Chapter 1: Introduction
Social media is a very effective way to reach the general public and
turn them into paying customers. People the world over spend an
inordinate time on their devices and a big chunk of that is spent
scrolling through social media feeds. If you are a business, there is no
asset as resourceful and affordable as social media to understand
consumer habits and buying patterns.
These platforms are a boon for brands that want to disseminate
information about their products and services. And if you use the
right mechanism, you might be able to hit a goldmine of buyers. But
like everything else, you need to have a strategy and there are a few
ways to do that right.
The first step, of course, is to have a social media presence. Set up
your accounts with a clear title and description. Add the URLs to your
website and make a plan to interact with your customers and
potential buyers on a regular basis. This is how you reach them at a
personal level.
With the accounts in place, you have the chance to sell yourself the
way you want and on a budget. The more you interact, the easier it is
for your audience to associate themselves with your message. This
way, they know your brand and feel connected with it. And those
who want to know about it have an easy way of finding you and
browsing your products and services.
The more this happens, and it will over time, the more you learn
about the kind of audience you are attracting and learn about their
habits. It gives you the opportunity to tap into certain demographics
6 | P a g eand make a pitch. Then there is a big concern—budget. Make a
strategy for your posts and you can increase the incoming traffic to
your page rather easily.
Social media is one of the most inexpensive ways of marketing a
product or a service. You don’t need to work too hard once you
know the message. And there are plenty of free tools at your
disposal that can help you create quick and jazzy content.
All you need to do is post consistently and you will build a loyal
audience in no time. That is why many bloggers use it to reach their
readers and viewers without spending a single penny.
7 | P a g eSo, whether you have a small budget or none at all, social media is a
great place to start marketing your products and services without
worrying about the costs. And if you are looking for someone to help
create content or fill other positions, it is also a great place to
advertise your requirements.
Of course, this is not to say you can get away with a bad product or
service. But if you have a winner in your hands, you just need to
learn a few tricks of the trade to sell it.
That starts with the creation of SEO content. This is done by using
the right keywords and tags to help your content gain visibility. If you
didn’t know it already, SEO stands for search engine optimization.
With the right words, your posts and page will get a better ranking
from search engines like Google.
This means when a potential or existing buyer is looking for products
or services like yours, your content is shown higher up in the search
engine results page or SERP because of the right keywords and tags.
Social media is also a great way to stay in the minds of your
customers. In marketing terms, this is often referred to as top-of-the-
mind recall or top-of-the-mind awareness or TOMA. And it means
just that. When a customer is thinking of the products or services
that you offer, your brand is one of the things, if not the first one,
they recall.
For example, oftentimes, Apple is for smartphones, Dominos is for
pizza, Lay’s for chips, Coke for soft drinks and so on. This is done by
creating an image for your brand that is hard to forget.
Social media is an extremely useful tool when it comes to this. Over
time, it converts individuals interested in your product or service into
paying customers. And these customers can turn into loyalists and
maybe even advocate your brand to their friends and family
members. It’s all about creating an unforgettable impression in the
minds of the customer.
This makes you everyone’s first choice.
9 | P a g ePlatforms like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are also a great way
to keep an eye on the competition. These profiles are always public
and accessible to everyone, right? Because it is about visibility.
Now, if you understand the competition, you will be able to find
ways to beat them too. Analyzing social media profiles is a great way
to improve upon your own strategies.
In fact, you can even build on their ideas and beat them at their own
game. The basic engagement metrics are available for everyone to
see. You can keep tabs on their popularity to a certain extent while
you are still working on your own. And you can do this even before
you have a strategy or a profile of your own.
In fact, you can also see the kind of queries they are getting and
identify gaps to fill them with your product or service. It is a pretty
neat trick and it is all fair game.
Check their content, keep an eye on the comments and look at the
features they are enabling to better serve their customers. Make
yourselves aware of their strategy so that you can incorporate some
of that into your own.
