Social media can be a real boon if you’re self-employed. It’s relatively cost-free and can help you grow your brand quickly online. Social marketing is perfect if you’re a busy freelancer or business owner. You don’t have to spend hours proofreading physical print and can connect with potential clients with little more than a few clicks.
Platforms like Instagram and Facebook can also help you conduct market research. Polling your followers will yield useful results and you can figure out your competitors’ strategies by researching their content.
Benefits of Social Media
Social media offers a low-risk, high-reward method to market yourself and your business. This is particularly useful if you’re self-employed and don’t have a massive marketing budget at your disposal. You can create a free account today and instantly gain access to potential customers and key metrics. Social media also benefits your business by:
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View Industry Trends: Social sites give you immediate access to consumer trends without having to pay for expensive market reports. This is particularly helpful if you are trialing a new product or project.
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Competitor Analysis: Your competitors are already advertising themselves on social media. This means you can track their promotions and figure out the best way to engage prospective clients.
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Customer Service: Consumers want to engage with your business on social media, which is why it’s important to understand their voice. Facebook posts and Instagram profiles will yield plenty of comments, meaning you’ll have a chance to repair customer relations should things ever go awry.
Posting highly engaging content to social sites can help you build your brand among younger audiences, too. You can use social media to track engagement online and gather demographic-specific insights based on details like age and location. This increases the accuracy of your decision-making and helps you become more relatable.
Top Social Sites
Sites like Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook are trend-driven and constantly in flux. That means you need to constantly revise your approach to social media marketing in order to stay relevant. You can make use of the hottest trends by prioritizing the top social sites in 2023, including:
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Instagram: With well over 1 billion active users, Instagram represents a great opportunity for your small business. Post consistent, high-quality content to Instagram and put the focus on well-taken photographs and engaging posts. Intersperse stories between your regular posts, as many enjoy the short-form style of video.
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YouTube: 74% of American adults use YouTube. You can capture a large audience for your small business by posting content that is informative or educational. Popular trends, like unboxing videos and “how-tos” also perform well on the site.
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Facebook: Facebook is a staple for any marketer. It’s a great place to build a community and start a conversation. Consider posting some video content on the platform, too, as this will convince folks to stop their scroll and pay attention.
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TikTok: 48% of users on TikTok are aged between 10 and 29. This means you should prioritize engaging, entertaining content that brings users in and holds their attention. Catchy content will hold sway with younger users, too, and may help you boost your brand presence.
Each of these social sites is worthy of your time and effort. However, sites like Facebook and X are on the decline in 2023. This is largely due to controversies surrounding the platforms and the growing demand for other sites among younger users.
Building Reach and Engagement
Running a successful social media account shouldn’t take up more than a few hours per week. However, you may find it difficult to justify the time and effort if you only reach a few real users online. Fortunately, with the right strategy, you can start to build your reach and engagement quickly.
Make the process easier by limiting the number of platforms that you post to. Each platform has distinct strengths and weaknesses and requires your full attention at first. Master a single platform first and focus on producing high-quality content that will appeal to a niche audience.
You can use social media analytics to refine your posts and build a cohesive content strategy. Utilize Instagram Insights, TikTok for Business, or the Meta Business Suite to see all your relevant data. Note down the posts that have performed the best and seek to replicate them. This will consistently grow your reach and lead to higher engagement levels.
If you need a sudden boost in reach and engagement, consider running a competition. This can be particularly lucrative if you’re about to launch a new product and want to get it in front of as many eyes as possible. Incentivize sharing by offering giveaways and engaging with accounts that choose to comment or share your posts. This will build your brand presence and help you discover more highly qualified leads.
Conclusion
Social media offers a free, low-risk method to grow your brand online. Start small and focus your efforts on a single platform. This will help you understand your audience and produce content that creates engagement. You can also use social sites to tap into industry trends and view competitors’ content. This can help you make strategic business decisions and reduce the risk of losing sales when a rival runs a promotional offer.