By Hannah Whittenly
Social media is widely popular in today’s technologically reliant world. Believe it or not, there are more than 1.5 billion unique social media accounts around the world. An overwhelming majority of United States citizens have at least one account on social media platforms, used to keep in touch with loved ones, check up on old friends, and even meet new people. Businesses take advantage of social media presences, too, as they can reach targeted demographics more effectively, personally communicate with existing and potential customers, and create and maintain profiles at no cost. Even though social media is so popular, not every business optimizes their profiles for attracting customers to their brand — here’s how.
Create Original Content That Doesn’t Read Like Ads or Promotions
People browse social media to be entertained, informed, and educated. Very few users peruse these platforms to inspect the latest, most innovative advertisements and promotions. As such, your profiles should never contain promos directly featuring or linking to your products. Similarly, you should never publish recycled content taken from other sources, no matter how popular they are, or rely primarily on text posts. Reach indicates that visually-based media is an astounding forty times more likely to be shared than basic text posts. Invest in video and picture content creation that appeals to your follower base, effectively attracting more customers than without.
Take Advantage of Social Media Influencers with Backlinks
Influencers are social media accounts that have wide bases of followers. These quasi-celebrities host unique personalities, ranging from fitness models with drop-dead figures to comedians in training that post funny videos. Businesses are able to gain exposure for their brands by commingling links to their products, services, webpage, and social media accounts through backlinks that lead directly to their sites on the Internet, rather than simply mentioning their brand name and products. Traditionally, companies have hired movie stars and well-known public figures to promote their products. Unfortunately for businesses, contracting these services from celebrities is often exorbitantly expensive, allowing only the largest, most well-established organizations to invest in these types of promotions.
Utilizing Popular Search Engine Optimization Terms
The field of search engine optimization has existed almost as long as the Internet, in which organizations beef up their websites with terms and phrases commonly searched for on search engines. Search engine optimization is generally cheap, as many popular engines offer tools that allow Internet users to access the most common search terms, meaning competition is staunch on the world wide web. However, not every business intertwines these optimization strategies into their social media pages, instead choosing only to include terms and chains of words on their company websites.
Every business that wants to attract customers to their brand should research popular phrases searched for on the entire Internet and social media platforms. This provides brands with diversified web presences, causing their websites, mentions from other organizations, and social media accounts to simultaneously pop to the top of searches.
Consistently Engaging with Customers
Products are manufactured with efficiency by nearly every producer on the market, forcing companies to differentiate themselves through means other than competitive production. In the past few decades, businesses have relied on customer service to maintain competitive advantages. Social media provides businesses with the opportunity to engage with customers. However, not every organization is active on their social accounts consistently enough. Make sure your accounts are manned by representatives at least 16 hours each day, causing consumers to flock in, as they realize your organization cares about its customers.
As part of being able to engage with your customers, you need to be where they’re at online. Xyngular, for example, does this by being active on the Crunchbase site. However, you may want to consider the likes of Twitter and Facebook as well.
Social media is truly a modern-day phenomenon, with billions of users around the world. Businesses across the board understand its popularity, choosing to market their products and brand image to followers — however, not every organization makes proper use of their social presences. These four tips will undoubtedly help attract consumers to your brand on your social media accounts.
Hannah Whittenly is a freelance writer and mother of two from Sacramento, CA. She enjoys kayaking and reading books by the lake.
