So far in our 3-part series on kickstarting a small business’ online presence, we’ve explored the value of good blog posts and how they can expand your web footprint for minimal work, and a very thorough primer into the ins and outs of email marketing campaigns. We’re going to close this series by discussing some of the specific approaches that yield the best results per social media platform.
Organic social media marketing can be the answer for a startup business if done properly. Having the knowledge of how each platform is used, and what is best to market on each, are golden tickets that some are missing. We are going to break down Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest the organic way. This way, the marketing dollars saved can be used to improve the product or service you’re selling, instead of the act of marketing it to sell.
With over 1 billion users on this platform daily, there are a ton of chances for marketing your brand or business. However, there has been a very big algorithm change that has affected the organic side of marketing on this platform. Having a Facebook page and posting regularly on that page is a must, but the amount of people that get to see that post without you paying anything has gotten a lot smaller. Depending on the amount of likes or followers you have on your page, your un-boosted posts might only get to 70-80 of your followers.
This does not mean that you should go boosting all your posts for a fee and give up organically using Facebook for your business. The organic tool to use on this platform is Facebook Groups. Find groups for blog boosting, website boosting, marketing, etc. Choose around 10 groups you will visit daily and participate in. This helps with engagement not only on a website or services you are referring to but also on your own business page as well.
Please note, when posting in groups be sure to change up whatever link you are posting. After you post a link so many times, Facebook will delete it. They see this as spamming. For example, if your website is www.abc.com then you would want to write abc.com or abcdotcom interchangeably to avoid this new spam filter.
It is also great to remember that each platform is used for different aspects of marketing. Facebook is great for product or service posts.
Instagram is a platform that maximizes the visual. It is not the place to put the entire product description, it is the place to wow the potential customer with a stunning picture or short video.
Instagram is owned by Facebook, so that lovely algorithm change happened to this platform as well. To avoid being low on the view counts, be sure to do the following:
- Use the thirty hashtags that are allowed for each picture. Do not go over the limit though or Instagram will delete you from the hashtag. They won’t tell you however and this is their way of ghosting you. Users follow hashtags, therefore if you use the right ones, you can reach thousands of potential clients for free.
- Do not post on this platform every day. Giving two to three days before each post is perfect when trying to get more engagement.
- Engage! Engage! Engage! Spend thirty minutes or more each day liking and commenting on those you follow on Instagram. Be sure that you are replying within a reasonable amount of time when others comment on your content as well.
If you follow these Instagram tips, you will stay on your target client’s feeds without having to spend a dime.
Finally, Pinterest is sort of the internet marketer’s best-kept secret. It’s not lacking for methods or visibility so much as the online market place is concerned. In fact, it’s something of a powerhouse! It’s just that few internet marketers ever think to use Pinterest. With marketers focusing on more publicized platforms such as Facebook and Instagram, Pinterest just sort of flies under the radar. That is a huge mistake. Not only is Pinterest a champion of the underground internet marketing world, but it’s also tailored for maximum exposure of users and their material for absolutely no cost. There are more than a few success stories out there about users who pushed their views over 1 million per month without investing a single penny.
Where else in the marketing world is that possible? Users go to Pinterest to find ideas or learn new things. To post on this platform you must be consistent, and it has to be vertical images. Finding Pinterest groups to join is also an amazing way of reaching thousands of users daily. To do this, seek out groups you would like to join and start a dialogue with the owner. Once approved, you will be able to pin your own content to that group.
The 80/20 rule is huge with this platform. Pin 20% of your own content and repin 80% of others. Just like Instagram, the more you engage, the higher your reach count will be.
With that, we bring this blog series to a close. Digital Sapien Interactive is proud to have produced this short series of articles and we genuinely feel that any small business start-up will find these to be highly useful. We’ll continue to produce material for your free and leisurely viewing, so don’t forget to stay current. Subscribe to our newsletter to stay in the loop!
