Gettin’ Social to Grow Your Business

Ready to up your social media game? Good. Social media, just like all of digital marketing, is skyrocketing into the future of marketing and revamping your strategy for engagement can not only draw in and retain more customers, it can, if done right, really boost your organic growth -and that, my friends, if how you bring in more profit while simultaneously lowering your marketing costs. Too good to be true? Nope, not really. It’s all about focusing your attention on creative, engaging content and taking advantage of what social media was designed to do: be social.

Forget, for now, the technicalities of setting up and maintaining your social media accounts. We’ll assume here you’ve got Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and/or Twitter accounts set up and running and being updated on at least a semi-regular basis. This article, instead, is about the small tweaks you can do to make your posts more interesting, more engaging, and more successful. Some might be quite obvious (bear with us) and others might just be something you’ve never considered before and want to try out for yourself.

So, without further ado, our top tips for increasing engagement across your social media to boost your engagement and your bottom line:

1. Keep your tone of voice casual. Clients in even the most formal of industries want to have a conversation with a person, not a business. And if your brand calls for it, get personal, use humour, or hyper-customize your content. Consider live content for this -it shows you can be spontaneous, imperfect, and human.
2. Use visuals. All your social media posts should include an image or graphic of some kind. What kind of visual to use is a whole other kettle of fish that we won’t get into here, but suffice it to say, without *something* visually stimulating to grab and keep your audience’s attention, you’re losing out. Big time (we’re talking like 120% less successful losing out).
3. While we’re at it, don’t just include a visual, make a video. Even short snippets can really boost engagement (and before you ask, yes, even annoying GIFs *can* fall into this category if done right).
4. Timing is everything. Ok, not everything. But it counts for a lot. Use your analytics tools to determine when your target audience is most likely to see and engage with your posts, then schedule your social media posts around those specific days and times. It makes more of a difference than you’d think.
5. Use hashtags. Do your research and determine the best hashtags to be using on all your social media posts. Think about your personal brand, local tags, trending hashtags, and hashtag creation to corner the market and remember to use hashtags liberally on Instagram but tone them down elsewhere. Outside of Instagram, one or two hashtags per post is more than enough to get your point across without making your posts feel “spammy.”
6. Use promotions. Contests, giveaways, offers…they’re all great ways to encourage otherwise non-engaging readers to interact with your post which will help promote your business to them and others elsewhere on that social media platform. Don’t forget to make your promotions as attractive as you can and require as little participation as possible to reach the broadest audience.
7. Use influencers, but think small. Big worldwide names aren’t really necessary -in fact, smaller, local influencers are more likely to draw in your local audiences and past customers or clients are quite possibly the best influencers of them all if you can get them to leave great reviews that you can use across all your social media platforms.

Remember, no matter what you’re doing to boost your social media engagement, the key is to find the right balance of consistency and creativity, a productive combination of traditional techniques and bold new ideas. And above all, always, always, always be evaluating your strategies and successes so you can determine what’s working for your business.

Not sure where to start, how to monitor your results, or simply want faster results on your efforts? Investing in a digital marketing agency is your best bet. As experts in their field, social media marketing professionals have seen (and likely done) it all. They tend to already know what works and what doesn’t for certain branding styles, industries and audiences and can put them all into play straight away. Plus, if you want to get creative with your social media marketing plan (and we highly recommend that you do!), a professional digital marketing agency can help plan, test, and track all your new strategies to find the ones that work to bring more engagement (and more profit!) to your business, giving you the best possible return on investment.

Looking for the best local digital marketing agency in Marbella or along the Costa del Sol? That’s Peppermint, obviously! Our 16 years of experience and boast-worthy client and project lists speak for themself, but we’re happy to give you specific examples of what we’ve done before or what we can do for you, too. Just ask (or check out our online portfolio)!