These days people are very quick to say that your business should be on social media, but no one is ever as quick to tell you what you should be doing once you’re over there.

It’s just Facebook or Instagram, it’s easy to do, right? Wrong.

Without proper thought, planning and strategy, your social media could actually have adverse effects on your business. When done effectively, social media marketing can lead to more customers, more traffic, and more engagement.

FUTCOM is passionate about transforming business social media accounts, implementing best practice and driving results to ensure data driven results are achieved, so today we’re here to give you 5 key tips that every business should be doing with their paid and organic social.

1. Set a budget aside for paid social.

Know what you’re actually doing, where you want to be and how you’re going to get there. If you’re diving down the avenue of paid social (which you should be), you can then identify your budget. Once you know your budget, it is important to create an ad strategy to ensure that you’re allocating enough money to each stage of the sales funnel and that you are targeting the correct audience for each ad. You should be creating awareness, traffic, engagement, conversion and remarketing ads, and by using an ad strategy you are able to effectively distribute your budget to each of these in order to see a positive return.

2. Consider customers at every stage of the sales funnel

A successful ad strategy will reach users at different levels of intent, from discovery to advocacy. In order to do this, you must target these users at every stage of the funnel. Understanding the importance of prospecting to new audiences to build new relationships while continuing to nurture existing relationships will see your business soar on social media.

3. Consistently A/B testing your ads

Use A/B tests within your Facebook ad campaigns to ensure that you are utilising your budget to its full potential. The most popular tests are:

• Audience testing – This way you are able to determine your best audience and therefore generate better results
• Creative testing – Know what works well for your target audience, whether it be a carousel or a single image ad, a witty headline or being straight to the point

4. Securing conversions with remarketing adverts

Dynamic remarketing ads will become one of the most important parts of the ad strategy for your business when utilised correctly.  When used strategically, social remarketing can be an incredibly effective way to capture more sales and build relationships with shoppers after they’ve left the site. Dynamic remarketing ads create a very personalised experience for the user, showing products that they have recently viewed along with other relevant, recommended products, therefore, creating a higher intent to purchase.

5. Don’t forget about organic content

Although the importance of organic content has been somewhat shifted towards paid content over the past few years, organic posting continues to be a cost-effective, fast way of reaching your target audience, increasing your brand’s authenticity and building meaningful connections with your audience. While an organic presence can not only help with your search engine optimization by helping you show up in relevant search results, but it also helps turn users into brand advocates with the power of regular posting and engaging content creation, something that an ad is not always able to do.

63% of consumers who search for businesses online are more likely to become consumers of brands with an established social media presence, can you afford to miss out?

If you’d like to talk about your social media marketing, contact us today at info@futcom.co.uk.

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