Businesses who properly use social media will see improved Return On Investment (ROI) by up to 119%. This isn’t surprising, considering there are over 4.2 billion active users every single day.
Everywhere you look, you can find someone staring at their text messages, scrolling through Instagram, or watching a video on Facebook. People love to share their lives over the internet and keep up with their favorite brands, which is why social media is a must to improve your brand awareness and expand your reach.
DIY Social Media Strategy Isn’t for Everyone
Trying to handle your social media content creation and strategy on your own can feel like a second job sometimes. From learning the terminology to understanding your analytics, it’s a lot of work. Many clients choose to outsource their social media marketing completely, handing over the reins to an experienced partner who can help them create a clear strategy and content their audience wants to see.
There is a misconception that most businesses have surrounding using a social media marketing company. Most assume that if you hand over your social media, you don’t have to use social media.
Customers believe they can log out and solely focus on their business. However, social media does not actually work that way. The point is to create engagement with your customers and to do that, you still need to be active on your social media.
So, what Does a Social Media Marketing Company Even Do?
To completely understand how you need to be active on your social media, you’ll first need to understand what a social media marketing company will do for your business.
You’ve probably heard the term social media marketing used before or may have even researched a few agencies to help your business at some point. It’s easy to find a list of companies but hard to find information on what social media marketing companies can do for your business.
Social Media Marketing companies help create the presence you’re looking for on your social media channels. They’ll do a deep dive analysis on your current business strategy and the industry you’re in. The idea is to thoroughly understand your market and create a plan that will achieve the results you’re looking for with your social media.
Once your social media marketing company creates the strategy, they’ll build your content and plan it strategically so your customers will see it. On top of that, they’ll make suggestions to optimize your profile, help teach your team members how to use social media correctly, create video content, blog content and repurpose the content you already have. Plus, they’ll run analytics and reports to ensure the set strategy is working. If not, they’ll alter the plan accordingly.
Long story short, your social media marketing company is going to create a clear path to help you get the results you’re looking for.
Social Media Requires Your Engagement
Even with the best content planning in the world, if you’re not actually interacting with your customers, you’re missing out on one of the fundamental concepts of social media, which is creating meaningful connections between your brand or business and your customers. People don’t use social media to have interactions with themselves. They want to connect with people and brands.
Even with a social media marketing company, you still need to participate in engagement activities to keep your audience excited and connected. Are you confused about how to do this? Here are some pointers to create more meaningful engagement with your audience.
- Respond to Your DM’s: Your DM’s, direct messages, or inbox is a place where customers can reach out to you if they have a question, need help, have a suggestion, or need to make a complaint. It’s essential to check your messages every day to make sure you’re answering customer questions. This can be the difference between making a sale and losing a customer. Plus, on platforms like Facebook and Instagram, if you’re not a friend or following your customers on social media, it places their messages in a separate inbox, which you’ll only see when you click into the message portion of your social media.
- Post on Your Stories: Platforms like Instagram and Facebook allow businesses to post on their stories. Your stories an easy way to share information with your customers and interact with your customers. You can post questions, add polls, show behind the scenes of your business or highlight your posts by offering a preview. Social Media Algorithms can get tricky and will sometimes hide your content from your customers. By using stories for your business, you have a better chance of creating engagement with your customers.
- Create Conversation: Your posts are going to attract attention if your content strategy is done right, meaning you’ll find customers commenting on your post, asking questions, and giving their opinions. Taking the time to respond to your customer’s comments helps customers create a strong connection to your brand and establishes your brand’s personality.
- Log on Every Day: It’s essential to show up consistently on your social media. It doesn’t have to be an hour-long affair; it can be as short as five minutes every day. The idea is that you don’t want messages or comments to become overwhelming or forgotten. By taking a few minutes every day to check your social media, you’re helping to create consistent engagement on your platform.
Recap on Social Media Engagement
If you want to have a successful social media strategy and see real ROI, but you don’t have the time, it’s a great idea to use a social media marketing company to help guide your content strategy. However, that doesn’t mean you won’t have to use your social media accounts. It’s essential to take the time to log in every day for a few minutes on each platform to ensure you’re not missing any engagement opportunities. Take that time to respond to comments, answer questions, and post on your stories to keep your customers interested.