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By: Katherine W. Morse, July 12, 2022
Everyone wants to get their business noticed online. Whether to sell, sell, sell or grow, the online community builds a relationship with customers to a combination of both. Unfortunately, navigating between all the options and where your company should or should not be is difficult. Think of it as if you are a ship out at sea in heavy fog and looking for the beacon of a lighthouse. In this case, your business is the ship, the customer target market is the lighthouse, and the fog is everyone on social media worldwide.
There are so many social media platforms to choose from, and many businesses overwhelm themselves by trying fit what everyone wants on every social media platform possible. The problem with this marketing strategy is it makes it hard to keep up with everything and can spread you thin in terms of time management. Understanding the social media options can also be a bit much for many, as well as confusing when it comes to analyzing the data to the constantly changing algorithms of each platform. But then, Google, with search engine optimization, can get even more complicated.
For example, you have Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Snapchat, WhatsUp, YouTube, Pinterest, Reddit, and LinkedIn. If you are a company that focuses on retail or boutique, Reddit and LinkedIn may not serve any purpose in building those connections to retain and attract new consumers. What demographic you are trying to appeal to in the overall market needs to be considered. If it is an older generation like the Baby-boomers, then TikTok and Snapchat will not be a priority. My father is not on any social media. My mother only looks at photos from family members on Instagram and Facebook but posts anything except an occasional funny meme.
Hire someone like myself, Katherine of Vixen Creative Marketing, LLC, to be a marketing consultant that can later handle your digital marketing needs, including but not limited to content design, social media marketing, and management. Or you can go with a larger company that checks more of the boxes you are looking for and take the marketing off your hands so you can focus on other areas of the business. Depending on how small or large your business is and the scope of your needs, what your company may require may not do well with someone like me, a one-woman show.
My advice is that if you do not want to hire a marketing constant or marketing company (small like mine or a large firm), you need to do your research. Educate yourself and stay up to date. The social media market has a trend that hangs around for a bit or disappears as quickly as it appeared. Pay attention to articles that discuss post sizing and changes being made with the algorithms. Stay diligent in understanding your target market, your customer. Their taste change, just like yours. Follow influencers and marketing firms, and learn from their posts, blogs, and the online conversations they have. Social media will keep evolving, and staying a step ahead of it, can be challenging without guidance.