How Your Small Business Can Crush It By Social Media Networking
The goal of any business is to be profitable. To ensure that profit, said business needs to have an appropriate amount of customers.
For small business owners & those who are ambitious in their personal endeavors, social media marketing is a free and effective way to drum up some new business. Like any marketing, that are many different strategies that can be taken.
Today, we’re going to show you how to find prospective clients or customers by networking through each major social media platform. You’ll be looking for similar things on each platform. The important thing to remember is that each social channel is playing a different show on the screen, just like your TV at home.
People are going to that channel and expecting a certain type of content. AKA know where your target audience hangs out online. Then go deeper on that platform.
Join local & niche Facebook Groups.
The average age of a Facebook user is about 40. It’s the biggest social media platform with
Mom groups are a popular place to be for most businesses. Moms are amazing. They’re always looking for better ways to take care of their family. These groups always dish out a lot of referrals without having to ask for them.
Regardless of what business you’re in, there will be a lot of recommendations being passed amongst friends from these groups. They believe in the power of the group and that those who are in it are like them. People get along best with people who are like them and would refer people they trust.
Post thoughtful and impactful content in the groups. Something that gives help to another’s question without going straight to pitching your services or products.
Become The Lead Dog In Your City
The Instagram Search feature is pretty effective for finding your target audience. Not only does IG do a good job of featuring content they think would be relevant to you based on the things you interact within the app.
Viral content you might like.
There’s even a scrolling list of different categories of content they think you would like:
Sports. Fashion. Science. Food. Etc.
Searching hashtags related to your niche is a good idea here too. That’s something we can discuss in a later piece because we’re looking to find people who are living in our area.
When you tap on the search bar at the top you will see on the right side “Places”.
This box will let you search every piece of content that was tagged in that city. Now we find real people that are near us and could be a potential customer of our product or service. Our goal is to get our profile in front of them. We must think like we are in their shoes.
It’s time to become the mayor of your neighborhood.
How well does it feel when somebody makes a legit comment on our post? Likes are cool and all, but when you have a stranger make a sincere comment on a post out of the blue you do a double-take.
I’m talking about a comment that is directly related to the content they shared or the caption they wrote.
No fist bump emojis or smiley faces unless accompanied by a valuable comment.
First, we need to establish who we’re looking to find. Close to 90% of Instagram users are under 35 and the bulk of those are 18-25.
We must seek out those in our audience or those who have an influence on our audience. Depending on where you live and the time year, you’re likely to have a lot of younger girls trying to be Instagram famous showing some skin.
We cannot control what other people post. Just be away of how comments can come across so while we’re focusing on being clever and creative, we also have to be professional.
If a male personal trainer is scrolling through and commenting on pictures, it would need to be worded appropriately so that they don’t sound sexual.
Look for posts that are relative to your business and who would be a good buyer of your product or service.
Combining this approach with prospecting leads via hashtags, you’re in for a win.
DM For Free From LinkedIn Groups
Over 60% of LinkedIn users are between 25-55. About the age group of most workforces.
Here’s a tip that can save you a $100 a month or however much you’d pay for LinkedIn’s premium features to send DM’s.
You can send a DM to anybody who is in the same group as you. Just click on see all by the members in the top right corner. Once inside, you can message every single person inside of that group for free.
These are likely already people who are in your world. If they can’t be a client or customer, they might know somebody who can be. We should be valuable to them before we ask for something in return.
What is it they would deem valuable?
Should you send them a couple of customers first?
Maybe buy some of what they offer?
Or simply ask them what type of connections are they looking to make for their business that you could make an introduction for. This one is tricky because you can’t walk in like you’re going to have them set up with somebody or someone that you can’t fulfill.
Maybe not asking for a specific person but a role they need to fill. A gap they need to cover.
Get Free PR
Close to 40% of users are between 18-29 and then the next biggest age group is 30-49, which is close to 30%.
Twitter is all about instant information. New stuff.
Those who work in the news and major media outlets are always looking for new stories. They’re also all very likely to be on Twitter.
Most people think Twitter is dead. While we admit that it is a harder approach to get clients with your organic reach from the content you post, this direct outreach is a solid way to communicate directly with those who have a wide reach.
It’s pretty easy to search for your local news channel. Most of the anchors of news channels or journalists put the organization that they report to in their bio.
Aka they come up easily when you search that news channel.
Reach out to them and send them an article that you’ve written (or write one if you don’t already have one) that is related to your business. Tell them you would love to contribute content to them on a more regular basis if they like what you’ve sent them.
Make a list of all the different media outlets that are related to your business.
- Major news channels
- Industry publications
- Individual influencers in your space
Then add a place on that list for the individuals who you find on Twitter
If you come to them with valuable content, they will be more receptive to sharing your content.
Sometimes you can get paid to be a writer for them. It is not going to make or break your business, but it will set you up as an authority in your community.
Plus the more places you can be featured the better.
Conclusion
Every social media platform has its advantages. These are the major platforms in the social media world and each has its own features that allow you to reach people.
Which platform has the bulk of your clients?
Which one of these above strategies will you use?
Send us a message on Facebook letting us know which one you like best. We want to hear your success stories.