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Social media marketing is a great way of reaching out to new potential clientele. But as the internet becomes a more crowded place, standing out on social media is becoming a harder task for small startups. This is where throwing a bit of money into social media marketing can come in handy. Here are just a few effective ways that you can boost your business by spending money on social media.
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Buy a banner
Just like the homepage to a website, your social media pages need to make a visual impact when someone clicks on them. A well-designed Twitter header of Facebook cover photo can make a difference.
There are graphic design companies that can build custom social media banners for you, as well as a profile picture. You may even want to design a logo for your business which can be used not just on social media, but your website and other forms of marketing such as business cards and signage.
Invest in influence
People trust a company with a large social media following as it shows that they’re an established and prominent business. Buying followers is a way of increasing your credibility. There are plenty of sites that can teach you how to buy followers.
On a related note, you can also pay for influence. For example, paying a prominent person on social media to share one of your posts or promote your product could have a huge impact.
Promote your posts
Facebook and Twitter both have services set up by themselves for promoting posts. This allows your posts to be seen by strangers that could possibly turn into business leads.
Both Facebook and Twitter allow you to customise the audience that you want to focus with your post. Make good use of this feature — by selecting the right age group and interests for your product you’ll be more likely target the right people.
education, technology, internet, summer holidays, social networking and teenage concept – group of teenagers with smartphones
Hire a helping hand
Some businesses may find it beneficial to hire a full-time social media manager or outsource their social media to a marketing company. A professional may be able to come up with constantly engaging content, as well as replying to complaints over social media to preserve the company’s reputation.
This is generally only useful for large companies, however small companies may be able to hire someone or outsource a company on a temporary basis, such as in the lead up to a product launch or during a dry period for business.
Bring social media to social events
Real life social events can benefit from social media too. Conferences and trade fairs can be tweeted about to get more people to attend. For conferences and launch parties in particular, a Twitter Wall could be handy for letting the audience digitally interact. Hiring one of these could add an extra special touch to your event and make it more memorable for attendees.
It should be right at the top of your business wish list, making sure that your company looks great in every aspect. The brand is the most important thing your business needs to transcend the markets. While the finances are a crucial part of developing products and services, without a solid brand, you’ll be limiting growth. A lot of businesses struggle with their brand and try to do everything they can to give their company a massive facelift, but this can fail without the appropriate legwork. And while great content and products will often guarantee repeat customers, it’s your brand that will always precede you. What is the best way to build a strong brand that travels?
Tell the Story
As consumers (and as human beings) we value the importance of a good story. This is the heart of every great marketing campaign you know of. It’s worth investing time in boiling your business ethos down to some basic statements. Virgin, Apple Inc., Red Bull, and Tesla all do a stellar job of this.
If necessary, it’s worth going back to your business plan and re-evaluate if you aren’t progressing in line with your original brand. Telling a great story is what every marketing agency will try to get out of your business and your products, so you need to find the “trick in the tale.”
American business magnate, investor, engineer, and inventor, Elon Musk at a Tesla Motors unveiling
Have A Great Logo
Simple and effective, the right logo will communicate everything about your business that you need to say. It’s a very difficult thing to get right, which is why so many companies go back to the drawing board and rebuild their brand, which can be to some company’s detriment. Although a lot of businesses have found much more success by streamlining their logo and style to cater to a larger demographic.
MasterCard’s logo evolution over the years, it’s been simplified with the brand still intact. The great thing about an effective and simple logo is that they translate to various items of merchandise — from badges to letterheads to posters to anything your mind can dream up.
A great logo isn’t easy to come by, but if you can get it right, it will communicate everything that is great about your business and product.
Reach Out to Customers
An identity isn’t just an external thing. It’s about word of mouth and positive reinforcement. It’s not just done through excellent customer service or appealing to customers on a personal level inside a store.
It’s about reaching out to them through effective marketing campaigns, from the standard email marketing approaches all the way through to niche marketing practices like a podcast. The most popular podcasts realise their own importance as a piece of marketing, because to an extent it is capturing the flavor of the moment.
Smartphones have seen more people corralled into a sense of “commuter culture”, where people are more focused on their phones rather than communicating with each other. A podcast is a logical extension of this.
The right podcast reaches out to people on a personal basis, and you can’t get more personal than being inside someone’s ears! If you can find the right way to reach out to your target market, whether it is via email, vlog, blog or podcast, this will encourage word of mouth, which, as any great business will attest, is more valuable than any multi-million dollar ad campaign.
Target the Influencers
While building a great brand is down to honesty and integrity through to the core, you can catapult yourself to a wider catchment area by aligning yourself with the right influencers. These could be people like bloggers, reviewers, or industry leaders and experts.
As they say, it’s not what you know, it’s who you know! So you can create sustainable relationships with the best influencers in your industry by supplying them with what they want. Then they will be able to influence certain areas more effectively than you would ever be able to do, therefore putting your business in a much better light.
Gear Your Content Towards the Customers
From the website to the little flyers that go in people’s letter boxes, focus on what the customer or the client will get, rather than being focused on your business. For example, saying something like “our mission, our services” and so forth you won’t accomplish the simple task of appealing to the customer’s need, you are making yourself look like a big fish by being boastful rather than approachable!
Simplicity Is the Key
From your marketing, to your website, all the way through to your pricing structure you need to be as simple and straightforward as you possibly can. User-friendliness is a hot topic for any website because something as simple as not being able to access a particular page will mean that you’ve lost a customer for life.
If you can implement your entire business with the notion of simplicity, this won’t just encourage repeat custom, but it will gather more recommendations.
Making your business look great isn’t something that can be achieved overnight, but if you can chip away at certain imperfections and streamline specific processes and ideas, it will mean that your business is easier to understand from the perspective of a potential customer. This will increase sales, but it also means that you have a clearer vision of how you can progress with your business.
The goal is to have people return and return again, so you need to look at it from the perspective of a customer rather than a hotshot marketing executive, so put yourself in their shoes. If you can crack it and build a strong brand that travels far and wide, the effect is likely to snowball, and it means that you will be a company to contend with.
Always be true to your vision and keep it simple, this is what will make your business travel and your brand endure.
Stress, it’s a big thing, and when you own a business, you’re going to run into your fair share of it. Of course, this mainly stems from money worries. Trying to squeeze every penny across expanding departments and attempting to increase your online presence requires a lot of investment, so what can you do to minimise spending while maximising your business potential?
Image Credit: Pexels
Get Freelancing
Outsourcing to freelancers is not such a dirty word anymore. Every business is feeling the pinch, and it’s a very natural part of the process to hire outside sources to take over the vital components of your business. From getting web/graphic designers to give your site a makeover toIT Support services. It’s a very cost-effective measure.
Many IT support services can be affordable, and on a monthly payment plan, so you can get the most suitable infrastructure for your budget. The start of any business means getting a lot of little tasks complete, and you can make the most of the job websites that hire out freelancers.
When you’re at the point where it’s all hands on deck, freelancer sites are a lifeline to get those last important bits ready to go.
Advice from Influencers
Never underestimate the advice from people who were once in your shoes. We all make mistakes, and you will make a lot more when trying to realise your vision, but the advice doesn’t cost anything, and you can learn from other people’s mistakes very easily.
Aligning yourself with the key influencers in your industry from an early point should be part of your whole entrepreneurial ethos. It’s a common misstep of many startups that fail to see and leverage the value of networking. It can be a big obstacle to overcome, especially for those who are still trying to find their feet as a leader.
However, by networking with key influencers, you will have an opportunity to learn lessons quickly. You never know, you could end up becoming an influencer in your field, which will only help to increase your business connections.
UK Entrepreneur James Caan | Image Credit: LinkedIn
Make the Most of Your Image
Contrary to popular belief, you can make the most of a business image without much money. When one of the UK’s most successful Entrepreneur James Caan started his recruitment firm Alexander Mann, he could only afford a renovated broom cupboard.
On the upside, the location was in a prime part of London’s City Centre, so the correspondence gave out a good impression before anything else.
He conveniently held meetings in rented spaces to avoid being found out, but the proof was there. He built up his business image before doing anything else that made the clients and customers come in droves.
Make the most of your image in this way because operating a business out of your residential address does not look good. Instead, make the most of the virtual office services; which, as part of the package, is a professional address. It’s simple, cheap, and it will do a lot for your reputation right from the start. Cheap ideas do not have to be cheap in quality, and the best ideas come from nothing.
Entrepreneurs are creative by nature. However, there are things you can do if you have an entrepreneurial spirit, but are failing to come up with any incredible ideas. If you want to turn into a more creative person who comes up with ideas like a machine, these ideas can help you:
Treat Life Like a Creative Exercise
Treat your entire life like a creative exercise. How can you show the most creativity and enthusiasm in whatever you’re doing right now? It might be cleaning the house, writing a social media bio, or shopping for a new dress. Have fun with life and expand your imagination as you do so.
Get Outside
Some of the most successful people in the world claim that spending time in nature helps them to focus and become more creative. It might sound a little crazy, but some people believe that their ideas actually come from the plants and natural elements around them! Regardless of what you believe, simply walking in nature can actually have a positive impact on your creative thinking process.
Spend Time in the Right Environment
Create the perfect environment for you to get creative in. Make sure you include the right lighting, noise levels, scents, motivational pictures, and anything else that could inspire you. You might find that using things like aromatherapy in your environment, and playing nature sounds help you to concentrate. Others might be at their best creative selves when listening to Katia Beauchamp rock ‘n’ roll!
Hopefully, these ideas have inspired you. The influencers below have some great tips and insight for you too.
