The Ultimate Social Media Starter Kit for those who missed the bus!

The Internet has created a wave of change in trends and culture, hence giving birth to a whole new genesis. Change is the only constant, and you cannot escape. With advanced technology and ‘The Great Internet Revolution,’ there’s a change in marketing strategy too. Marketing is about reaching out to your target audience and potential clients. And how do you do that, you ask? Social Media, that’s how. That’s your answer. Social media is where you’ll generate your brand recognition and visibility, create direct contact with your potential customers/clients, decrease marketing costs, better your search engine visibility, and so on. If you are not already on it, then you should start now!

What exists behind these series of wacky #hashtags, thumbs up likes, funny comments, and shares, is something more than the eyes can see. The world of digital media is a world of possibilities. Believe it or not – having a website alone isn’t enough for your business anymore.

So here’s to a little starter kit for all the budding SME entrepreneurs & start-ups.

Your social media strategy approach should first begin by identifying the type of business you own. Is it a B2B (business to business) or a B2C (business to consumer) type of business.

If you have done that, then let’s move to step two! That is to follow the starter’s kit mentioned below.

B2C Social Media Starter kit

• Facebook: Remember, Facebook is your social media best friend. The brand visibility and reach on Facebook are higher than many other social media platforms. Facebook page likes are always more natural to find and achieve. What’s more, is the time dedicated to being on Facebook is comparatively less than social media sites. But, of course, it requires hard work too to ensure the right content for the right audience.
• Twitter: Twitter tweets are like your messenger pigeons. They reach the crowd that follows you or discovers you through trending topics and hashtags. So you aim to attract more and more followers, then express yourself within a limit of 280 characters. Make sure to keep timely tweets. Tweet about subjects that are trending that could be current affairs, films, music, food, or anything that people like to chat or rant about. Your ultimate goal is for people to know who you are through your profile. You could use sites like Hootsuite or Tweetdeck to schedule your Twitter posts.
• Instagram: Yeah, who would have thought Instagram would be an excellent front for your business? But it is. There have been many success stories of businesses using Instagram. How can Instagram be used? It is a picture diary that gives a visual to your followers. It’s like a social media catalog; you could convince and lure your customers using attractive Instagram pictures. Instagram helps you with direct lead generation and customer loyalty. Though it is becoming more of an influencer-driven and celebrity-driven platform, I still recommend Instagram for visibility. Using the right hashtags is the key to your profile visits.
• Pinterest: Pinterest is different from Instagram. Pinterest is like your project board. You like something; you pin it! The motto is to get as many as re-pins as possible and also get followers. You could skip on the fancy hashtags here, but make sure to define your board. You could have your pins and re-pins organized on these boards. Pinterest is great for creating customer relations and customer loyalty.

B2B Social Media Starter Kit

• LinkedIn: Contrary to the popular belief that social media is useless for B2B business; social media platform for professionals like LinkedIn helps you build your business. LinkedIn enables you to connect with other companies that could be your clients. It allows you to identify your potential clients. If a business is all that you mean then LinkedIn is your best option.
• Facebook: As previously mentioned, Facebook is your social media best friend. Your type of business doesn’t matter for Facebook, as it creates brand visibility and recognition.
• Twitter: Twitter is also helpful for B2B business as it helps you keep a tab on your clients and competition. When you follow them, they will follow you back. Sharing information regarding your business and other business-related activity helps your customers remain in the loop, and you can strengthen your relations with them.

Other Social Media Platforms

• WordPress (For Blogs): Once you have well established other social media platforms, you could jump into writing blogs and articles. WordPress is just the site for that. Writing blogs and articles make the customers look up to you for advice, and you create thought leadership. This creates brand loyalty and helps build a company’s goodwill.
• YouTube: In 2019, the video marketing trend gained momentum, and YouTube requires the most amount of dedication, but it also pays back the effort you put in. YouTube is now becoming a working frontier for many vloggers; these vloggers become opinion leaders in the market. You could easily have a channel for your business and create videos for generating awareness about your product or service.  Garner a right amount of thumbs up, subscribers and shares to create lead generation.

Well, the above platforms are ‘starters’ and as your business progresses, there are multiple platforms that best suit your interests and business model. You will have to expand your visibility to other platforms, once you get the hang of how social media works for you.

To conclude this, I would say, your consumers and target audiences are online, and that’s where you should be too. Social Media Marketing requires a lot of investment in the form of time. If Time is ‘more money’ for you, then you could outsource the social media marketing work to an agency that could do justice to your business. Financial investments are way less as compared to traditional marketing. What’s more is that the analytics generated is from your targeted audience, which makes it easy for you to build on your product or service to serve them best. These analytics are far more focused on receiving feedback, results & measure ROI as compared to traditional marketing tools.

Remember! Social Media Marketing is not a magic wand, its hard work, and it pays off! Do plan ahead in your social media approach and remember that social media combines personal and professional personas, with your audience, so be careful, what you post or say and watch out for what your consumers talk about you.

Do let me know how did you like this simple post!