How Do I Actually Make Money From Social Media?

With social media it is important to keep up with the latest trends and use different techniques for different platforms. You need to focus on regularly increasing your followers, increasing interaction with them and providing them with relevant content. This will encourage them to be engaged with your business and want to find out all the latest news from you. Your social media profiles are a great platform to announce your promotions and competitions, also to encourage regular sharing and favouring by your followers.

For Twitter and Facebook it is important to add hashtags so that your content will be viewed, shared and favourited by others. Whereas for Linkedin you can target through different groups. It is also important to differentiate content on Google+ and for Pinterest and Instagram it is important share photos. Through these channels you need to focus on images that many engage your potential customers and also communicate your business capabilities. Not only this, there are multiple advertising opportunities through different social media platforms. This will allow you to further promote your business.

So how can your business actually make your social media profiles provide you with a return on investment?

1) Build an Audience and Following

Through social media it is important to plan how you can increase your number of followers and communication with them. You can use a range of strategies such as personalising your posts to encourage regular interaction with your followers. Make sure that you use all the tools through each social media channel to maximise your social media success. Such as through Twitter and Facebook make sure you are using hashtags in your posts. This will encourage your posts to be found through multiple channels.

When creating marketing campaigns it is important to create a combined social media approach. If you can promote, for example, your competitions through several social media channels your reach will be larger and you are more likely to gain more followers. However it is also important to promote your social media channels too. This can be done by showcasing them through your website, email campaigns, email signatures and more.

2) Use Different Social Media Strategies

It is important that your content is not exactly the same on all your social media channels. It is important to create posts for every working day of the week, 3 or 4 posts per day are likely to be effective. You may also want to publish posts for Saturdays as your followers may still view their social media profiles then. They still want to find out the latest news. It is important to keep a record of all your social media posts. It may also help to schedule your social media posts for example , a week in advance. There are a range of social media publishing programmes that you could use to schedule them.

What are the key social media methods I could be using?

Photos

You should include a range of photos or links to photos. These may relate to your business directly, or be relevant to your followers wider personal interests. It is important to have photos as they are more engaging and therefore more likely to encourage potential customers quicker than some content posts. Your image posts may also include captioned comical images or infographic images. 

Share your articles and other reputable articles

Additionally it is important to share useful information such as blog articles and also other relevant articles relating to the your target customers interests. If you don’t currently have a blog for your business this will help you communicate a range of topics to your prospects. You could search for news articles that relate to your products and retweet them. You could also retweet articles that will be useful guidance and advice for your prospects which may have been published by other people.

Create your Own Unique Style 

You can also create your business’s own unique style on social media platforms. This will make your business stand out from your competitors. This will also make your business easy for your prospects to relate to. Ask questions in your posts so followers can respond, create interactive games that followers can join in. Additionally talk about interesting weekly events that occur as well as worldwide and UK special events such as Valentine’s Day, Mothers Day, International Happiness Day, Easter, Charity events and more. Find out about the latest trends in your industry and promote them. 

3) Create Content

The content and images for your social media posts are important. It may help you to plan your content ahead to ensure that you have regular social media posts. Make sure that you also vary your content to keep the interest of your followers and to encourage them to interact with you more. Interaction leads to conversation, conversation leads to building relationships, relationships lead to business transactions. There are a range of digital marketing companies who can help you write the content for your posts.

4) Be Consistent

In order to maximise your social media success it is important to make sure you publish your posts regularly. Making sure you are providing consistent content to your followers will help you build up your audience. Additionally you should ensure you are posting new content on all your social media channels. This will show your followers that your business is up to date with the latest industry and worldly news and that you value your followers’ opinions. This will also ensure you are regularly differentiating yourself from your competitors.

5) Have a Conversion System and a Profitable 'Back end'

Make sure that you are converting your enquiries into sales. Use your social media channels to encourage more followers to understand about the services you offer. This can be done by promoting downloadable brochures and reports for them. However it is also important that your social media posts are informational so include links to your blog articles. This stops your business using a pushy sales approach and shows that you are trying to build up relationships with your followers. Showing that you are interested in their opinion regarding a range of topics.

6) Boost Social Media through Advertising

Different social media channels provide different options for your business to promote yourself through advertising. Social media advertising could be a cost effective solution for your business. Through Facebook for example your business could be involved with display ads. This will help to further promote your business. Therefore your business will have social media business profiles and advertising to promote your business. Advertising is also an effective visual method to improve your business success. Therefore a targeted and diversified approach will maximise the increase in followers for your business.

Article by: Laura Morris-Richardson