You don’t meet many people who don’t have a social media profile. Even those that dislike them tend to recognize their importance, especially if they’re entrepreneurs who depend on being popular with the consumers.
The situation is the same for food and beverage businesses which can’t afford not to have a strong social media presence. It’s essential for building awareness of your business and staying in touch with the consumers. However, how you do it, is up to you. Let’s have a look at a few ways to leverage social media to build a more successful beverage business:
Be Active
To obtain any benefit from social media; your brand needs to be reasonably active on it. However, you still need to study the algorithms of different social media networks well, as they have various definitions of timely posting. Have a look at the recommended post frequency for different social media networks before you decide:
- for Facebook posts: 3-7 times per week;
- for Twitter posts: 3-30 times per day;
- for Instagram posts: once a day;
- for Youtube uploads: 2-3 times per month.
Choose the Right Network
The networks you choose will depend on your target audience. For example, if you’re targeting older consumers, you’ll sooner find them on Facebook than on Instagram or Snapchat which are reserved for younger generations in a more considerable measure. Study the demographics of each social media network and figure out a couple of them where your target audience is likely to be.
Once you’re on the right social networks, you can narrow down your audience even further. Social media allows you to narrow down the audience to particular types. Studying the audiences helps you learn the ins and outs of all your potential buyer personas. That makes for more effective marketing strategies since you will know exactly how to target consumers, and what kind of a campaign to craft to get them to buy.
Bring Social Media into Your Marketing Strategy
Social media marketing isn’t optional anymore — it plays a significant part in any food or beverage company’s marketing strategy. It is mostly because social media networks are where potential customers spend their free time.
With the number of members they have and the quality of ad platforms they possess, social media networks are rapidly becoming the powerhouses of marketing. Using them enhances and supports any other traditional marketing strategy you may employ, such as TV advertising, radio, and print. Social media are the best place to launch a digital marketing campaign, too. They’re convenient, fast, and let you track the metrics in real time and adjust your campaigns and strategies accordingly. The biggest challenge is getting noticed in the sea of competitors who are trying to do the same thing.
Use the Strengths of Social Media
Social media networks have made their name on real-time communication, which has become an essential part of doing business today. Brands nowadays use social media for customer support and instantly answering any questions or inquiries that the customers may have.
Building rapport this way is invaluable, and it certainly works well to raise consumers’ awareness of your beverage business. Another way of fostering rapport with the customers is through reviews. You’ll inevitably be getting reviews on social media, which might be an excellent opportunity to do some reputation management and word-of-mouth marketing to get the ball rolling.
Target Existing and Future Distributors
Take a look at what the big food and beverage beverage companies are doing on their social media profiles. Many of them don’t only target the consumers, but also the distributors. Social media can be a great tool to show distributors that your brand has grown big enough for them to consider working with you.
It’s also an excellent avenue to educate the distributors on what they get from partnering with you. Present the problem that your products solve, as well as how exactly they do it. Doing this can open doors to new and more profitable partnerships, so make sure not to miss on the opportunity to collaborate with a new distributor.
Master Hashtags
Hashtags are the lifeblood of social networks like Instagram, Twitter, and even Snapchat. Users utilize hashtags to search for content, but also to see what’s trending. Even Facebook has recently started benefiting from hashtagged content, although it’s not to the extent that Instagram and Twitter need and use it.
If you are looking to build a strong presence on hashtag-centric social media, using them is a must. Work with your marketing team to find an exceptional, unique hashtag for your business. Additionally, you’ll need to find the “regular” but popular hashtags that your brand would naturally pair well with. Use a combination of unique and standard hashtags to stand out and gain brand awareness.
Find Influencers to Promote You
Many brands nowadays work with influencers on social media — and that’s because this type of collaboration is advantageous. Most influencer marketing consists of giving them a unique promotional affiliate code that they can share with their followers and receive a percentage of the profits off every purchase.
It is the right way of marketing your business and increasing awareness, mainly if you target micro-influencers. They still have a nice following but aren’t too swamped in offers from brands. More often than not, influencers want brands to approach them, so find a few people in your industry who would make a good match with what your brand represents.
Tell Stories
Social media networks can help you to convey your brand story through different types of content correctly. And having a strong brand isn’t just a nifty bonus anymore. You need to get the consumers to relate to your brand if you want them to buy. With so much competition in the industry, success has become reserved for those who can reach the audience.
Fortunately, the audience likes nothing better than a story they can relate to. As an additional benefit, telling stories is one of the main strategies of brand building. With one activity, you’re both raising awareness of your business and introducing the customers to your brand.
Key Takeaways
Having a strong social media presence is extremely helpful in business today, as this is where you’ll find your customers. However, there’s more to building a successful beverage business. By studying fresh industry insights, you’ll stay on track with the trends and be able to implement some of them to your business.
By William Sipper, Cascadia Managing Brands
#williamsipper #cascadiabrands #cascadiamanagingbrands