social media
Young Chinese Woman Using Mobile Phone On Sofa At Home

By Hannah Whittenly

Chances are that you have an awareness of how frequently people are on social media. In fact, 81% of the US population is on some form of social media—Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat—you name it and they’re on there! Whether you constantly see customers at your shop scrolling through their phones or you are always asking your kids to get off of it, you see how predominant these tools are. However, you might not yet be using them to access customers, and that’s a major mistake. Always keep in mind that you have to be at least on par with your competitors and preferably ahead of them.

Stay Active

You might have a listing or an account on a social media site, but that doesn’t mean you’re using it properly. When potential customers see that your space is inactive, they might assume that you don’t care about it or even that your business has closed. While you don’t need to post dozens of time per day, you should update your content regularly. Whether you’re letting followers know about new products or posting about a recent or upcoming event, you’re telling them that the business is alive and active.

Reach out

One thing that you might want to consider doing is reaching out directly to potential customers. Sending direct messages can come across as aggressive, and people might think that your business is a scam. You can, however, send out invitations to events or special sales. Directly sending this information to people who follow your business any way allows you to connect more immediately with the members of your target audience. You can also follow up after events and sales to see how people enjoyed them. For example, you might post a poll or ask for feedback on one of your social media platforms. You could also generate a survey to obtain more feedback.

Make Your Contact Info Easily Accessible

Have you ever needed to contact a company for whatever reason and had a hard time tracking down the right number or email address? This can be a pain and very time consuming. To help make sure that this doesn’t happen to your customer’s, take a leaf out of ASEA’s book or, in other words, Crunchbase profile. They’re a great example, because on their profile they have their email address and phone number. If you don’t provide such information, then your potential customers won’t be able to reach out to you for questions that they might have regarding your product or services.

Answer Messages

If you use social media, you probably have a few unanswered messages. When you don’t respond to people who message you, you run the risk of losing them as customers. Individuals want to know that they can contact the company to ask questions. A lack of response to simple inquiries about what time the restaurant is open or if pets are allowed at a winery could mean that the potential customers become actual customers at another business. One way to handle the flow of messages into the inbox is to have a person or team in charge of addressing these questions, comments and concerns.

Combine Visuals and Text

Going onto a social media page to see paragraph after paragraph of text is visually unappealing. It is likely to turn at least some possible customers away. They want to see visuals, such as pictures and videos, of what your company can offer. On the other hand, overloading the platform with visuals could slow it down. Visitors do want to see some written information about what your company can offer, how to purchase the products and when they can visit the store. You can use strategies to figure out what your followers want to see more of. Taking into consideration the likes and dislikes of your target audience members allows you to accomplish that task.

Turning away from social media platforms is a mistake. Instead, take the time to increase your presence and your efforts. A good idea is to start by working on one social media platform. You can allow that to do the work for you while you are address the other platforms. Also, keep in mind that you don’t need to use every single social media channel. Selecting the ones that are most relevant to your business goals and to the members of your target audience is the way to decide where to start.

Hannah Whittenly is a freelance writer and mother of two from Sacramento, CA. She enjoys kayaking and reading books by the lake.