15 Ways to Maximize Your Businesses Social Media

It’s no secret that businesses are turning to social media networking sites to develop better relationships with their customers. However, many companies still struggle to fully utilize the power of these sites and end up losing out on benefits they could be getting if they knew how. Here are 15 ways you can maximize your business’ social media presence:

1. Start Using Social Media Platforms to Their Full Potential

The first step in maximizing your business’ social media presence is to start using all of your available platforms. Instead of simply using Facebook, utilize your Twitter account as well. Expand beyond just creating a page for your company and creating profiles for each staff member. This way, you can easily interact with customers more personally. You want to make it clear that your business takes customer service very seriously by having an actual person respond to questions and comments on these various sites instead of one generic profile.

2. Create Company Branded Profiles

A big mistake some companies make is using generic profiles for their businesses rather than ones branded specifically with their logos or images. This makes it very difficult for customers to connect with your business and take you seriously. People want to see that they are reaching out to an actual company, not just one person.

3. Interact With Customers & Followers

When someone leaves a comment on your social media profiles, it is important to respond quickly and personally. If someone reaches out specifically to one profile, be sure another team member does not respond without having all the information first. Also, make sure you don’t leave comments up there forever. Once you have responded, go in and delete the old comments, so no one else can hijack the thread or start something off-topic by trying to chime in with their own responses instead of staying focused on the original poster’s question or comment.

4. Get Involved in Other Business’ Social Media Platforms

Another great way to maximize your business’s social media presence is to get involved with other people’s platforms. Go ahead and follow some of your competitors. There is no reason why you can’t be friends on Facebook! By following someone else’s page, you are helping them to grow their brand, which should lead to more customers finding out about them and then potentially shopping at your place of business as well.

5. Use Hashtags Effectively

If you have used hashtags before in any form, it probably wasn’t for looking up what other people were saying about a particular topic – it was probably so that everyone could find your hilarious cat picture or because your friends were going to a concert. Instead, you wanted to see how it was going. Well, the days of hashtags being “hip” are long gone – they have become a useful tool for following hot trends in real-time that revolve around everything from politics to celebrity gossip.

6. Make Your Blog into an Asset

While Facebook is great for posting up images from last night’s party and Twitter is perfect for quick, witty comments about current events, well-thought-out blog posts can be one of your biggest social media assets when done right. Don’t just write whatever comes to mind and post it on your blog though, take some time and craft something with substance that people will want to share with others. You can even start posting your blog posts to your other social media profiles or even turn them into an infographic and share that instead.

7. Incorporate Videos

Videos are one of the most popular forms of social media content out there, so you should always be looking for ways to incorporate them into your company’s various platforms. Not only do they help people learn more about your products and services, but they also give customers something fun to watch while scrolling through their news feed during those boring work hours.

8. Don’t Overshare

Don’t use every platform as a personal diary – remember that you still have a business at the end of the day and need to pay attention to what type of information you are putting up there as well as how often. Don’t overshare personal information, don’t post too many cat pictures (unless they relate to your business somehow), and don’t make everything you post about your products or services.

9. Post Updates at the Best Time

One of the most important parts of social media marketing is when you actually decide to post updates. You may think that it doesn’t really matter what time of day something gets posted – only that it does get posted. The truth is that there are specific times when people are more likely to be scrolling through their feeds, so posting then will lead to better engagement than if it was just randomly at some other time during the day when no one is paying attention online.

10. Optimize Your Facebook Page for Mobile Users

It doesn’t matter what type of device people are using. What matters is that they can use it and get to your business’ page easily. So make sure your Facebook updates look good on all devices and optimize the page itself, so it looks good as well as loads quickly. The last thing you want is for someone to see a post about one of your products or services, and then it takes forever to load that beautiful picture you were trying to show off.

11. Monitor Your Online Reputation

This may seem like a no-brainer, but there are actually plenty of companies who don’t actively monitor their online reputation by checking sites like Yelp, Google Business, and even Facebook, where other customers can give their opinions on whether or not they liked doing business with you. Make sure you have a system in place that allows you to respond to these posts quickly and with care so people understand that you actually care about your customer’s experience working with you.

12. Don’t Use Auto-Direct Messages

Avoid using auto-message on social media – this may seem like a good idea because it gets rid of having to send individual messages or post repetitive statuses, but doing so will only hurt your company’s online reputation. People want real interaction, so why would they choose to follow your company if all they are going to get is automated replies? It just doesn’t make any sense, so avoid the temptation of saving time by using auto-messages even though doing so can damage your business’s social media presence.

13. Call to Action Buttons

Make sure you have a “call to action” button on your website and one that stands out as well! People should be able to tell by just looking at your page what it is you want them to do. Whether it’s signing up for an email list, contacting someone from the company, or even purchasing something, this needs to be obvious and not tucked away in some corner of the site like most companies make theirs.

14. Make Your Social Media Accounts Easy To Find & Remember

Remember when we’re talking about making sure people could find you on various social media platforms? Well, this actually goes hand-in-hand with that point because if they can’t remember which one they are supposed to follow you on then, they are not going to bother doing it. People don’t want to waste their time trying countless sites to see if you’re on them or not – make your accounts easy to find and remember by using the same name across all platforms so people know exactly where they should be looking for your time.

15. Follow Your Customers

This is important because following someone means that you will get notified every time they post something new online. This doesn’t mean you have to comment or like everything, but at least pay attention and check them out once in a while just so there is some sort of interaction with the potential customer who may need your product or service sooner than later. Make sure all of your business’s social media accounts are updated with the latest information, including your company’s address and contact info, so people know where to reach you! There is nothing worse than following a company on Facebook for months without any updates or interaction just to realize it was all for nothing. If they’re not going to post about their products and services, then why should I follow them? Don’t be that business – keep people interested by updating social media sites regularly with anything new you have going on.

Bottom Line

Using social media effectively is a great way to increase your company’s exposure and its image. However, it’s only useful if you use it in the correct way, so keep this advice in mind when creating your social media marketing strategy, and soon enough, your business will be flourishing like never before.

References

1. Aravindakshan, A. (2022, February 03). Maximizing Multi-platform Social Media Impacts. UC Davis Graduate School of Management. Retrieved from gsm.ucdavis.edu. This source from UC Davis Graduate School of Management discusses the importance of mastering multi-platform social media for businesses, noting the rapid evolution of social media channels and their algorithms. It emphasizes the need for brands to adapt their strategies to different platforms, understanding the ‘direct effects,’ ‘spillover effects,’ and ‘carryover effects’ of social media posts​​.
2. U.S. Small Business Administration. (n.d.). Simple Social Media Guide for Small Businesses. Retrieved from sba.gov. This guide from the U.S. Small Business Administration offers practical advice for small businesses on using social media. It highlights the significance of understanding the dynamics of social media, choosing the right platforms, the importance of timing, analytics, and organizing content through an editorial calendar. It underscores that social media marketing should be simple and focused on engaging the audience​​​​.
3. Wikipedia contributors. (n.d.). Social media marketing. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved from en.wikipedia.org. This Wikipedia article provides a comprehensive overview of social media marketing. It covers the basics of using social media platforms and websites to promote products or services, the importance of user-generated content, the role of social media in business, and different strategies for marketing through social media. The article also discusses the importance of market intelligence gained through social media and highlights various popular social networking websites​​​​​​​​​​​​.