How to Use Social Media to Bring in New Opportunities
The power of social media is such that the statistics and figures still continue to amaze us. There are 3.5 billion social media users worldwide, with Facebook being our favorite. That’s 3.5 billion people that your business has access to, provided you play the cards right. A seemingly never-ending pool of clients, customers, business partners. In a nutshell, opportunities.
However, how do you find your niche? What is the easiest and quickest way to get in touch with potential business partners? Here are a couple of suggestions.
Who/What You’re Looking For?
Before delving into the matter further, would you say you have an exact idea or definition of what kind of client you wish to attract/find? It’s perfectly acceptable to be open to surprises, but you should define who you wish to see among your contacts. What do they do? What are their goals? What common interests do you share? How would they benefit from contacting you?
Answer these questions before thinking of drawing in new sales leads.
Use Tags
Now that you’ve defined who/what you want, you may think of some good examples, i.e. companies you’d like to do business with. One of the easiest ways to gain their attention is to tag them in a post of yours on social media.
Of course, this goes for the ones that you are familiar with. Nevertheless, if the target responds, their followers may also pay attention to your conversation, thus bringing more attention.
Hashtag and Keyword Search
Choose the social media channel of your liking, and let the search begin. You should know which your topics of interest are. The first logical step is to search the web for them and see which conversations to join. After all, social media is meant for socializing.
Remember Reddit
Despite the fact that Facebook is still king, Reddit has been gaining more and more spotlight, especially when it comes to the above-mentioned keywords, or discovering new topics for research, which a number of people are already interested in.
Reddit has 8 billion monthly pageviews and it is a specific page that you can use to your advantage. The most important rule is: post valuable content! As opposed to Facebook, whose users discuss a topic at great lengths, most of them not really adding any new, useful, material, Reddit users are more thirsty for knowledge. In other words, only an informative statement will be “upvoted”. Should you get enough comments, you could get to the top of subreddit and be noticed by millions.
There are lots of online tools enabling you master Reddit. For instance, you can set your post when the time is right by using a tool for scheduling Reddit posts when the majority is online.
Call to Action
A simple act, yet so easily overseen by many.
Whatever you post on social media, or whoever you contact via social media, is not going to be very meaningful unless you “speak like you mean it”.
While it is important to be informative, don’t forget to inspire the ones reading your post to take the action you wish for them to take. Those simple sentences such as “Check this out” or “Take a closer look at…” really do the trick.
Find the Underdogs
Using hashtags and keywords to search the popular media is recommendable, but how about narrowing the audience to get more exposure in smaller communities? Instagram is amazing, but Wanelo, Loverly, and the like are smaller, thus enabling you to be noticed more easily.
If anything, you’ll be praised for thinking outside the box and turning to social media beginners.
Join a Facebook Group
Oldie but goldie. Facebook groups can have thousands of members. By using the hashtags and keywords above, you could locate massive pools of potential clients or people sharing your interests and passion.
Conclusion
Hopefully, you’ve gained some new ideas or have been reminded of the old ones. The final piece of advice before you experiment with the above would be: consistency. Be consistent in the communication in a sense that you are always true to your brand identity. It is one of the most appreciated qualities in a business, and even more easily spotted in social media reactions.