Leveraging social media can be incredibly beneficial for your business in today’s digital age. It allows you to connect with your audience since 78.5% of the Malaysian population are social media users. Besides, 54% of people use social media to research products, and the majority of consumers (71%) are likely to recommend a brand to their family and friends if they have a pleasant experience with it on social media.
However, leveraging social media for business can be challenging since there are many things to cover. This article will provide practical tips for efficiently using social media so that SMEs in Malaysia can optimize their social media presence while keeping expenses in check.
Understanding Your Audience
Knowing your audience allows you to tailor your content, messaging, and tone to resonate with their language and interests, making your communication more effective. This will lead to stronger relationships with your audience and a more impactful online presence, which is beneficial since 67% of consumers expect companies and brands to maintain social media presence to deliver customer service.
Having clear goals is the key to effective audience research so that you can determine the age, location, gender, interests, and other demographics of your target audience. Use this information as a foundation for creating personalized content. Additionally, utilize social media insights to understand your audience’s behaviour. Analyze metrics like reach, follower growth, and engagement rates to understand what resonates with your audience.
Choosing the Right Platforms
Each social media platform has unique features, so choosing one that suits your target audience and business goals is essential. For instance, Instagram is excellent for visual materials to promote and sell your products. You can use this platform as a digital catalogue. But if your goal is to provide quick updates or interact with the audience, X is the platform since it relies heavily on text.
There’s also TikTok, which is more suitable if your target audience is Gen Z considering 60% of TikTok’s users come from that generation. TikTok is popular today thanks to its unique feature that allows users to watch, create, and share short-form videos with built-in music effects, filters, sound, and text.
Creating Engaging Content
Develop a content strategy that suits your goals and relates to your audience. Relevant content will increase the likelihood of interaction and engagement. Don’t hesitate to get a little personal since 75% of consumers expressed interest in purchasing from brands that provide personalized digital experiences.
And apparently, this kind of personalization works wonders for your business growth. A study from Salesforce shows that 97% of marketers saw an increase in business results after implementing a personalization strategy.
Create a mix of content types, including engaging visuals, videos, informative posts, user-generated content, and behind-the-scenes glimpses. Incorporating humour and storytelling techniques can also be a great way to engage with the target audience while building your brand persona.
A well-told content can evoke emotions, allowing your audience to connect with your brand on a deeper level. Additionally, storytelling enables you to present relatable situations and challenges that your target audience faces, which will help them see your brand as empathetic and understanding.
Fostering Community and Engagement
As a two-way communication channel, social media is a great platform to foster community. However, this can only happen if you engage with your audience by encouraging discussions, asking questions, running polls, and responding promptly to comments, messages, and mentions. Do these consistently over time to build an emotional connection with your audience.
By nurturing a community, you’re investing in building long-term and deeper relationships beyond product transactions, increasing loyalty toward your brand. No wonder the majority of social marketers (80%) want to improve engagement across social media platforms.
Measuring Success and Improving
Your social media marketing doesn’t stop after you post your content. You will want to know if your marketing effort reached your goals. You can measure success by monitoring key performance indicators (KPIs) such as followers’ growth and engagement rates.
Analyze this data to find out what’s working and what’s not. Don’t be discouraged if a post or content doesn’t perform as well as expected. There’s always room for improvement, in which you can refine your strategy according to the data provided by analytics.
Successful social media marketing requires consistent effort, engaging content, ongoing improvements, and a genuine connection with your audience.