How can you use social networks to develop your business? Complete step-by-step guide

A campaign created by the Canadian Tourism Commission can be considered an excellent example of social media promotion. Employees working for the Commission traveled to France and Germany and approached travelers in the airport, offering a free vacation in Canada. Many people appreciated the offer and accepted it. In return, they agreed to share their adventures with online audiences.

This campaign soon became viral, and as a result Canada boosted their share of tourists by 21.5% compared to other areas.

Social networks are the perfect instrument for business development

Every day, between 1 and 3 billion people visit Facebook, Youtube and Instagram. There are many social networks with active audiences of hundreds of millions of users. In other words, each of these platforms holds the key to your potential clients.

These services are especially promising for companies offering remote services: you can easily connect with users who are thousands of kilometers away from you. But even if your business is tied to a particular location, social networks offer the opportunity to tell residents of your town about your services.

Before getting started, you need to answer several questions:

• Which social network should you use?
• Which strategy should you adopt to ensure the widest reach?
• What is the most effective type of content?
• How often should you publish this content?
• How should you communicate with your audience? What are the etiquette rules for the online space?

Some entrepreneurs believe that it's enough to post several ads in social networks to ensure successful promotion. But that's not how it works. Strategy is at the core of any business, and it is absolutely essential to ensure high-quality online advertising. A concrete action plan will guarantee rapid audience growth.

Decide on the right social network

You don't need to tackle all social networks at once, because you won't have enough resources to manage that. Focusing on achieving success on one or two social networks is a much more efficient approach. Who are your clients? Which social networks do they visit? Where do your competitors promote their products?

For example, if you have a young audience, you might pick Instagram or Youtube. LinkedIn is an excellent choice for promoting B2B services.

If you're not sure about the websites that are popular with your clients, you can ask them directly by sending out emails. This is a simple but effective solution that will help you find the answers you need. You can also find out where users are most engaged (in terms of likes and comments) and focus on that social network.

A visual platform like Instagram can help you sell physical products, while services are best promoted through Facebook, LinkedIn and similar networks.

However, remember, the main rule for any social network is consistency. Content posting frequency and its quality define the success of your business as a whole. This is even more important than picking the right platform.

Setting up your page

Picture this: you visit the official page of some company, only to find that it does not have a profile picture, the sections are empty, and the company rarely posts anything. Would you be interested in this company's services? The answer is obvious.

Your social media profile must be optimized, informative and attractive. Only then will people start trusting your brand and buying your products.

Pick a good name

Ideally, this should be the name of your company, or your own name can be used as a last resort. A generic nickname like User123 looks unprofessional and deters clients. Keep in mind that your name is usually also used as part of the URL address of your social profile. Make sure that your profiles on different social networks have the same name.

Profile picture

Whether you're using a company logo or a photo of yourself, the image has to be in high resolution. Your profile picture is the face of your brand, the first thing that catches a customer's eye when they access your profile. Try to make sure they get a positive first impression.

The cover photo should be discussed separately. Just like your profile picture, this has to be a high-resolution image. Try to pick a picture that reflects some unique aspects of your business. The easiest way to do this is by posting a photo of your products and your company motto.

Tell them about yourself

The 'About Us' section has to be filled. Share the history of your business, your goals and competitive advantages. However, try not to overload the client with too much information - try to deliver detailed information in a clear and concise manner. Don't forget to include any links to your official website or other social media accounts.

You should also indicate as many contact options as possible to ensure your clients can always get in touch with you. This list can include a company phone number and email address, a physical address and other contact options.

Your content plan

After fulfilling all the above requirements, it's time to decide what you will post, and how often. The best way to do this is by creating a content plan which will include a list of your actions during a particular time frame.

Make sure that the following questions are answered in your plan:

• What will be the posting frequency? Ideally, try to post something every day.
• What kind of content will you post? This strongly depends on your particular business. For example, if you are a business coach, you can share inspiring quotes and photos. A medical blog will be complete with tips on staying healthy. Think about the content that would be interesting for your clients.
• What publication formats will you use? The best option is to combine various types of contents, offering articles, photos, videos, tests and surveys to your followers.

By putting together a content plan, you will have a course that you can follow. That way, you will start acting instead of coming up with excuses and procrastinating on creating your posts.

What should you post?

Now that you've selected your social networks and set up your profiles together with your content plan, it's time to start posting. But what should you post?

To attract an audience, you need to post information that is interesting for users. In other words, it needs to fulfill their needs. This is an important point that you should keep in mind.

Which posts might be interesting for social media users?

• Posts that teach them to think and act in a new way.
• Posts that make them feel something.
• Posts that offer valuable information.

With time, you will get to know your audience better and develop an intuitive sense of the posts you should publish. But until then, try working with different types of content and don't be afraid to experiment. For example, a yoga instructor might publish the following content:

• Motivational quotes about health and well-being.
• Diet and nutrition tips.
• Educational videos on specific exercises.
• Online broadcasts with question and answer sessions.
• Photos of the instructor demonstrating complicated yoga poses.

Keep asking yourself, 'Is this valuable for my followers?' If the answer is yes, don't hesitate to post it.

Interactivity

It's not enough to publish a post. The real power of social networks lies in creating connections between people, inspiring them to interact with each other. You have to communicate with your followers - it's the only way to build a large audience.

Regularly answer your clients' questions, read their comments and don't be afraid to make the occasional joke - your followers want to see that you are sincere. Social networks are not a one-way road. To successfully connect with your audience, you can't just publish posts - you also need to react to comments under these posts.

What's more, most social networks boost posts with the most activity, so it is in your interest to keep the number of views, likes and comments high.

A good way to connect with your followers is through surveys and live broadcasts. Another way to generate activity is by making a controversial statement, but be careful not to take it too far.

Develop horizontal connections

Attracting followers is not enough.You should also become a follower. Develop horizontal connections with communities that are similar to yours. For example, if you offer legal services, get to know the leaders in this market, find out how they engage with their audiences, what types of content they post.

Comment and reblog interesting posts, join groups and share your opinions. That way, you will build up your authority and find new followers. However, avoid directly promoting your page - this can result in your account being blacklisted. Become an expert, and the audience will follow you.

#hashtags

Hashtags are used to make it easier to find posts related to a certain topic. If you add a word together with a # symbol to your post, it will be grouped together with other posts that also feature this hashtag. Click on it to see all other posts on this topic.

Some social networks, such as Twitter, showcase the most popular hashtags to inform users about the most popular events on any given day.

You should use hashtags to make your posts visible not only to your followers, but also to other users who are interested in your area of expertise.

Hashtags are usually placed at the bottom of a post to summarize its content. Make sure to only use hashtags that are relevant to your post. For example, the #football tag should only be used in posts about football. Your audience will be annoyed with tags that don't match your content. You don't need to limit yourself to a single hashtag, but don't go overboard. Several hashtags per post are more than enough.

Get to work!

If you are building a business and you haven't used social networks to promote it yet, you need to quickly resolve this issue. Social networks will enable you to:

• attract new clients;
• build a unique brand;
• establish yourself as an expert;
• make new contacts;
• learn a lot of new things.

As you can see, there's nothing difficult about this process, and you should have a general understanding of what you need to do. Don't postpone it until tomorrow - if you've never had a blog before, this is the perfect time to start. Your clients are waiting for you - so go ahead and find them!