Social media platforms give you the chance to interact with your customers and audience in real time, something email campaigns and request forms can’t provide. With so much possibility at your disposal, though, it’s important that you make sure every online interaction between you and your customers count.
Deciding on what to post on social media for business becomes easy when you apply your understanding of your customers’ needs, wants, and interests to the content you curate. If you talk to your customers, as opposed to just trying to sell to them, you will have a much more effective means of marketing in your toolbox.
Here are a few good rules of thumb to follow.
Share Industry Trends and Data
Whatever you specialize in, your customers pay and buy from you for one reason above all others: You know more about your industry than they do. They look to you as an industry expert, someone who will keep them current with the best new services and products.
You are a leader of your profession, and you know what is going on at all times—developments, disruptions, and lasting trends. Let your customers in on what is happening so they can prepare for any future changes and not be caught off-guard.
This news can come from external sources, or it can originate from a blog post you wrote.
Better yet, explain to them how they can prepare for these changes. Share a blog post outlining the steps you have taken to better adapt to new disruptions in your industry, and how customers can adopt these practices as well. Things are always changing, and your customers look to you as both a messenger and a guide.
If you’re a B2B business, this is an essential tactic for social media marketing. It facilitates trust and conversation with your customers and fellow industry professionals.
Post Pictures—and Lots of Them
It doesn’t matter if you’re B2B or B2C; visuals will always generate more attention online than written text ever will. Share a generous amount of pictures across all of your social media business accounts. If possible, make imagery the dominant type of content for your social posts, rather than text or articles.
So what kinds of pictures should you post? If you’re clever enough, the possibilities really are endless. Images can be directly related to your company, such as:
- A picture of one of your products of services in action.
- A picture of an employee or team member.
- A Picture of something in the office.
- An infographic detailing data or statistics.
You can also post photos not directly related to your business if you curate them in a way that still ties into your company or industry.
A great way to do this is by posting a meme—a funny image, video, or text that gets generously copied and passed throughout the internet. Humor is universal across all industries, with inside jokes and annoyances that only other industry professionals will understand.
It is easy to create memes, too, with a few simple online tools to help anyone generate one:
Both B2B and B2C companies have had great success with memes, and given the transitory nature of social media, they are easy, effective tools for generation online reactions from your customers right away.
Share Random Tips
Industry data and news are important, but sometimes your customers need a fresh reminder of one particular important detail.
Search your customer inquiries or consult with your customer service representatives to figure out which questions people are asking the most and what’s causing the most confusion and frustration among them.
Spread the solution to your online audience. This insightful tip can be shared in a variety of forms.
You can create a text image, raising the likelihood of people reading it, as well as the amount of people who will read it.
You could even turn it into a video. This video doesn’t have to be long or professionally edited; it just has to be thorough enough to explain the tip in a helpful and engaging way. If you choose the video route, you can also show it in action to help customers better understand what they should be doing differently or what they are missing out on. The more visual you are in your messaging, the more of your audience will heed the tip you are giving them.
Posting regularly to social media is easy as long as you know what you’re talking about. It’s a matter of applying how people interact with one another online—specifically when talking about your industry—in order to engage with them at the level you want.
We specialize in creating reliable social media marketing plans that target specific audiences. If you need help kick starting a digital marketing plan for social media, reach out to us and we’ll get you posting.
