TechInAfrica – Social media isn’t always about getting in touch with the people you know from a distance. Social media is also a place for modern marketers, entrepreneurs, or even founders to market their products in this digital age. In addition, social media also serves as a news sharing platform more popular than conventional newspapers and tabloids.

You may have seen our story regarding how Twitter restricts political ads in this upcoming election; this further emphasizes that social media plays a key role not only in our personal lives, but also our professional work structures. Networks like Instagram are experimenting with hiding the number of likes on posts in an effort to reverse the negative mental health effects associated with social media comparisons, as reported by CNET.

Therefore, it’s safe to say that social media will play a significant part for aspiring marketers and start-up industrialists. To be able to tackle business marketing issues for the upcoming years, you need to learn how to use social media to your advantage.

Here’s five steps to progress further on your preferred platforms:

Lead generation by gathering data

How a business can prosper and bolster itself can’t always be defined by mere likes, comments, and followers. Sure, they do matter. But what matters more is your ability to generate quality leads so you can market to them directly—by gathering potential consumers’ data such as their usernames or email addresses.

One good way to do this is to have something ready to be exchanged for their contact information. Potential customers can receive something of value—like e-books or digital downloads of audiobooks—in which they can obtain by agreeing to give their contact information to your company.

Of course, this can only go well with their respective consents. So please, we implore you to not violate their privacy when they don’t agree to your terms and conditions!

Text message marketing with SuperPhone

SuperPhone is a new mobile messaging platform designed to strengthen your media marketing strategies whilst maintaining the core value of text message marketing. As a future marketer, it’s important to have the feasibility and accessibility to reach certain groups quickly. Text message marketing can go hand-in-hand with your brand communications, and in return, will grant your company a spot in the map.

Private messaging on WhatsApp and Slack

Instant messaging medias like WhatsApp and Slack grants you the availability to bring yourself closer to your target audience by creating groups. Whilst text message marketing may seem too direct for your taste, you can apply for a more subtle approach by inviting them to your private circle.

With this, you can bypass all the noise and interference on larger social media platforms and focus on your potential customers. You can share semi-confidential sneak-peek prototypes of your upcoming product design and see what their feedback is. From there, these engaged fans can spread the word about your brand organically through their own preferred means.

Gather intel or set up listening feeds with Twitter

Okay, sure, Twitter is a great platform to set up your unique hashtag and use it as a megaphone to voice your promotions and offers. But have you thought of Twitter as a search engine?

By using Twitter as a search engine, you can find people talking about your particular brand or about a particular demand. From here, you can find direct leads on what your next step of marketing should be.

Reach out to these strangers you may find, and they might be your next medium to offer your services to the public whilst meeting their demands. For instance, professional web designers may search “coder needed” or “designer wanted” on Twitter to see if there’s any potential clients to speak to.

Use GIPHY

GIPHY is an American online database and search engine that allows users to search for and share GIF files. While this notion may sound like an irrelevant idea, but creating GIFs related to your brand and sharing them to GIPHY can go a long way in nurturing your brand’s growth.

For example, if someone with distinctive social media presence happen to use your GIF, your brand could gain the recognition it deserves—and you’re paying literally nothing for that kind of engagement, aren’t you?

In addition, GIPHY paints the practicability for you to use some GIFs that you can implement anytime to spice up your own content.

Source: entrepreneur.com