We’ve been living in the digital age for quite some time now – but a lot of businesses STILL don’t have a social media marketing strategy!
In our opinion, every business should be conducting at least SOME social media marketing. To help you craft your business’s strategy, we brought in Keihon Sarkhosh (Owner of Wolfhand Creative Group) to share his most effective social media marketing tips and tactics.
If you’re not in the video-watching mood (or you just don’t have your headphones at work), you can check out a rundown of some of our questions and Keihon’s answers below.
Should Every Business Use Social Media Marketing? And How Much Time Should They Commit?
“In today’s world, you’re pretty much irrelevant online if you don’t use social media. And if you really want to kill it on social media, you can’t just do it 20 minutes a day. You have to plan out what you’re going to post and take the time to follow the right people – you should be spending two to five hours a day on your social media to do it right.”
How Do You Create Content for Niche or “Boring” Businesses?
“Actually, more niche or ‘boring’ industries are easier to create content for. There’s a really small group of people interested in that content, but those people are completely obsessed it. For instance, for something like a protein processor, maybe there are only 100 people out there who want to watch that content. But those 100 people are going to watch every single piece of content you put out, as long as you target it to them.”
How Would You Convince Someone to Go “All-in” on Social Media Marketing?
“Business is all about return-on-investment. So as a business owner, think about all the ways you’re spending your marketing money now. And then, take some of the budget you’re allocating toward ‘traditional’ advertising and put something small toward social media marketing.
And when you do that, if you make sure you’re doing things right, you’re going to see something quantifiable. The second you get your first sale from social, you’re not going to want to stop. You’ll be hooked.”
What Social Media Platforms Should Businesses Focus On?
“You definitely want to learn where your audience is. Every business is going to have a different platform – whether it’s YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest …
In our opinion, we think you should start on Facebook and Instagram. Because there’s a 90% chance your audience has a Facebook or Instagram account where you can reach them.”
How Has Your Business’s Take on Social Media Marketing Evolved Over Time?
“We started off by just making these awesome videos for businesses. They’d be cool videos, and we’d give ’em to clients, and they’d be like, ‘Great, what do I do with this now?’
And they’d maybe post it on their Instagram one time, not using the right copy or hashtags. And not running them as advertisements. So we decided we needed to control the delivery of our videos.
After we took control of where these videos went, and published and promoted them using a real strategy, their effectiveness and overall ROI skyrocketed. So we went from just creating videos to actually helping our clients get the maximum reach out of them.”
What Are Your Best Tips for Growing a Business Via Social Media?
“For Instagram specifically, a real common hack that we use is following, liking, and engaging with select profiles that have followers similar to those we want. So if you’re a taco restaurant, you’re gonna go and follow the followers of all the different taco restaurants in town. Those people are already interested in your product or service, so you start following their pages and they’re gonna follow you back.
Another great tip is to post on your Story before you actually post on your feed. Right now, because of Instagram’s algorithm, only about 10% of your followers are going to see a new post on your feed unless they click on your profile. But most people will watch Stories like a news feed. So if you post something on your Story that says, ‘Hey, here’s a new post,’ you’re going to show up on their Story feed.
And then, we recommend you use hashtags. Some people might say it’s spammy or looks annoying, but it works. You want to use 15 to 20 hashtags and constantly change them up, looking for stuff that’s relevant to your audience and industry.
Finally, you just need to put some content out there. Don’t wait until you’re ready or for the perfect content. Get started posting your photos and videos. And if you can’t make high-quality content in-house, find someone who can do it for you.”
