Social networks are one of the most powerful and effective promotion channels today. These sites have good prospects for business development. For starters, you should use the available free methods that will help you attract your target audience and increase sales.
What are these methods and what is their essence – all the details are in this article.
Unique content
Content is the foundation of everything. If there is no interesting, engaging content in the social networks of the business, any promotion methods are pointless. This is the first thing to focus on.
Work through the following points:
- Catching profile cap. Highlight and write your USP there. In the bold line, you need to write requests by which potential customers can search for the store in the search.
- Important information in Highlights (for Instagram). Fill out and post the price list, current models, payment and delivery details, and other important information about the company/product.
- High-quality visuals. Arrange professional product photography. Profile photos should attract attention, make you want to buy.
- Substantial posts. You don’t just need to list the characteristics of the product under the photo in the posts. Tell customer stories. For example, how the product changed their lives, helped solve a certain problem.
- Engaging Stories/Reels. Lead them in an interesting, expert, understandable way. Storytelling, interactivity, demonstration of the behind-the-scenes, the production process, and customer reviews are relevant. And more – announcements of new products, promotions and sales, life hacks, polls.
Hashtags
They can bring in quite a few additional reach and new leads. The main thing is that key phrases and words correspond to the interests of the target audience of the store.
Key rules for working with hashtags:
- pay attention to the frequency. Better to take medium and low frequencies – from 5,000 to 50,000
- make a map of associations on the topic of the post and select suitable queries by frequency of mentions
- put up to 10 hashtags per post so that the site does not consider them spam
- do not use stop words like “Instagram”, “Facebook”, “like”, “liketime”
- you can create author’s hashtags tied to the main profile topic
- do not make hashtags that are difficult to read the first time
- test different options, analyze the results and form a list of the most effective queries.
Correct hashtags will display posts in the TOP of publications, due to which more potential customers will see them.
Barter and mutual PR
Frequent mentions in other accounts accelerate the growth of your commercial profile. This is one of the main principles of free social media promotion.
Mutual PR formats:
- affiliate posts and stories
- a series of live broadcasts
- guest blogging
- sfs (shout out for shout out)
- flash mobs and challenges
- link exchange
It is important that the account for barter has a similar target audience and price category. Look at the quality of the content in the profile, the reputation of a potential partner, the activity of his subscribers.
Contests and sweepstakes
All kinds of contests with specific conditions help to attract a new audience to the profile, increasing the flow of activity and engagement. Usually, the main condition for participating in such events is a subscription, a repost of a publication, a friend’s mark in the comments.
This method is not completely free, as the competition involves the distribution of prizes. But it can be low cost if you choose the right gifts, for example:
- a short online consultation with a specialist (stylist, designer, beautician, depending on the topic of the online store)
- goods that are in excess in the warehouse
- discount or promotional code for your next purchase
Word of mouth
Word of mouth is the best free promotion method. This is when subscribers/customers are so happy with the brand that they regularly and actively recommend its page in their circle.
To kickstart the word of mouth effect, motivate your subscribers:
- be active on the page in any form: reactions to stories, likes, comments, saves, reposts
- become “promoters” who show high loyalty, recommend the brand to friends, colleagues, acquaintances
- repost content in your story
- post product reviews video
Sincere recommendations always bring in a lot of free traffic. This is facilitated by thoughtful, viral content, a high-quality product, a high level of service, prompt feedback, and close contact with the audience in comments/messengers.
Geotags
This method is suitable for stores that have offline points in addition to their website. Geotags are displayed when you enter a keyword in the search. By clicking on them, the user can see all posts with this tag. It is displayed immediately below the profile nickname.
Links to social networks of the company
You can attract new subscribers to your account not only within the social network itself. Leave a link to your company profile in different places:
- on the website of the online store
- in mailings to email, SMS, and instant messengers
- on business cards (today it’s not hard to find a good and free business card mockup)
- in articles and publications in various channels
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