Marketing Tips With Elaine
Social Media Marketing In Zimbabwe, are you doing it right?
Are you using the right social media platform for advertising? You might be losing out on good business by simply using the wrong platform…
Social media has gone from being an option to a necessity. The recurring lockdowns and other Covid-19 pandemic related issues, have resulted in our economies suffering a lot, leading to a lot of businesses shifting to digital solutions to stay relevant and because we all need to make money right? Right!
So learning what social media marketing can do for you and your business is also very important. There are many social media platforms that are at your disposal but knowing which one to use can save you precious time and money. It is also important that you know what to post on each of those platforms.
This is what we will be focusing on in this article, Well let’s get into it shall we …..
Facebook is the largest social media platform in the world, with over 2.74 Billion Active Users. Furthermore, according to the statistics by Datareportal, for January 2021, 12.7% of Zimbabwe’s social media users are active on Facebook (Equating to 1.20 Million Users).
Zimbabwe social media usage
So it makes sense to advertise on the platform that has the most people right?
Facebook offers robust analytics where you can track the actions and behaviors of clients after viewing your ads across multiple devices. This information is useful as it can help you make informed decisions on what to focus/work on.
You have complete visibility and control of the adverts and your budget. Clear book keeping is also one of the many advantages of Facebook advertising because you can get to know how much you are spending and the results from what you would have posted so far.
Like everything else Facebook also has a bad side or rather some disadvantages. One of them is that some sectors are not allowed to advertise on Facebook for the safety of the users. Too much text is not approved to post as adverts. As it is the largest platform, A lot of people use Facebook to advertise and thus there is a lot of competition for users’ attention. So you need to invest in serious marketing and branding to make sure your work stands out from the sea of adverts.
What to post on Facebook?
While you can sign up on facebook and use it for free, you have to remember that Facebook is a company and the platform is managed in such a way that has to benefit them. Facebook as a company makes its money through paid adverts and other means. As a result, the facebook system is regularly updated to ensure everything on the platform benefits their company, so the trick is to tailor your content and package it in either of the following formats:
- Short and frequent videos to keep your followers engaged ( The more you post, the higher your page’s visibility becomes).
- Videos Longer than 3 Minutes are currently being favoured by facebook’s algorithm.
- Pictures of your goods or services
- Flyers to both show images and important text
- Facebook supports links, so you can post links to your website etc
- Create a facebook page to be the official communication channel between you and your clients (Keep your personal account and business accounts separate)
- You can join the numerous groups about your industry/area of expertise and share your posts in there with more people.
Do note, it’s not just about posting! The content needs to be presentable!
Whatsapp Messenger
WhatsApp is one of the most common means of communication especially here in Zimbabwe. The convenience of speaking to a business instantly by just taking out your phone from your pocket and then sending them a message to order or purchase goods is amazing!
WhatsApp has even made new features for business specifically, WhatsApp Business!
WhatsApp business is a separate application from the normal WhatsApp messenger.
It has features tailor made to make businesses communicate easier and efficiently. It allows catalogue viewing and instant automatic responses. All these features make WhatsApp Business one of the most suitable apps for social media advertising. Statuses and formation of groups also are great features and very useful as well for online marketing, as you can directly send messages, updates and special offers to your customers all at once! Instead of forwarding the same message to all your clients, you can simply add them to a group and post the message there and they will all see it!)
It is also cost effective allowing you to send and receive messages on time. Depending on what we all know as Network Bundles that is…
Mistakes people make on whatsapp
These are some of the things to avoid when using whatsapp to communicate with your clients:
- Broadcasting messages to everyone in your contact list on a very frequent basis without their consent (Ask people if they would like to be on your broadcast list, don’t just spam)- Use your whatsapp status instead
- Information Dumping- When a client wants to know more about a service or product, try your best to have it as a conversation rather than dumping links, long messages, pictures and videos all at once. Whatsapp is an instant messaging platform, so its almost the same as having a real time, real life conversation with people. surely you can’t just be the one talking endlessly! You need to allow time for questions and the clients feedback.
- Not saving clients numbers- It would help you a great deal if you saved clients numbers and also in such a way that if they called you,you would immediately know who you are talking to and what they are interested in .
- Not being available during business hours or responding late to clients
Instagram is also a great platform for advertising. It has advanced targeting where adverts can be seen and linked to other platforms as well.
Instagram has over a billion monthly users. Accompanied by lots of amazing features such as Highlights which may be left on for more than 24 hours just to draw attention to a specific item on your page, Stories which disappear after 24 hours and Reels which are short videos that can be categorised according to their content and thereby allowing ease of finding content for users.
On Instagram it is very easy to track your campaign’s success and boost brand awareness. The great thing about this is that it is very cost efficient and fits into any budget well and with this you stay ahead of the curve.
Though it has all these great aspects , Instagram is not as click friendly as other social media platforms though it has improved of late. Instagram only allows you to post links in your bio, thus you can only have 1 link in your bio at any given time.
What to post on Instagram
You can make the instagram experience very personal with your clients.
- On Stories, you can use the questions feature on the stories as a tool to enlighten clients on a product or service.
- On Stories, you can post polls to get direct feedback from clients
- Make sure you are posting content with the proper aspect ratio! (Know when to use potrait, square and horizontal posts)
- Use stories to catch the attention of users or direct their attention to a post they might have missed.
- Post behind the scenes material so people see what its like to produce your work (Don’t share trade secrets tho!)
- Use hashtags to reach more people who like or have interest in your area of expertise
Moving on to Twitter which is good because it has a narrow segmentation of who your ad is shown to. There are several options for the type of ads you want to run. Target marketing allows you to choose who your ads are shown to and where they show up. Some disadvantages of Twitter are that the analysis or progress from your campaigns is not as in depth as other platforms. Since it is a constant stream of information, your ad may be missed by potential clients.
What to post on twitter
Twitter has a character limit per post, meaning you can only use so many letters/words in a single post. Here are some ways you can use twitter for advertising.
- Use the limited characters as a caption then post a flyer or video with more information on the matter
- Use the limited characters as a caption then post a flyer or video with more information on the matter then post a link to either your facebook page or your website where they can find more information.
- Use threads to continue your post beyond the character limit by using a chain of sub-posts within a post
- Use polls to get direct feedback from clients
- Use hashtags to reach more people who like or have interest in your area of expertise
We can’t exhaust all the information about social media marketing because there is soo much to talk about! There are so many tools that can help you do more with social media.
If u haven’t already, check out our social media marketing packages on Webscope.
We as Kakic Universe are devoted to growing your business with you through social media marketing. (See the link below)
Join us every Wednesday for a marketing tip with Elaine!
