Hi OluwaPelumi Andrew, I am the creative director of Atowash Cleaning Services. I found your blog while surfing the internet. I am proposing to write a blog post for you as a featured author and guest blogger for the next one month. I will like to submit at least one article per week. This would definitely interest your audience as I would be writing in the same league with you. I have a list of topics and I will like you to choose which of them you will prefer me to write on for your blog. In return, I hope that I will be able to get a "Do follow back link to my business social media pages".

Examples of topics you can shortlist for articles that can relate to your brand are: "7 Things a Clean Environment does to Your Health", 5 Health Tips on How to Live Better", etc. Having follow through with the author what you have proposed, you begin to get orders as people read the articles, and your brand becomes one of the most popular cleaning services. Because, what is worth doing is worth doing well, there are still more few processes to round it off.

3. Follow Brands that are in Complementary Distribution with your Brands:

A complementary distribution in this context are other brands that add value to your services and vice versa. Follow brands that are in this distribution to put your mutual followers in place. A brand that makes soaps is in a complementary sphere with you that render cleaning services. Also, a brand that host public shows is in that sphere with you. This helps to also bring more customers as someone patronizing the soap brand might be in need of a cleaning service. We can also have scenarios of someone booking a hall, and in need of a cleaning service to clear the place after the event. These brands will be able to easily refer these potential customers to you. You should do the same too.

4. Create a Content Calendar:

The content calendar helps you to follow directions you have laid for your social media pages. It is good for a brand to have a content calendar that it sticks to to help you direct your social media presence. For instance, still following through with your cleaning services brand, on Mondays, you may have morning motivation or a quote, one that you can link to your brand. E.g: "It is Monday, and all the sheets are clean with Atowash Cleaning Services to get a new work done and to achieve new goals." On Tuesdays, you may upload at work images or short videos. On Wednesdays, it might be work related tips that you will post. E.g: "Work more heartily at work by knowing you are coming to a clean and fresh home, after you must have engage Atowash Cleaning Services to do that for you. Click this link to drop your home address." Thursdays are good for throwbacks, throwback memes, throwback incidents, and sorts, so you may give your audience some little throwbacks to lighten their mood and remind them to order your services in the weekend. Fridays might be for posting customer reviews. This can be used to help stand strong in front of your customers, and to convince the doubting potential customers. Saturdays might be a before and after show. This can be done without disclosing the person you rendered the service to or the location. Just a few shots in the building before and after cleaning to upload online, so that people can see that you are the best at what you do, and they will be able to patronize you. Sundays might be to read through your audience's tweets, reply them in a way that tells them about your brand, check up on them, and all other such like ways to keep your brand in their faces and their minds. Keep reading to know more.

5. Jump on Trends:

Trends are the new sensitization on people's mouths or minds. It might be a slang. It might be an activity. It might even be a song. It can also be the current event or season that is going on, like the Democracy Day, Festive Seasons - Easter, Eid-l-Adha, Christmas, New Year..., Workers' Day, etc. You can link these trends and seasons to your brand so that your brand do not get stale in their presence. There are also memes. Memes do not get outdated. It depends on the caption you give it. Use captions that talk and expatiate more about your brand, and link them to different memes. People should always be able to relate with your brand by getting familiar with you, and how do you achieve that? Keep reading.

6. Establish a Good Customer Service Relationship:

Communicate with your customers like humans. Talk to them like a friend. Be flexible. Attend to their messages and complaints on time. Follow their tweets, and be creative enough to use it as an avenue to promote your business. Make it look like that social media space revolves around only your brand. This will also get you true fans who will always engage your content and repost it. And there is one more crucial thing to do to with your business to keep it at the peak; read the next one.

7. Partner with Other Brands:

Partner your brand with different brands to create more awareness about the benefits of your brand. You can also partner with community services that render free skills or training to students. You can sponsor the community service, and in return, they give credit to your brand which helps in bringing more potential customers to you. There are other such like things you can involve your business with. Check number 8.

8. Do Giveaways/Societal Charity:

People love brands that do giveaways. They follow such brands, and stay on their pages. Giveaways help you to gain more potential customers, and to make your customers patronize you more. You can also do seasonal sales, whereby you give discounted prices for the services you render. Social charity also helps to make your brand a do or die business to patronize. For instance, as a brand that renders cleaning services, you can supply premium cleaning tools to a health centre. By doing that, they take pictures, upload it on their pages, and hashtag your business social media handles, and then you get more people to know about your brand. To keep people more informed and updated about it, here is one last thing to do.

9. Create a Website for your Brand

A website is where you display everything about your brand. The services you render, your social media handles, customer reviews, your location, your contact link, like your phone number and email address. Your website should be created with good design features. It should not be cloggy. Let people be able to surf through it without being distracted with too many ads. Be straightforward with the icons or links they will click to get what they want.

Having done all these, you can start to take orders and more orders, establish more social media spaces, get people to work for you, become a CEO, and enjoy your money.

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