Interested in Advertising Your Business on Social Media? Start Here!
A common mistake many business owners make when delving into the world of social media for the first time is failing to define clear goals. With COVID-19 pushing more businesses online and platforms being flooded with other brands, it's more important than ever to identify what you want to achieve so that you can take the needed steps to see your brand thrive online!
Social media platforms popular among businesses include Instagram, WhatsApp, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. They can be used to drive business growth by increasing brand awareness (the number of people who know about your business), enhancing your brand reputation (improving their view of what you offer) and growing your revenue (by leading to new sales).
Your objectives for promoting your business on social media should be SMART:
- Specific: Setting a specific and clear goal to 'reach 200 new followers' is more useful than having a goal of 'increasing followers' and can help you track your progress.
- Measurable: 'Increase revenue' is not a goal unless you have a metric to measure your success. Some social media metrics include the number of likes, followers, and shares you reach on a particular platform (see below for more on these).
- Attainable: Your goals should be challenging but be within reach. If you currently have 500 followers, a realistic target would be to reach 600 followers within two months, not 2000.
- Relevant: Understand how your goal will benefit your business and make sure it meets your needs. If your business is targeting professionals, it may make more sense to advertise on a platform like LinkedIn. If it targets everyday consumers, Facebook and Instagram may be more appropriate.
- Timely: Include a deadline for your goals so that you keep motivated and know when to see your success.
Once you have set objectives, the next step is to begin posting! Once you do that, you’ll want to measure the success of your social media performance. This will help you understand what kinds of posts are most popular and on which platforms.
Some common metrics you’ll want to track include:
- Social Sharing: When a user reposts or sends your content/post to their networks and connections.
- Impressions:Impressions are the number of times a post from your page is displayed.
- Post Reach:the number of people who saw your post in their newsfeed.
You may want to think about using social media platforms not only to advertise but also to understand where you can do better. A few ideas include asking social media users to rate from 0 to 10 how likely they are to recommend your product or service.