Building your social media presence as a brand can be a really great way to engage with both potential and current customers, build brand trust and promote your products or services.
Why?
Aside from being a really cost-effective marketing strategy, more than half of the world’s population is now on social media. That’s a staggering 3.96 billion people, and it seems to be a figure that’s growing year on year.
Now, how many of those are your potential customers? It’s likely that whichever industry your business is in, your clients or leads are on social media in some form- whether that’s LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or another platform.
One of the important things we tell our clients whenever we discuss social media is that social is not just about generating sales (although social does play an important role in generating leads and sales), it’s also about building brand awareness and trust.
Sprout Social found that 69% of social marketers held increasing brand awareness as their number one priority for social media. Getting creative with your social media in a way that provides value to your followers is a great way to build brand awareness and trust.
Say you were seeking out a service online, for example, a local gardener or cleaning service. Would you first search online for them to check out their reviews, maybe browse their social profiles to gain an understanding of what it is they offer and how other customers have responded to their services? Probably.
According to Hootsuite, 43% of people search social media when researching for something to buy, a good indication of the role social media plays in the sales process.
So, what’s important when building brand trust using social media?
Find the best platforms
Firstly, you need to identify where your target audience is engaging on social.
Are they avid Facebook users or do they engage better with imagery and videos via Instagram?
Understanding the best platforms to engage with your audience is key to ensuring you’re not investing time and energy into a strategy that just isn’t going to work.
Search relevant hashtags, research your competitors and learn about your target audience before committing to a social platform(s) you want to invest time and money into.
Test different content
You’ll never really know how to engage with your audience unless you put time into trying different strategies.
Perhaps running a monthly competition will boost your sales, or maybe your audience would love to learn more about how your products are created before clicking on a link to your products.
Testing out different content types is a great way to find what works best for connecting with your audience. Remember, what works for your competitors might not be best for your brand personality, so don’t be afraid to push the boundaries and test the types of content and tone that generates the best results.
Don’t forget to measure your results by looking at reach, engagement rates and website traffic and compare them against your business goals.
Engage your audience
It’s all good and well posting great quality content, but responding to comments and engaging with your audience is a whole other aspect of social media management to consider.
Using user-generated content by encouraging your followers to tag your brand in related posts and responding to messages, tweets, questions and comments is a great way to build your brand trust because it allows your audience to see that there’s a human behind your brand. It also helps them to feel valued as a follower.
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