Just a decade ago, connecting with customers meant print ads, TV commercials, and word-of-mouth. Fast forward to today, and the game has completely changed. Social media has become the new powerhouse for businesses to build meaningful relationships with their audience. 

Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok are where customers hang out, discover brands, and make purchasing decisions. But simply creating social media profiles won't cut it anymore.

With over 4.65 billion global social media users, standing out takes strategy and purpose. Posting irrelevant content or selling too aggressively can quickly turn customers away. You need a human-centric approach to leverage social media and genuinely connect with your audience.

Think social listening and engagement over hard selling. Video content and Stories over megaphone announcements. Value-driven conversations over one-sided broadcasts. The companies winning at social media marketing listen to their followers, adopt an authentic personality, and provide value without always promoting their products.

Sounds impressive, right? In this blog, we'll cover ten proven strategies to help you successfully connect with customers and grow your business via social media.

1. Define Your Target Audience

Taking a generalised spray-and-pray approach to social media marketing simply won't cut it anymore. Today, innovative brands know that identifying and intimately understanding your target audience is the crucial first step to success. Rather than posting content for a faceless sea of followers, you need to get extremely specific about your ideal customers. Dive deep into your audience's demographics, psychographics, interests, pain points, and values. Analyse which social platforms they are most active on and what types of content perform best with them. Conduct surveys, focus groups, or interviews to gain insights directly from a sample of your audience. The more you learn about your audience's preferences and behaviours, the better you'll be able to create tailored content and messaging that profoundly resonates with them and drives engagement. Becoming an expert on the nuances of your audience is well worth the effort, as it allows you to tap into exactly what makes your tribe tick and gets them excited about your brand.

2. Develop an Audience-Centred Content Strategy

Armed with a wealth of intel on your target audience, you can now map out a savvy social media content strategy catered specifically to them. 

Experiment with different content formats to keep your audience interested, such as video, images, infographics, and more. Find the ideal mix of educational content that provides value and entertaining content that captures attention.

Plan out content pillars that align with your brand and audience – for example, thought leadership, product features, company culture, or industry trends. Consistently deliver timely, relevant, and useful posts to your audience. Remember, social media is a two-way conversation, so actively respond to any feedback, comments, or questions from your audience. This fosters genuine relationships and a sense of community.

Curate user-generated content as well to engage your audience further. The winning brands on social media develop an audience-first content strategy that informs, entertains, involves, and delights their customers.

Also, ensuring you stay current with the latest trends, features, and algorithm changes is crucial. What's hot right now might become obsolete in a matter of months. Follow thought leaders in the social space, sign up for newsletters highlighting platform updates, and monitor reports on emerging trends. Continually evaluate new social features and opportunities through the lens of your audience and goals. Adopt changes selectively when they make strategic sense for your brand. In short, be open to embracing new features and trends that align with your audience and business goals.

3. Engage Regularly with Your Audience

In today's social media landscape, simply broadcasting content through a one-way megaphone is no longer enough. To succeed, you must engage in genuine back-and-forth conversations and build real relationships with your audience. Treat your customers more like friends than faceless followers. Don't just deliver content to them - listen and interact. Ask thoughtful questions to spark discussions. Run polls to solicit feedback. Monitor comments and respond promptly. Being responsive shows you value your audience as individuals. Go beyond soft engagement. Share their user-generated content, give social media shoutouts, and even highlight superfans. When your audience feels seen, heard, and involved, they will become emotionally invested in your brand's success. This cultivates brand loyalty and advocacy that fuels growth.

4. Leverage Influencers to Amplify Your Reach

Influencer marketing has exploded in recent years, and for good reason. Partnering with relevant influencers allows you to tap into their loyal, engaged audience and get your brand in front of new eyeballs. Take the time to identify influencers, big and small, who are respected voices in your niche. Look for creators who genuinely resonate with their followers, not just shady mercenaries looking to make a quick buck. Collaborate on co-branded social content that brings value to their audience while subtly promoting your brand. Even nano and micro-influencers with smaller (but highly engaged) followings can lend you credibility. Just ensure the influencer's values and content align well with your brand image and tone. Leverage influencers to expand your social reach and let their credibility rub off on your brand.

5. Strategically Tap into Trending Conversations with Hashtags

Hashtags on social media are like shortcuts into pop-up forums and conversations around certain topics. Strategically using relevant hashtags allows you to get your content in front of people when they are engaging in those conversations. Research which niche hashtags your audience uses when discussing topics related to your brand and products. Weave those hashtags into your content to make it more discoverable to interested users. Of course, pepper in a few widely popular hashtags where appropriate to expand your reach. Just avoid hashtag spamming that looks artificial. Organically work targeted hashtags into your social copy and tap into trending conversations in your niche.

6. Run Compelling Contests and Giveaways

Contests and giveaways are proven tactics to spark engagement and expand your audience on social media. Create contest concepts and prizes that genuinely tie back to your brand. Get creative with different entry methods like shares, comments, user-generated content, or hashtags. Keep rules clear and straightforward. Promote your contests across social channels and to your current audience - don't just hope new users randomly discover it. Fun games attract new followers and engage your existing audience actively with your brand. Just be sure to close the loop by announcing winners and handing out prizes promptly. 

Contests should feel like natural brand experiences, not shady ploys.

7. Regularly Analyse Performance and Optimise

Don't just post social content and pray it sticks. Consistently monitor and measure the performance of your social efforts. Leverage built-in analytic tools to get data on your followers, engagement, clicks, conversions, and more. Analyse this data to pinpoint what content and tactics perform best. Find any gaps in your strategy and optimise accordingly. Many brands underutilise social media analytics. But regularly reviewing the numbers and fine-tuning your approach is crucial to maximise your social media ROI. Don't leave the success of your efforts up to chance. Embrace the data to refine your strategy continually.

8. Integrate Social Media into Your Wider Marketing Mix

The brands seeing the most success on social media don't treat it as a siloed channel. They integrate it into their broader marketing strategy. Ensure your social content aligns seamlessly with your messaging on other channels like email, paid ads, website, SEO, and more. This reinforcement strengthens your brand identity across channels. Also, coordinate promotions across social and other marketing efforts for an amplified impact. For example, run a targeted ad campaign promoting a contest announced on social media. Or embed your viral social content in a newsletter. When executed strategically, your social presence will magnify the rest of your marketing.

9. Adopt the Right Attitude for Social Media Success

Having the right mindset is just as important as implementing the right social media tactics. The brands that truly thrive on social adopt twin attitudes of authenticity and consistency.

Authenticity means championing transparency with your audience. Build trust by openly sharing your brand's story, values, and purpose. Highlight what makes you unique without glossing over the genuine experience with filtered nonsense. Respond to feedback with humility. Deliver value through your content without overly promotional pitches. When your audience recognises genuine care for them, you earn meaningful loyalty beyond chasing temporary gains.

Consistency means cultivating a cohesive brand experience across social platforms. Maintain the same visual identity, tone, messaging, and level of quality in all your content. Develop guidelines to keep your team on-brand. Plot out content pillars aligned to your positioning. While consistency breeds familiarity and trust, avoid becoming predictable by mixing up content formats and storytelling approaches.

Blending authenticity and consistency establishes you as a genuine, authoritative brand voice that audiences feel they know and can rely on. Adopt this attitude, and your social media efforts will flourish.

10. Boost Your Organic Efforts with Paid Ads

While organic social media content should be the core focus, paid ads can provide that extra push needed to maximise your impact. The brands seeing the best results on social media don't just rely on organic content - they strategically invest in paid ads, too.

With many ad options on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and more, focus on testing different formats and placements relevant to your goals and audience. Try a mix of Stories ads, boosted posts, brand awareness campaigns, lead generation ads, and any other possible options.

Analyse performance data to determine optimal targeting approaches, messaging, creative, budgets, and more. Continuously refine based on those insights. Many brands underutilise the robust analytics tools built into social platforms. Make sure you're leveraging the data to improve campaign effectiveness.

And remember - adopt a helpful tone in your social ads, not a hard-sell approach. Provide value within the brief time you have people's attention!

Take Advantage of Social Media!

When leveraged strategically, social media is unmatched in its ability to engage your ideal customers, strengthen brand loyalty, and drive bona fide business results. But realising social media's immense potential requires commitment, savvy strategy, and constant refinement.

Let our team at RJW Digital help you capture the attention and spark meaningful conversations with your target audience across every major platform. We'll help you stay on top of the latest trends and tactics to keep your brand's social presence fresh and compelling.

What are you waiting for? Let our team of specialists handle social media marketing so you can focus on your core business. Contact RJW Digital today at 1300 545 237, and let's discuss optimising your social media impact.