Marketing
Is it time for a social media makeover?
Get up to 30%* off! Get going with GoDaddy!
Social media is essential for everyday entrepreneurs — but it’s a waste of your valuable time if you’re not using it properly. To stand out from the crowd and be recognized over time, strong design is essential for both of these things. If you’re not standing out, it might be time for a social media makeover.
How do you know it’s time for a social media makeover?
- Your social media has no rhyme or reason. It’s kind of … random. You’re spending loads of time posting but it looks bland and gets no engagement. All that effort isn’t translating into much growth or profit.
- You know your brand could look better. Do you ever catch yourself scrolling and daydreaming? Imagining how your brand could look a little bit cooler? You know your brand could look more unified, professional and relevant, but you simply don’t know how to do it, or you can’t afford to hire a designer.
- You’re not on social media. You have a business already established and a website up and running, but you need to get your brand on social media.
- You’re just starting out. Maybe you’re a small business or side hustle, and you want to do it properly on social media, from the get-go.
Whether it’s taking someone’s wardrobe from drab to fab, or transforming dull living spaces into a dream home, everybody loves a good makeover — probably because we like to see people living their best lives.
Your social media channels as an everyday entrepreneur are no different. But giving your brand a social media makeover goes further than just looking good.
Having a powerful presence on social media can help you maintain a competitive edge, setting you up to sell more, and keep your business thriving.
Maintaining a social media account might feel like a productive use of your time, but pottering around aimlessly in the digital space can end up wasting more energy than it generates for your brand.
Social media is supposed to work for you, gaining you leads, fans, subscribers, customers and recognition. The juice has to be worth the squeeze.
We’ve got some ideas to help create the best brand presence you possibly can, to increase your odds out there in the social media jungle.
Armed with this knowledge, we’ll show you a little shortcut to creating professional-looking designs too, in the form of Layout Collections in GoDaddy Studio.
What does a great social media feed look like?
You know those social media accounts that you just love to see popping up on your phone? That’s not by accident. Looking effortlessly attractive as a brand takes some upfront work to build solid foundations.
Brands with great social media feeds typically get at least some of these things right:
- They publish excellent content. It’s inspirational, informative, or entertaining – providing some value to their target audience.
- They have a distinct identity. When it’s done well, you can recognize a brand at a glance before you even read the first word. Their coherent brand identity also differentiates their business space from the personal accounts that are intermingled on your feed.
- They touch on a defined pool of topics. You can’t talk about everything to everyone – so they narrow it down to some recurring themes, centered on their audience, their product, and their values. Where these intersect, is their sweet spot; the conversation they can own.
- There’s a defined cadence. Whether it’s three times a day or three times a week, a brand is more likely to show up in our feeds (and become memorable to its audience) if they have a regular publishing routine. Diligence is rewarded on most algorithms, too!
- They value aesthetics. Brands doing well on social media have quality, well-considered content that makes your eyes happy: think beautiful photos, playful design, popping colors, gorgeous fonts, and eye-catching graphics that elevate a post from a random photo to a work of art. Some of the best brands regard their feed as an ever-evolving work of art.
- Their content is actionable. There’s a clear message telling the reader what they want them to do – whether it’s entering a competition, commenting on a particular post, or signing up for a product or service.
- They create content with mutual benefit in mind. This means either delivering a moment of insight or delight, or creating a chance for the reader to reap some benefit – a discount, a sale, a competition, a lesson, or the chance to gain more information about a topic.
- They engage with customers and other brands (they don’t just post and duck). Popular brands are responding to comments, thanking customers for compliments, or solving simple problems, rather than publishing a piece of content and never interacting with it again. They’re part of like-minded online communities and business networks, engaging with these conversations.
- They engage with current events, trends and memes. Inasmuch as we’re encouraging planning, the brands who are strong on social don’t lock things in months ahead without making space for some spontaneous reactions. Bernie on a chair, anyone?
- They sync with special days, seasons and holidays. In doing this, they’re responding to a world that’s constantly in flux.
Most of all, brands doing well on social media are the ones who are using their social media channels to help them achieve their business goals.
How do you get started on a social media makeover?
It may seem overwhelming to try and get to the same level as bigger, more established brands, but this is absolutely an attainable goal — and you can do it yourself, without spending money on hiring a designer.
Even if you’re a single person side hustle, looking premium will create that perception of professionalism (nobody needs to know it’s just you and your phone).
Remember that it’s more than a once-off brand revamp: reinventing yourself is actually an essential habit to develop as an entrepreneur. Luckily, it’s something you can get better and better at over time, and the proof of the pudding is in the tasting: growth.
We’re going to show you how to up your game on social media, with some best practice tips combined with stacks of practical know-how. But before we dive into the creative stuff, it’s important to address the reasons behind why you’re doing this. Getting this down before you start redesigning will help you reap both immediate and long-term benefits.
What does a social media makeover involve?
There are five fundamental steps you need to walk through when it comes to pulling off a successful social media makeover, with questions to ask yourself at each stage. Let’s take a closer look:
1. Consider your purpose
- Why are you on social media in the first place? What are you trying to achieve?
- Which platforms are right for you, in terms of your big goals? Remember that you don’t have to be everywhere at once.
- What’s worked/not worked for you in the past? Be honest, and learn from your mistakes — as well as your successes of course.
- What’s your brand really about, beyond profit? How do you want to show up and engage on social media, and how do you want your audience to view you?
2. Set measurable goals
Whether it’s more sales, more leads, more engagement or building a community, set yourself a target and a timeline. This doesn’t have to be too complicated if you’re starting out. Use your best guess as a baseline (100 new subscribers a month, 15% more traffic to the blog via Instagram), and adjust your targets once the data starts rolling in week after week.
Hopefully, your feed will start looking more stylish and coherent, creating an impression of improvement, but make sure your goals are something you can measure directly, to keep you on course and motivated.
The good news is that most social platforms have easy access to basic analytics, for free. You don’t need to get neck-deep in the data, but you do want some objective measure to know if your numbers are moving up or down. This basic data will guide your strategy on an ongoing basis.
3. Find your brand’s unique style (your presence)
Nobody knows your brand better than you. So, what is its personality: bold or classic? Playful or street? The design will ultimately create this impression to new customers.
Luckily, there are 13 different styles to guide you here, so you can choose the one that’s absolutely right for you. Naturally, you can customize your unique brand identity, but it’s useful to start with some guardrails.
Remember, your style is inextricably linked to your audience. It reflects a worldview, and not just a “look.”
Once you have your unique style in mind, take some time to explore all the graphics, logos, images, color palettes, and fonts we have in GoDaddy Stuido. Save your favorites — these will form part of your brand identity kit.
4. Customize templates and layout collections
This is the fun part! Find templates for the formats you’ll be using the most, whether it’s a competition poster or a YouTube thumbnail. We have thousands of designs, grouped by platforms, occasions, and styles.
Layout collections make the process even easier, by offering you a full pack of consistently designed templates across a range of formats and platforms.
Customize templates by applying your brand’s unique graphics, fonts, colors, logo, and images to a professional design.
Find the layout collection that suits your brand best and customize it with your brand’s colors, fonts, logo, graphics, and images.
5. Plan ahead with a content calendar
- Content for a week: Pick a few types of social content that you produce on a regular basis. These could include discussion topics, product features, user showcases, links to your blog, motivational quotes… the options are endless, but narrow it down to keep your brand’s messaging consistent.
- Content for a month: Look at the upcoming month(s) to identify special days, holidays, or cultural moments that might create opportunities to produce relevant content.
- Content for a year: Identify a few key holidays/seasons/events that hold maximum marketing potential for your brand well in advance. Use the time to plan campaigns — a sale, a competition, an event — for maximum impact.
Once you have the basic principles in place by working through this framework, the design process should be more logical, much easier, and — most importantly — more fun than complicated. As an everyday entrepreneur, you’ve got a ton of things on your to-do list.
Creating content shouldn’t be sucking hours out of your day, or hundreds of dollars out of your business account.
Make your brand beautiful
Templates and layout collections make it super easy to create a full social media kit with your unique brand identity: simply add your brand’s fonts, colors, graphics, and images to professionally designed templates.
Our layout collections were created with this exact function in mind, to allow you to develop a consistent library of ready-to-go content, instead of designing from templates one at a time, as the need arises. Remember: the secret to success is to have your brand vision and goals clearly identified before you start.
Now that we’ve broken it down for you, giving your brand a social media makeover doesn’t sound that overwhelming, does it? You’ve got this.
GoDaddy Studio is the perfect tool to help you show up beautifully, and make an impact on social media — every time.
The post Is it time for a social media makeover? appeared first on GoDaddy Blog.
Get up to 30%* off! Get going with GoDaddy!
The idea for sharing community management tips came to me about a year ago. That’s when I synced up with the GoDaddy Community team to host a webinar for small business owners. As hundreds of attendees rolled into the Zoom, I had a realization: “GoDaddy has a strong community.”
Behind every good brand and business, there’s a solid community of supporters, stakeholders, and sometimes, even haters.
But building a community and maintaining connections is one of the most misunderstood and least talked about topics within the small business world. For a business with fewer than five employees and a handful of customers, community building might seem like just another marketing tactic that is just out of reach.
To help small businesses build and manage an online community, I asked other business owners and marketers what community management tips they had for creating meaningful connections with customers.
14 community management tips to create meaningful customer connections
Given that creating and maintaining a strong community can help retain and attract customers, consider following these 14 community management tips:
- Be quick to address negative experiences
- Filter out spam
- Showcase success
- Send a postcard
- Get your customers involved in important decisions
- Bring Up topics that encourage engagement
- Provide talking points and engage with your community
- Engage regularly
- Be the face of your brand
- Choose a channel that works
- Create content that addresses customers’ specific needs
- Consider a brand ambassador program
- Reward loyalty
- Recognize the importance of inclusivity
Read on to learn more.
1. Be quick to address negative experiences
A bad customer experience can quickly escalate to a brand reputation crisis, and the company’s response must be fast to revert the situation.
Monitoring social channel mentions is an easy way to keep an eye on conversations surrounding your brand and detect potential concerns.
Once a customer posts a comment that threatens your brand reputation, listen, honestly apologize and be willing to solve the issue in the best possible way. Your unsatisfied customer will feel appreciated and perhaps even become a brand advocate.
-Rebeca Sena, GetSpace.digital
2. Filter out spam
The most important thing you should be doing in regards to community management is interacting with your community, and you cannot do that properly if you have to work through a bunch of spam. There are many programs out there, even some within the different social media sites, that can filter out spam in your comments and messages so you can focus on addressing your community. Plus, getting rid of the spam and moderating harmful comments creates a better space for your community to contact you through.
-Jacob Dayan, Community Tax
3. Showcase success
Develop case studies from your successful community members. This is a practical way of propagating the core values of your online community and encouraging new users to join your community.
The more these members contribute to the community, the more impact these case studies have. You can start by creating basic reports to identify the members who are actively contributing high-quality content, assisting other members, and elevating the community.
-Hasan Farahani, Yocale
4. Send a postcard
Many of my customers spend $15–$20K on medical care in Latin America. I send my customers handwritten postcards to remind them of their journey, thank them for their business, and to stay engaged while they recover from procedures like dental implants or plastic surgery.
The cost in time and money is very low, but a human touch in the healthcare space is increasingly rare.
-Wesley Jacobs, Apollo Medical Travel
5. Get your customers involved in important decisions
Taking the time to follow up with your most active customers and getting their insights on important decisions makes them feel like their opinions are truly valued and cared for.
In the long run, this forges a strong connection between you and your audience that relies on more than simply a transaction.
An added benefit of doing this is that you may even get some eye-opening suggestions and creative ideas that could end up benefiting your business.
-Harry Morton, Lower Street
6. Bring up topics that encourage engagement
Meaningful connections need to originate from a common source that offers a moment of relatability, which can further build brand trust. Social platforms offer numerous opportunities for these types of exchanges. When managing your social community, bring up topics that encourage engagement so you can connect on a level that goes beyond the basic company/customer relationship. In doing so, the consumer will feel more at ease to comment, ask questions and even provide more detailed feedback.
-Lindsay McCormick, Bite
7. Provide talking points and engage with your community
It’s important to recognize that community management is an ongoing responsibility. If you want to see your community thrive, you must create opportunities for customers to voice their opinion, communicate with other community members and provide you with feedback. Finding success is contingent on your ability to encourage participation from users, so you must provide talking points and give them plenty of avenues to stay involved.
If you leave your community dormant without your administrative oversight, engagement will start to dwindle as fewer users initiate conversations and take part.
Communities rarely function autonomously, so be sure to play an active role as you connect with and safeguard your community.
This gives you a chance to speak with your customers on a personal level, helping you learn about their likes, dislikes, objections and pain points directly—all of which are crucial in building meaningful connections with customers.
-Mike Grossman, GoodHire
8. Engage regularly
The best community management tip is to engage regularly and don’t neglect questions or threads you didn’t start—even better if they aren’t getting a lot of feedback. If you’re lucky enough to have the opportunity to regularly interact with your customers, make sure you’re commenting often and have a badge next to your name letting them know you’re a moderator or part of the company. That will really cement that feeling of connection and letting members feel heard. Plus, we’ve found that a community manager can really breathe life into a topic by offering input and pushing it to the front of that community for more engagement.
-Sylvia Kang, Mira
9. Be the face of your brand
Revealing the human side of your brand is without a shadow of a doubt an efficient strategy to boost your customers’ connection. It conveys transparency and accountability, building a stronger human bond. Consumers tend to trust people more than a company, and showcasing real people will make you and your brand easier to remember and trust.
-Chiara Sternardi, Passport-photo.online
10. Choose a channel that works
The best way to build an authentic community is to have everyone communicate using the same social media platform. Make that a crucial part of your strategy.
If it’s a professional audience that you’re going after, choose LinkedIn. If it’s a broader audience, use Facebook or Instagram. If it’s a young audience, try Snapchat or WhatsApp. If it’s a politically charged audience, maybe try Twitter.
YouTube is a great way to encourage people to watch videos that provide clear instructions on how a product or service works.
Users flock to YouTube for instructions on everything from how to change batteries on a device to playing scales on a guitar. The comment section can be useful for feedback purposes, and it also can be a way for customers to communicate with one another.
-Joel Jackson, Lifeforce
11. Create content that addresses customers’ specific needs
By creating audience and buyer personas based on different client categories, content marketers can create social content that speaks to people rather than just industries. Learn where your customers hang out online using your social media demographics. Then, narrow those results using audience research to help you define a specific audience and channel. You can then customize communications by researching the LinkedIn profiles of potential customers. Doing so will allow you to identify different stakeholders within the organization and determine their pain points. You can then create better content that addresses their challenges. But it’s all about finding an interesting angle for each segment.
Content that is too broad won’t result in authentic engagement with your followers.
Social media posts that offer helpful information are guaranteed to stand out in your clients’ feeds, resulting in more likes, shares and leads.
-Daniel Tejada, Straight Up Growth
12. Consider a brand ambassador program
A great way to create authentic connections with customers is with an acquisition and advocacy program like a brand ambassador program. For example, if a user can get five people to sign up for a service or product, they become an ambassador.
These brand ambassadors can help your business acquire new users. You can reward them with swag and access to special products or services … maybe even a special event!
-Jennifer Pieniazek, Resume Now
13. Reward loyalty
You can create meaningful connections by rewarding loyal customers to show how much you appreciate them. Just like any relationship, whether it’s personal or professional, people appreciate rewards. Show your customers that they matter and are top of mind in your decision-making. That’s how you create a stronger, more loyal customer base—one that will continue to pay attention for new initiatives and future rewards.
-Alyssa Berman-Waugh, Level Home, Inc.
14. Recognize the importance of inclusivity
To create meaningful connections with customers, recognize and accept diversities within your community. Each of your customers will differ in terms of their culture, orientation, ability and life experience. It’s imperative that you celebrate these differences and welcome input from individuals of all walks of life as you advocate for equity and inclusivity. This will develop your community’s reputation and attract diverse groups in greater numbers.
Communities that cater to just one group of people almost always become echo chambers, creating a suboptimal environment for connections to form and important discussions to take place.
By listening, asking questions, and welcoming input from diverse groups of individuals, you’ll cement your community as a welcoming place for diversity and insight to flourish.
In doing so, your ability to build a rapport and create meaningful, lasting connections with your customers will blossom.
-Patrick Casey, Felix
The community management tips used in this article were gathered using Terkel.
Terkel creates community-driven content featuring expert insights. Sign up at terkel.io to answer questions and get published.
Have you ever made a dining decision based on a review you saw on the internet? You may have picked a product because it seemed “more trustworthy” online. It’s also a deal breaker if it isn’t handled correctly.
Customers are more inclined to believe in your company if it presents itself well on the internet. Whether a startup or a large corporation, your online appearance and behaviour matter to your consumers if you own an offline or online company.
Why Should Your Business Go Online?
In addition to being available for your consumers, here are other reasons to consider your online presence.
It Improves Your Company’s Accessibility
When you don’t sell anything online, a solid online presence can help you make more money from the internet if you aren’t engaged on social media.
Before making a purchase, most consumers do internet research to learn more about the company and the goods. Being at the right place at the right time is simply good business.
It Takes Care of Your Marketing and Branding
An internet presence provides a steady supply of customers for your company. Customer feedback and social media participation may help boost purchases. It’s easier for consumers to identify your online presence with a website or social media account.
It May Boosts Your Company’s Credibility
Having an online presence is essential for your organisation to be taken seriously. A startup might have difficulty being accepted as a legitimate organisation in its early stages. It’s essential to have a strong internet presence before people take you seriously. It’s easier to get quick loans at gdayloans.com.au to expand your company.
It Aids in the Comprehension of Your Target Market
When you have an online presence, you can engage with your audience in a two-way conversation to get valuable feedback or evaluations. In addition, it helps you learn more about your prospective consumers and the things they’re looking for. If a restaurant uses polls on its Facebook page, it may determine which specials and goods are most popular with its patrons.
How Can You Evaluate and Enhance Your Company’s Web Presence?
Analysing your online reputation simply means monitoring what others say about you online. Then you make it work for you.
You can monitor and enhance your company’s online appearance by following these three steps.:
Monitor Mentions of Your Business
Monitoring your company’s internet mentions can help you track what’s being said about you and mitigate unfavourable publicity. This can also help you identify communication gaps.
Google Alerts can help you track online references of your company. Set up notifications for your business/product name and relevant keywords, and you’ll be alerted promptly whenever you’re mentioned anyplace online.
Analyse Your Website Traffic
The source of your traffic (and how much) might assist you in evaluating your internet presence. It may be necessary to expand your internet activities beyond your website. For example, low social media traffic might imply a poor social presence.
Tracking your website’s traffic with Google Analytics might reveal secret traffic sources that your Google search may have overlooked. It will also help you find unnoticed remarks or backlinks.
Assess Your Social Media Engagement
Your social media presence affects your online reputation as well. Active consumers on your social media platforms help build trust and confidence.
Consider checking a company’s and a competitor’s Facebook accounts. You may observe that one firm interacts with clients while the other has a few likes but no comments. Which do you prefer?
Bottom Line
An active social media presence gives the impression of reliability while also conveying a sense of humanity and authenticity. Your audience will be more engaged as your social media presence improves.
To keep up with your target audience, you need to be one step ahead of them online. The first step is to become well-versed in everything your consumers discover about your company through the internet. Your internet presence must be understood, monitored, and improved to reach this goal.
Tech companies need to make a name for themselves and stand out from the competition. This is no easy task, as there are many different ways to market a tech company. It’s essential to find the right strategy that will work best for your consumer tech PR needs.
This article will explore some of the most important ways to market a tech company.
Why Tech Marketing is Important
There are many reasons why marketing is essential for tech companies.
First and foremost, it’s a way to build brand awareness. To be successful, people need to know who they are and what they do. Secondly, marketing can help you attract new customers and clients. It’s also a great way to keep existing customers engaged. Finally, marketing can help you differentiate yourself from the competition. With so many tech companies out there, it’s essential to find a way to stand out from the crowd.
Social Media
Social media is one of the essential tools for marketing a tech company. It allows you to reach a large audience quickly and easily. You can use social media to promote your product or service and engage with potential customers.
There are many different social media platforms, so choosing the most relevant ones for your target audience is essential.
Content Marketing
Content marketing is another important way to market a tech company. Content marketing can be blog posts, articles, videos, or even infographics.
Creating high-quality content can help you attract attention and build trust with potential customers. You can use content marketing to educate people about your product or service and show them how it can benefit them.
Search Engine Optimization
Search engine optimization (SEO) optimizes your website to rank higher in search engine results. This is important because it can help you attract more traffic to your site and ultimately convert more visitors into customers. Many different factors contribute to good SEO, so it’s essential to research and use the best techniques.
Paid Advertising
Paid advertising is another effective way to market a tech company. With paid advertising, you can reach a large audience quickly and easily. You can use various platforms such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, or Facebook Ads to promote your product or service. Paid advertising can be a great way to generate leads and sales.
Public Relations
Public relations (PR) is managing your company’s reputation. This is important because it can help you build trust and credibility with potential customers. PR can be in press releases, media relations, or event planning.
Referral Marketing
Referral marketing is getting customers to recommend your product or service to others. This is an effective way to market a tech company because it can reach a larger audience through word-of-mouth. You can use referral programs, social media, or email marketing to promote your referral program.
Event Marketing
Event marketing is another excellent way to market a tech company. This involves planning and hosting events that promote your product or service. Events can be in trade shows, conferences, or even meetups. Event marketing can be a great way to generate leads and sales.
Original Video Content
Video content is another excellent way to market a tech company. This can be in product demos, how-to videos, or even customer testimonials. Video content is a great way to engage with potential customers and promote your product or service.
On-Site Activity
Finally, on-site activity is another important way to market a tech company. This involves having a blog, providing customer support, or even offering free trials. On-site activity can be a great way to engage with potential customers and build trust.
Final Thoughts
Marketing a tech company can be a challenge, but it’s crucial to find the right strategy that will work best for your business. This article has explored some of the most important ways to market a tech company.
Choose the most relevant strategy for your business, and start implementing them today.
Medi-Share partners with Lestonnac Free Clinic for their “Wheels That Heal” Grand Opening
5 Ways to Control Your Inventory So It Doesn’t Control You
#1 Bestselling Author and English Confidence Coach Francisca Garcés Launches Here Signature Program The English Confidence Method
The Moment These 7 Entrepreneurs Turned Their Hobby Into a Business
How to Scale Your Sales Team Quickly
Tips for scaling up your Etsy business
-
Business Software7 days agoWhy Do Payment Processors Freeze Accounts?
-
Starting A Business6 days agoAre There SBA Loans for the Self-Employed?
-
Running a Business5 days agoCirque du Soleil’s Daniel Lamarre on How to Put Creativity at the Center of Your Strategy
-
News4 days agoSusie Carder Announces the “Power Your Profits Growth Summit” About Building a Million Dollar Brand
-
Starting A Business4 days agoHow to Find the Right Business Coach — and Avoid the Wrong One
-
News4 days agoJack Tompkins, Founder of Pineapple Consulting, Interviewed on Influential Entrepreneurs Podcast
-
Growing a Business3 days ago5 Ways to Control Your Inventory So It Doesn’t Control You
-
News4 days agoInterview with Morgan Lloyd Insurance Agent with Trailstone Insurance Group About Bringing Customers the Best Options for Insurance