In a world of growing social media consumption, having an official business account on social media platforms is as important as having an official business website. Not to mention, it is one of the most profitable digital marketing efforts in terms of increasing your business’ visibility. While utilizing social media is a great way to increase brand awareness, it can do you one better…get you more business. How? You may ask. Implement these 5 hacks we are about to share with you.

If you are going to put the time into creating content to post (like writing a blog post, or filming a video tutorial, or even just sharing a picture) you might as well put a little more time into sharing that content on all the social media platforms your business utilizes. Let’s use this blog post for example. We not only shared it to our blog on our website, but we also sent it out in our email newsletter (subscribe here if you are not already on it!), we made a series of Instagram stories promoting the post, we posted a photo announcing the new blog post on Instagram and Facebook, and lastly posted it to our Pinterest. What’s the point? The point is that we took the time to create this and we want it to reach as many people as possible, and news flash, not everyone uses the same platform. On Instagram, we reach a younger demographic than we do on Facebook, on the email newsletter we reach the Cobalt & Sapphire aficionados, on Pinterest we reach people who aren’t necessarily aware of Cobalt & Sapphire but are interested in the topic of this post and is thus introduced to Cobalt & Sapphire. Voila! Get it now?

Hashtags are a great way of finding people who are directly interested in what you are offering. Let me give you a real-life example. When graduating from college, I really wanted to wear a white dress, so what did I do? I went to Instagram and searched the hashtag #whitedress and every public post with that hashtag appeared. I found a dress I liked, a boutique in Tennessee had posted it and I bought it via their online store. Your takeaway, make sure you include hashtags on your post describing what your offering is because if someone searches for it, you want to be found.

Let’s say people aren’t finding you through your hashtags. We say, find them! The first step is to think of who your demographic is and what they might hashtag. Then go into the search feature and write that hashtag and start following, liking, commenting on the people who use that hashtag so that they are aware your business exists. Want another example? We manage an Instagram account for a kombucha company. We like to go after people who use the hashtag #healthylife and #kombuchalover. We follow all the accounts who use that hashtag, they are now aware of Moss Beach Kombucha (our client) and some will follow back and dare we say it, go to the store and try the product!! Don’t believe us? Just look at this screenshot below!

Certain social media platforms let you include a bio. Here’s what it should include: a small blurb about what your company is/does, location if you have one, and a link that drives action toward purchase. This link can direct someone to an email newsletter signup, it can take them to a page on your website that shows locations carrying your product, it can be a contact sheet, whatever gets them closer to purchasing your offering.

The goal is to get to the point where people do this naturally, but when you are just getting started, incentivizing people helps. An example incentive program could be: post about us on Instagram and Facebook and get 15% off your next purchase (with proof of course!). Having other people post about you is great for two reasons 1) It reaches a larger pool of people since your brand is now reaching your follower’s followers and 2) people are more likely to listen to a recommendation from a friend than they are to a business saying “buy from us! We are great because of x,y,z..”

Social media is your business’ friend! Utilize it strategically and it can be your business’ best friend. Keep in mind that results don’t happen overnight. It takes time for it to organically grow so don’t get discouraged if you don’t see action right away. If you want more clarification on any of these tips, comment down below and we can continue the conversation there. If you want us to implement these hacks on your business’ social media, please contact us here to set up a complimentary meeting about our social media management services.