One of the many reasons to use social media to market your business is for branding. Particularly for small startup businesses, it’s important to develop and promote a brand that customers will remember. By engaging prospects on social media, you’re not just building a brand, you’re engaging people and building personal relationships that turn prospects into paying customers further down the sales funnel.
The best social networks for business branding
With social networking sites so popular and more and more of them popping up every month, it’s not always easy to figure out where you should focus. Personal social networks are different than business social networks, so it’s important to target the right sites and provide the right kind of content.
The top social networking sites for small businesses are Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Instagram, Pinterest, and YouTube. While you don’t have to use all of them, it’s a good idea to create a business page/profile on at least three or four of them and keep those pages updated regularly.
Why you need to use social media for branding
It’s hard to stand out from the huge crowd of social networks vying for your target market’s attention, but you should still try because that’s where your clientele hang out. Your message will join many others; your goal is somehow to divert attention from the rest. Posting a mix of text, image, and video content works best, depending on the platform you’re using.
Not sure how to start a social media campaign that appeals to your target market? Here are five great business ideas that can help your small business thrive online.
1. Competitions – Everyone loves to win something. With a competition posted on social media sites, you not only gain valuable insight into your target market, but create a real buzz that is likely to go viral. For example, Cadbury asked fans to build a giant hand resembling the Facebook ‘Like’ symbol out of Dairy Milk bars and offered participants the opportunity to try new products. Mountain Dew used a crowdsourcing strategy to solicit input on a new soda flavor, allowing consumers to help develop the final product. Because fans actively participated in these competitions, they were more likely to become loyal customers.
2. Quizzes/Games – Post a quiz or game that allows participants to win something for free. For example, Heinz published a short personality quiz that matched each consumer with the perfect can of beans, then awarded one winner per hour to receive that product for free.
3. Apps/Games: Develop a game or an interactive app based on your brand. This allows people to have fun while seeing your brand over and over again. Progressive Insurance did this with a “Find Flo” app, while A&E created a Parking Wars game based on the TV show.
4. Free Content – Ask your friends/followers to create content for you, such as making a personal video showing the use of your product or capturing a visit to your business. Ask fans to post your content directly to your Facebook Page. Paramount did this with the movie, Paranormal activity, posting viewers’ reactions to the film. Twitter’s Vine app, which allows you to upload 6-second videos, is a good tool to use.
5. Offers: People always want something for free. You don’t have to go crazy with this, but if you really want more followers/fans/friends, try giving something away for free, like a gift certificate or sample product. Domino’s Pizza UK advertised several “featured flavours” in a succession of tweets using the hashtag #letsdolunch and slashed the price of a pizza by one penny for each tweet using that hashtag. They created quite a stir and sold a lot of pizzas!
Social media branding is a way for any business to become a household name and there are no excuses not to use it to your advantage. Overwhelmed by logistics? There are many online marketing consultants who will create a successful social media marketing campaign for you!