So you’re considering a social media account for your business. Maybe you’ve already got one. If that’s the case we have some questions for you to consider: what is your attitude towards Social Media Marketing? What sort of tone do you take? What do you think you’ll get from it?

Our reason for this little interrogation is that many people completely misunderstand the role of SMM in business growth. It’s got the word Marketing right there in the name. It’s for advertising right? Well, sort of. Marketing might be the “promotion or selling” of your business/goods/services but in the case of social media you really want to do this with some subtlety.

Treating social media as a free billboard to slap some ads on isn’t going to win you any friends. Approach Social Media Marketing more like a PR exercise and you’ll be on to a winner.

Why is that?

First and foremost you need to carefully shepherd an online audience. It takes a lot of effort to build a social media following and they are under no obligations to stick around. If you go whole hog on “BUY OUR STUFF” as your main content you will see a rapid crash in follower base. If you start that way you’re unlikely to build one in the first place. After all, a social media account is the easiest sort of advertising to avoid – with a few simple clicks you are unfollowed – and once someone has left it is much harder to tempt them back. See Yik Yak for a cautionary tale on that effect.

What should I do then?

Your social media content should demonstrate you are an authority on your chosen business niche. Write insightful articles about your field, share relevant news stories, give opinions on current debates – get involved and be seen. People will come to trust your opinions and therefore be far more likely to buy from you. In effect SMM is a way to show people why they should buy from you rather than just telling them to do so.

You can also use social media to communicate directly with your customers, you’ll raise your social capital no end. Look at the rise of Community Managers in companies that take online communication seriously. Certain brands have become beloved for the comedy, sass or plain bloodyminded helpfulness of their online staff. It gives brands a human face that customers can relate to.

That all being said, if you treat your fanbase well they won’t begrudge you some advertising. They wouldn’t have followed you in the first place if they were completely uninterested in your product. So how do you strike the right balance? Typical industry wisdom says the golden ratio is 80:20 for Social Media Marketing. If you put out ten posts a week eight of them should be the informative, authoritative sort discussed above while two can be good old-fashioned “isn’t our stuff great?” call to action.

We hope this article has given you some ideas on how best to boost your business with Social Media Marketing. If you want some more inspiration on other digital topics have a flick through our blog and see what useful tips you can pick up.