To the entrepreneur, Hi
In 2020, any business that plans to exist in the next 10 -15 years should be or starting out on Social Media for different reasons. I say this because it is almost if not already obvious that firstly, attention is rapidly becoming the most important currency, along with time and both of these currencies are mostly in the digital space, that being on your phone, the internet, social media, streaming services and so on. This is the best and most likely, profitable era to market your business on Social Media (We will discuss other media or platforms soon).
Okay...So now, you as a business owner have decided your business is ready to go online. But where do you start?
It is important for a small business to truly know what it stands for, I mean brand identity because this will dictate your business' success for it's lifetime.
1. Understanding Brand Identity/Story:
This is why your brand exists, what need or problem are you solving for me, the customer? Once this is defined, you are ready to start with your Brand.
2. Know your Audience:
As much as this is determined at the beginning stages of your business, it would be very wise to revisit this step because:
a. It is extremely useful for your choice of platform
b. It will allow you to discover new markets you might have never considered before, or even redirect your product positioning to a totally different audience.
Knowing who you're specifically selling to is extremely important and you should ask yourself the following questions:
· Who is the best person for the product or service?
· What age group is the product or service suited for?
· What gender are you selling to?
· Which areas do they live in?
Other questions will follow through this process which plays a role in finding a specific audience.
3. What are your objectives?
This is where you draw up your objectives for being online (which will dictate where you place your brand);
This could be:
· to drive sales: lead generation and conversion.
· increase brand awareness: for people to know who you are or what you do, effectively.
· or even customer service: this could be for customer queries, which could also reduce the amount of phone calls you get for queries.
4. Connect with your audience (Taking Action)
In this step, you decide which social media platform your business will be active on, the following is a brief metric overview, I will provide a link that will give you current information on the social media platforms:
·Facebook :
2.32+ bn users worldwide, great for interacting with customers and promoting your business (higher customer reach with paid ads), most age groups use it. nb:over 18 mil South Africans are on Facebook monthly.
· Instagram :
1+ bn users worldwide, excellent for photo/video content sharing, average user age groups of 18 - 34 years,
· Twitter:
326+ mil users worldwide, very active user base, over 500 million tweets daily (short format content!!), average user age groups of 18 - 49 years
· LinkedIn:
610+ mil users worldwide, very popular for B2B (business selling to another business), excellent for networking, professional format for communication.
NB: There is a high and underpriced Organic Reach (Free Marketing to a wider audience)
Other social media platforms are available and very effective, however not too popular in South Africa (except YouTube), for more information please do make use of the links provided at the end of the article.
Useful Links:
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