• 4-minute read
• 18th December 2018

5 Social Media Tips for Businesses

Social media is vital for most businesses these days, offering a simple way to reach customers. So whether you’re running a tiny start-up or a multinational corporation, you will need to be on Facebook, Twitter and a host of other platforms. But how can you make your presence felt online? Check out our top five social media tips for businesses for a few ideas.

1. Multi-Platforming Successfully

As mentioned above, there are many social media platforms available. Trying to maintain a presence on all of them would be difficult, though, so the key is to focus on the platforms your customers use. If you sell craft supplies, for example, you’ll want to be on Pinterest. But you might want to concentrate on other platforms if you are in the plumbing supplies business.

To keep on top of multiple accounts, you can use a social media management tool. To reach different audiences on different platforms, moreover, you should tailor what you post accordingly. Don’t just post the exact same message on all of your social media accounts!

2. Join the Community

The beauty of social media is that you can interact directly with the public. But this is a two-way street. If all you do online is post information, your followers may get bored. Instead, you should engage with other people online, including both customers and other people from your industry.

One key factor here is responding promptly to messages. But you can also engage followers by giving them something to interact with, such as polls, hashtags or links to your company’s blog.

3. Infographics Galore!

Humans are visual creatures. This may explain why social media posts with images get far more responses than those without. It also gives you a good reason to use images and infographics on your social media accounts. Ideally, you should have made these yourself. If you want to dive into the mad world of memes, though, be our guest (but be careful about copyright).

4. Give People a Reason to Follow You

Getting people to follow you on social media is only half the battle. The real trick is making sure they keep checking your page. And for this, you might need to offer an incentive.

Running competitions, giveaways and special offers on social media is a great idea in this respect. Everyone loves a bargain, after all! And if your followers know that they’ll miss out on freebies or discounts if they don’t check your page, you can be sure of a reliable audience.

5. Spelling Is Important

Social media is often the Wild West of spelling, giving rise to some rather unfortunate errors. But this doesn’t mean that you can ignore spelling, grammar and punctuation in your posts.

Informal English is fine (it may even be a key part of your brand voice). But you should still check that your writing is easy to read and error free before you post anything online from your business accounts.

Summary: Social Media Tips for Businesses

You can boost your chances of social media success by following these five simple tips:

1. Make sure you’re on the same social media platforms as your customers. You can use a social media management tool to run multiple accounts.
2. Engage with your followers by responding to questions promptly and providing ways to interact (e.g. polls or hashtags).
3. Posts featuring images usually get more views than those without.
4. Use competitions and special offers to reward loyal followers.
5. Always check your content for errors before posting it on social media.

These tips will help you create engaging content that your followers will enjoy and share with others. And the more your social media is shared, the more exposure your business will get!