You have an awesome business project, but need a bit of help with social media?
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Hello Mitka,
I own a small eco makeup company and I was wondering how to use social media to grow my local business and be able to sell in Europe and the US. What channels would be the best and what strategies would help me grow my brand and increase sales.
Any help and idea would be welcome.
Helen
Hi Helen,
Thanks for getting in touch with me.
Sure, I have a few suggestions that you can try out to grow your band.
So, having in mind that you have a makeup company I would suggest you concentrate you efforts on Instagram, Pinterest and Facebook. Those are platforms that love makeup and visual content, plus the majority of their users are female (which I assume are your target group).
Before starting anything you should go through the Branding process (maybe you’ve already done that) to define your brand identity. Also make sure you create a persona profiles of your potential customers which will help you define the type of content you’ll post.
Plan your content calendar and make sure you can constantly produce great visual content. Keep in mind that video content is now the king.
Post and engage consistently on Instagram and Pinterest. Grow your following. Running collaboration campaigns with influencers from your target countries can significantly boost your reach, brand awareness and sales. You can also run giveaway campaigns or any occasional discount campaign for followers who participate in activities you do.
Since you already have your business running and probably have a webpage where people can buy your products from I would suggest you install Facebook Pixel which will help you create website custom audiences (try also lookalike audiences) to target in ads and drive traffic and increase sales. Make sure all your landing pages and sales funnels are set up upfront.
There’s so much you can do! If you have limited budget start small and local, optimize your campaigns and grow. Feel free to send me an email at [email protected] if you need more help with your brand. Good luck, have my fingers crossed for you :)
Hi Mitka,
What tools do you suggest I use to track my social media activity and traffic?
Ollie
There are numerous tools that help you measure your social media. “Simply Measured” is probably the best one I’ve found so far, but it’s quite expensive. Sumall is also a cool one (at least when I was using it a while ago). All SM publishing tools offer analytics. Sprout Social and Buffer are decent ones. In any case you would need more specific tracking of link clicks. I use Bit.ly for that and if you want to create suctomed and trackable links use the Google URL Builder. Google Analytics is of course 100% necessary to track your website traffic and action. And it’s for free, which is great if you’re small company. Other options are Kissmetrics, Crazy Egg, Clicky, OWA and more (see what fits your best fit). For email marketing and automation the most popular tool is MailChimp and it works well. If you’re planning to use Facebook ads make sure you implement the Facebook Pixel in your website so you can create custom audiences.
Mmmm am I missing anything major? Let me know if I’ve missed mentioning how to track any of the main KPIs of social media campaigns.
Hi Mitka,
I came across your article on LinkedIn and saw that you offer free tips, so I figured I might take advantage of it. I’m a professional project manager, certified in SCRUM and all that stuff, and I’m looking for moving towards the consulting business. How can I use social media to position myself and get clients? Your help is much appreciated.
Jared
Hey Jared,
Well, I would say LinkedIn is a great place for B2B marketing….it brought you to me after all :) On a more serious note though, I think that before starting the marketing part you should define who your target audience is and prepare content that delivers value to them. Think and create Persona Profiles of your potential clients. Create content that addresses their problems and offers solutions, offer them content with value. It could be articles, could be an online course, could be webinars, could be a podcast etc. Whatever you feel most comfortable with. The platforms where you can reach business oriented people are LinkedIn and Twitter mainly. You can use Facebook to promote your content and drive traffic (always have installed Facebook pixels). Create sales funnels and offer free resources. Think of the whole journey of your users from seeing your content to hiring you or purchasing your course. Make sure they users stay around so you need to create an active and engaged community.
Remember that there’s a lot to do before you start publishing on social media. First you need to define your target audience, define your brand identity (even though you’re a person), define the content you’ll produce and produce it, select the social platforms and your social strategy, reach to people and lead them to your sales funnels. Constantly measure and improve your strategies.