Social media is increasingly becoming a tool for organizations, both big and small, to promote their business and create awareness about their current and upcoming offerings.

Most of you would agree that it is important to understand the different facets of any tool to be able to utilize it optimally. And because social media is proving to be highly effective in engaging audiences and attracting potential customers, socially savvy entrepreneurs have started using valuable content to drive their initiatives.

However, one should also know that the online community has little (or no) tolerance for self-promoters who use social media for free advertising. Keeping this in mind, it is usually the small business owners who have a tough time in using social media to promote themselves without getting into trouble.

To a great extent, promotion and engagement go hand-in-hand. Both can be achieved by consistently sharing valuable insights every time you deal with your customers. Not only does doing so help you win their trust, it also makes you come across as a credible source of information, and with time, maybe even an expert in your field.

Promotions enhance your engagement efforts by presenting valuable offers that are tied to your customer’s needs and interests. Using social media can go a long way in further augmenting your efforts so your visibility and your customer base increase.

So how do you use social media to promote your business? Read on to know more.

1. Use the Correct Social Network

You need to ensure that you use the right social media platform(s) to promote your product. When we say the “right” platform, we mean the one where you can come across the right target audience. If your business offers products to kids or teenagers, but you’ve been promoting it on LinkedIn, you cannot expect your message to be heard by those you’re looking to target.

Want to know how you can find your audience? Here’s how –

• Know your current platform’s demographics with the help of online analytics tools
• Know which platforms are frequented by your audience
• Depending on the above, either switch platforms and get on the right one, or make use of targeted ads to reach your target audience on the current platform

Most social media platforms have provisions to enable you to start a page dedicated to your business. Alternatively, you can also create a page through your personal account, but that would be more suitable for small business owners.

2. Work on Constructing Your Social Media Profile

It is important to give your customers the right information about your business, so they know exactly what you stand for. In fact, your page should be informative enough to become a one-stop source of information for customers wanting to know about you.

Make sure your page has appropriate branding on the cover as well as a suitable display picture, and contains a link to your business’s official website. The ‘About’ section should contain clear and concise information about your flagship offering along with your contact information. Do use a legitimate and a fixed font on all your social media pages.

3. Start a Conversation

Want to create buzz about your offerings? You need to set your audience’s tongue wagging for that. How do you do that? By asking them questions! Most people on social media love to give their opinion and will be more than happy to do the same for you. Ask them relevant questions related to your offerings and watch them give their response.

If you’re promoting a restaurant, for instance, you could ask them to vote for their favorite food in order to draw attention to your menu items.

The idea is to engage your audience and inspire them to refer your business to others, while providing you with an insight into their mind.

4. Keep Them Updated

Before you start sending people an online invite/request to join or follow your page, you need to ensure that you have relevant, helpful and updated content on it. Remember, your customers will not start following you just because you sent them a request. You need to give them a reason to do so.

Post valuable information about your industry along with pictures of your offerings and people enjoying them. You can also post videos showing satisfied customers using your offering, and encourage other customers to make their own and post them to your page.

Once your potential customers see this, they will be more convinced of you and will be happy to follow you if they find your page useful.

5. Find and Set the Right Tone

You need to work on setting the right and a consistent tone through all your social media pages. This should be one of the first decisions that you make. Whether the tone is jovial, funny, educational, or highly professional, remember that it will contribute to your brand image on social media.

This, however, does not mean you create a superficial persona. In fact, set a tone that matches the overall perception of your business. Do interact with your customers politely, and be attentive to their concerns. This may be the decisive factor in whether or not they will stick with you or defect to a competitor.

6. Focus on Sharing Valuable Content

Whatever you do, never compromise on the quality of the content for your social voice. Everything that you put up online should always be informative and add value to the lives of your customers. If potential customers visit your page only to find self-promotional communication, they will probably be uninterested and simply ignore you, or worse, consider your page as spam. You want to avoid this at all costs.

Conclusion

It is not only easy and inexpensive to use social media platforms to endorse your business, but it is also a great way to get people talking about your business. If used the right way, it can win you a legion of customers and fans. We hope the above tips will help you in your endeavor to promote your business using this effective tool.

Photo credits: Yoel Ben-Avraham/Flickr, Wikimedia Commons