6 Ways to expand your business through social media

(Photo from Launch & Hustle)

1. First and foremost, utilize social media to establish presence Social media is a great way to reach your customers and target audiences by simply being visible. Platforms like Instagram, Twitter and Facebook will allow you to engage with customers while advertising with photos of your products or services. However, its important to know what kind of presence your customers prefer. Some audiences might prefer a more relaxed exposure to your marketing while others may enjoy day to day updates or posts about your products. (Kietzmann et al., “Social Media?”) Studying the target audience is a key to establishing a presence that helps your business.
2. Set clear goals and guidelines for your business' social media Have a purpose for your presence on social media platforms. Creating a twitter for your business with no end goal is pretty useless. Whether its to gain more customers, reach a wider audience, or revamp your brand, its important to set goals for your social media. This will not only encourage a better presence, but also make it easier to track progress and the effects social media has on your business.
3. Have a social media team
Don't just ask a random employer to create a Facebook page and leave it to them. Hire people who know what they're doing. There is growing research on what type of posts get more likes, comments, shares and you need someone who is familiar with this information. It's also better to have a team solely focused on your social media presence so that you get to reap the most benefits. Susan from HR has no time to worry about tweets and will most likely not come up with anything that'll go viral. It's also a horrible idea for one person to offhandedly run these platforms; that can lead to situations of losing login information or posting something inappropriate/offensive because there was no colleague to review or fact-check.
4. Visuals!
Even if you cannot afford hiring an entire team of media experts, its obvious that visuals will gain more attention than any paragraph or link. People love looking through photos, and with the fast pace world of habitual scrolling, you're more likely to get customers' attention with vibrant, professional visuals.
5. Don't just create posts that market yourself (at least not obviously)
Only producing click bait to your products will just result in losing followers. Aim to highlight your company by posting about your employers and the way they contribute, or the positive impacts of your business to customers who enjoy your product, etc. Don't just blatantly gloat about your product and hyperlink photos to shopping sites. Have fun with your social media, respond to customers tweets and comments when possible and post something silly every now and then.
6. Don't have TOO much fun
Always remember that you're still running a business and these social media accounts are not personal but instead represent your brand. This includes avoiding plagiarism and running into legal trouble because of careless mistakes. Remain professional and polished so that your audience continues to trust the quality of your product!

Kietzmann, Jan H., Kristopher Hermkens, Ian P. McCarthy, and Bruno S. Silvestre. “Social Media? Get Serious! Understanding the Functional Building Blocks of Social Media.” Business Horizons 54, no. 3 (May 2011): 241–51. doi:10.1016/j.bushor.2011.01.005.