Using Social Media to Grow Your Business

Andrew Gazdecki

Social media has the power to build a brand, but you need to know how to use the right tools in order to reap the benefits. Using social media the right way can mean the difference between making a profit and falling flat.

To be truly savvy in social media, take a page from the book of seasoned professional marketers and have just the right touch. Don’t make the mistake of posting endless tweets and statuses, too many blog posts and promotions. Fine-tune your social media presence with carefully planned posts, meaning well timed, relevant content.

Here are three successful social media campaigns to look at for inspiration, as they generated pretty big results:

1. Sword & Plough, based in Denver, launched a business to recycle military surplus into tote bags. The company had grassroots support when they started, including a $ 6,500 award from Harvard’s Pitch for Change. The company leveraged this support into a successful and smart social media campaign based primarily on Kickstarter. From there, they went on to record their story for a year on Facebook, Twitter and their blog. They tripled their goal of $ 20,000 within the first 24 hours. And raised $ 312,161 from over 1,500 backers by the end of the first month. The key to their success: they started their social media outreach before they launched their Kickstarter, generating excitement and support before they even asked for donations. The company continues to be incredibly successful, recycling over 35,000 pounds of military surplus material, employing a huge network of veterans and maintaining great sales.

2. Little Passports, from San Francisco, is worth over $ 5 million thanks to their incredible social media skills. The company provides products designed to make travel fun for kids. When starting out, the company used their social media outreach mainly on Facebook, starting small and testing to determine interest. Once they had a fine-tuned campaign, they launched a major advertisement campaign on Facebook, and within six months they saw revenues rise from $ 130,000 to $ 700,000. They also tripled their customer base.

3. Sharpie, the well known and much loved pen/marker company, also used social media to tap a market they knew would respond well to their products: teenagers. Using Twitter, they targeted users who had an interest in music and writing and unleashed the hashtag #Sharpie. They encouraged users to tweet what they used Sharpie for in their creative projects. This campaign raised their followers by 600% and the hashtag went viral.

These are just three success stories of varying companies, big and small, who were able to use social media to their advantage, creating incredible revenues for their business. Using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinteres, etc. can create brand awareness, user loyalty and real revenue for your business.

Focus on the three T’s: Tools, Time and Timing and you’ll generate helpful leads and engage the customers you want to connect with. Use simple social media tricks like links and pictures, utilize time blocks for maximum engagement, and streamline your social media campaigns. It’ll make a difference in your outreach as well as your bottom line.

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