With the advent and subsequent rise of social media platforms, businesses have access to more marketing channels than ever before. Whether you aim to provide a life-long learning platform for stay-at-home freelancers or an educational platform for professional teachers and tutors, social media marketing is a prospect worth looking into.
However, nailing down the right content marketing trends and production processes can be tricky, especially with the level of interactivity social media platforms enable. With that in mind, let’s take a look at several tips and guidelines which can help your educational startup reach more leads and convert them into followers and subscribers.
Benefits of Social Media Marketing for Startups
A new company is most likely to have a tighter budget when it comes to its upcoming campaigns. Probably, this is the biggest reason why social media marketing campaigns are great for beginners; they can be completely free of charge.
While online advertisement and collaborating with other brands and influencers can be rather pricey, social media platforms give you the opportunity to create your own page free of charge and use it how you wish. You can come in contact with the people you wish to attract through various ways and continue to build your online following so that your brand becomes more and more popular.
This will help you increase your sales, come in contact with more people in your field and spread the word about your new business a lot easier and cheaper.
Social Media Marketing Tips to Implement
1. Develop your Value Proposition
First and foremost, it is important to always be honest about what you have to offer to your customers. You can never expect them to know what they should be expecting from your brand when they make a purchase. The best way for you to achieve this is through always giving them a glimpse of what they can expect through your social media posts.
For example, when you upload a picture of one of your products, it is a good idea to include a short description of what the product does and how it can be used. Not only is this going to help your potential customers know the exact value of the products you have to offer, but it will also save them time from having to search for the product online and learn more about it by themselves.
2. Create a Target Profile
One of the things that will help you succeed in the online communities and help you attract more followers is to know exactly what types of people you wish to attract. Some of the things you need to keep in mind are the ages of the people you wish to attract, their demographics and even their location around the world.
These people will be your target audience and the more details you know about them, the easier it will be for you to create posts which will be specified to their likes and needs. As a result, the posts and products you create will be much more likeable and will sell a lot easier to the people that come across your brand and fit your target audience criteria.
3. Choose the Right Platforms
Apart from trying to create good quality posts for your social media pages, you should know exactly which platforms they will perform the best on. This will greatly depend on the type of content you wish to create and the resources you have.
For example, Instagram is a social media platform that relies heavily on audiovisual content. In order for your posts to do well on this platform, you will have to possibly have certain photography and editing skills which will help you create images and short videos which will perform well with your target audience. On top of that, Instagram is a social media platform that is greatly used by younger people, so you can always keep that into consideration when thinking about creating a social media page.
On the other hand, if you would prefer to stick to simple images and include more text to your captions, Facebook can help you market your products and services a lot easier as it doesn’t rely on visual content as much as other platforms.
Depending on the people you wish to attract and especially their age groups, you will be able to pick the right social media platforms for your new company’s needs.
4. Differentiate from Competitors
One of the things that you probably see a lot online is how much brands like to copy other brands. While it is understandable that there are only so many new things someone can come up with, copying products and ideas of other companies to an extreme is a very bad move which will cause your brand’s reputation to drop.
The best thing you can do in order to differentiate yourself from your competitors is to start by choosing a unique name for your brand and creating your own, custom packaging for all of your products. Along with that, you can always go on your social media pages and talk about your new launches and the reasons behind anything new you come up with.
This will help you give a little bit of a story to your products and services and allow you to show your originality and your fresh ideas to your online audience.
5. Sell through Calls to Action
Call-to-action phrases are always going to be one of the best ways to increase your sales in the online social media platforms. The number one reason why this happens is that they help create a sense of urgency which they potential customers are usually not able to ignore.
By using phrases such as “Don’t miss out on this one of a kind deal!” you will be able to show the customer just how important it is for them to make a purchase as a great sale is going on. On the same note, with a phrase as “Let us know which your favorite products from our brand are!” you can get your customers to promote your products without much effort from your side.
In any case, call-to-action phrases should always be a part of your social media marketing strategies as they are a very effective way to increase your sales in a short amount of time.
6. Rely on a Content Calendar
Content calendars can be a great way for you to keep track of the content you create on a weekly or monthly basis. This is especially helpful if you wish to create content geared towards different target audiences.
For example, you can arrange your calendar so that on Mondays you post new pictures of your products, on Wednesdays you share a new blog post and during the weekends you repost your customers’ pictures.
This type of organizational system will help you know exactly what type of content you wish to create for each day of the week and that will allow you to never run out of ideas or content for your social media pages.
7. Use Specialized Social Media Tools
Sometimes, you might need some additional assistance with creating your social media content and managing your accounts. When you’re just starting out as an educational business owner, it is normal for you not to know how to do every single thing that will keep your company up and running.
The good news is that there are plenty of online social media tools you can use in order to help you out with anything you might need. For example, if you need help with editing and proofreading your content, you can use tools such as Grammarly, TrustMyPaper and Hemmingway Editor in order to make sure your content is always of the best quality.
Your educational content should always be well researched and edited in a way that is easy to read and comprehend in order for your customers to connect with your brand. These tools will help you save a lot of time and always create content your audience will enjoy.
8. Engage your Audience
Engaging your audience on your online social media platforms is very important if you wish for more people to come in contact with your brand. One of the easiest and most effective things you can do in order to keep your audience engaged is to create hashtags unique to your brand’s content, products and services.
If you don’t know a lot about creating hashtags, you can always use a simple online tool such as All Hashtags’, Hashtag Generator and make as many hashtags as you need. Hashtags will help bring more attention to a certain post and more people will want to use them in order to show you they have bought a product or are participating in an online challenge or other event happening on your page.
9. Offer Freebies, Gifts & Coupons
Everybody loves to get something for free. This is something you can utilize to your advantage and have more people coming your way. One of the things you can do which involve a certain type of reward is to offer anyone who signs up to your email list a discount code for their next purchase.
Another great way to attract more customers by offering free products is through giveaways. Giveaways have become a huge trend on various social media platforms and brand and influencers alike use them in order to get more followers on their pages.
10. Feedback-Based Growth
One of the things that many companies often forget to use is their customers’ feedback. While you might not always like the truth, accepting your customers’ opinions as they are is one of the things that will truly help your company grow and evolve.
The best way for you to get some much-needed feedback from your customers is either through your email list or your social media pages. You can send emails asking for feedback or even have your email contacts follow a series of questions you wish to have some opinions on.
On the other hand, social media platforms are a lot easier to manage as they can offer you the chance to create a poll and get immediate answers when you ask for feedback through any type of questions.
Not every piece of feedback will be positive and you won’t always be happy with every comment you receive. The important thing here though is to take these comments with a positive attitude and use them in order to better not only the products, and services you offer your customers but also the way you approach and handle them on the regular.
Using the right tips for your social media marketing strategies
While there are many things you can try doing in order to enhance your brand’s online appearance as well as performance, you will only be able to use some of them on a regular basis. The tips mentioned in this article are meant to help you get a better understanding of the ways social media platforms work and allow you to decide how you wish to organize your next social media strategy.
