If you run your business's social media, it is very critical that you educate customers about your business and its products. Here are 8 ways
You can do many things as a business owner to fully utilise social media for business growth and promotion. In this process, educating your customers on your business and product every step of the way of the funnel is extremely important. Go through this article to get some practical tips on how to do this on your favorite social media platform.
According to Datareportal’s global overview 2022 report, more than half of the world is using social media right now. In fact, the percentage of social media users is currently at 58.4 and the number is steadily increasing, even after the emergence of a global pandemic.
What’s interesting is that it’s not just regular people like you and me who are using social media.
Most successful entrepreneurs already do so because they recognize how powerful social networking platforms are regarding customer education. Amongst them, freelancers, business people, teachers, and coaches who are selling online courses are doing the same, and they are using it as part of their wider digital marketing strategy.
If you are an entrepreneur, then you should know social media exposure can get you greater customer engagement, helping you grow your business at scale.
Social media can:
Not only do social media help to spread awareness about your brand and company mission, but also give you the opportunity to talk about topics your audience is most interested in or wants to learn more about. In return, this allows you to get a lead closer to your brand, and establish a nurturing relationship with them, encouraging them to buy from you.
But, how can you make this happen for your business?
In this article, you will learn all the practices that will help you start using social media more strategically and engage your audience through the power of education.
Let’s dive in!
Social media is the place to share company and industry news. It sounds like a no-brainer even though many businesses are choosing not to share any information regarding their own business. Doing so however, gives customers the opportunity to interact with and learn more about your product, and dig deeper into who you are as a company allowing them to see what makes it so unique.
Sharing business information humanizes your brand. It also makes you seem friendlier and more approachable, which is ideal considering that you are hoping customers will reach out to you.
To achieve best results, you can start sharing the following on your social channels:
Jasper’s Twitter post is a great example when it comes to sharing company milestones. Becoming one of America's fastest-growing companies is a big accomplishment that is worth sharing with the rest of the world.
Also, don’t forget to post some industry-relevant content:
HubSpot is nailing marketing statistics and offers their audience essential industry information on their Instagram page. The presented data comes from a survey they conducted a while back and helps them promote more educational content, directing people to another link in their bio.
Such content will be more likely to bring you the engagement you need on your social profiles and also develop the trust between you and customers while presenting you as a thought leader.
Influencer marketing is getting more and more relevant these days. Most industry leaders and highly successful entrepreneurs already have a large network that you can leverage, as part of a wider business partnership or collaboration. However, when it comes to social media, it’s the social media influencers who are the go-to people for the job.
Even if they are not actively using your product, these influencers (aka celebrities or bloggers), know a lot about their chosen subject and they can talk, write or post about it excessively.
Having their knowledge and their name associated with your brand may just be what you need to bring your target audience closer to you and then educate them on your own products.
So let’s say if your company is a traveling company, you will need to create an Instagram post by a successful travel blogger to raise a discussion around that. If you are a recruitment agency, you could have an HR director or career blogger give some advice through a recorded video.
Alternatively, suppose you are a grocery and merchandise retailer like Tesco. In that case, you can work with a famous chef and food blogger like Jamie Oliver to teach your audience some delicious recipes.
Everybody knows that humor can boost learning ability and memory retention. With this extremely useful tool in your inventory, you can create and share fun content that enlightens the mood and gets the attention of customers.
Use it to explain a difficult concept, test the current knowledge of your followers, or help customers understand how to use your product to its full potential. Whatever educational message you want to send across the web, humor will make it more entraining and memorable.
To put this into practice, you can create GIFs, question polls, memes, infographics, or short videos that bring attention to the issue you want to raise or start a discussion for or anything else you would like your customers to learn more about.
The best fun posts are the ones that bring attention back to your product because it gets people talking about it, even if it’s just for entertainment.
Even posting just a single question (see Canva’s example) can have tremendous results as it gets people become more involved with your brand, having them wanting to be part of the whole experience.
One of the most effective ways to educate your customers is to present them with a challenge. Getting them to do something, like posting an answer to a question, a photo, a quote, sharing a wisdom nugget, tagging their friends on a post, or even something simple like answering a poll, increases the chances of customers engaging with your product at large.
For example, you can use TikTok to leverage the power of specific hashtags that are used in your industry and spread your educational message to a wider pool of audience. This way you are inviting people to chip in while allowing them to learn something in return that they can easily link to your brand.
Duolingo is doing this effectively, featuring their famous green owl mascot in almost every TikTok video.
But if you wish to go one step further, you can create your own challenges and then award a prize to the winner e.g. for the most creative answer, most popular video response, etc.
In order to convince your audience to buy your product, first your need to present some successful case studies coming from your current customers. Customer reviews and testimonials offer the best examples of product usage as they can give precise instructions and guidelines for using your product, without you having to put in all the hard work.
In the above example, Ahrefs retweets a post showing their appreciation to a customer’s user experience that praises and highlights the usefulness of their latest product feature.
Through customer review posts and user-generated content like this, you bring the spotlight to your biggest fans and loyal ambassadors who are celebrating with you, but at the same time, you are teaching others how to use your product effectively.
So let their voice be heard, either through a short video tutorial or demonstration on YouTube, a screenshot that shows a new product release or feature update, a product review, or a simple graphic with a quote on it.
Did you know that your blog is a content goldmine? Creating and sharing how-to guides from your website to social media is a great way to educate your customers.
Provided that you already know which social channel works best for your audience demographics and industry, you can write blog entries that are specifically directed towards the audience you want to reach.
The best way you can do this is to pinpoint the pain points of your audience, search relevant keywords and create your content around it. And just as easily, you turn your social media into a powerful educational channel, encouraging your followers to keep scrolling to find more valuable content.
Since video is more direct and allows interaction, you will need to use it to your company’s advantage. The possibilities are endless for social media channels like Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube -to name a few- because they allow you to go live and present yourself in front of your audience in real-time.
Live conversations are priceless, and the customers that are already following you online will be more likely to join in a live webinar to get the answers they need regarding your product or business.
You can turn this session into a Q&A, bring in an expert to talk about a topic that interests your customers, and use the time to conduct get-to-know-our-product discussions or quizzes.
Then there is always the option to post curated content. Curated content is content that others have already published within your industry - whether these are individuals or companies. You can use content curation if you are not producing blog content as often as you wished to keep publishing valuable educational resources for your customers.
Curated content can be taken from online courses, presentations, videos, ebooks, anthologies, textbooks, news stories, industry updates, research reports, and more.
If you are sharing external content e.g. a study or research created by another person or business, make sure to give them the credit for it on your posts. Every content type or format of curated content is different and is used to serve diverse purposes depending on the channel you use, but they will help you present new insights, offering additional value to your audience.
Using social media is fun, and any business can use it to achieve so much. In the digital age we live in, it has become the go-to place for positioning your product in the right way so that your target audience can see and engage with your business immediately.
With Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, LinkedIn, or any other social channel, you give your business a competitive advantage in the market, as it opens up more opportunities to reach out to the crowd in creative ways.
Making your company feel more relatable and showing a genuine interest in educating your potential customers to help them use your products better is a strategy that always wins.
Are you ready to start educating your customers through social media? Got any more ideas to add? Let us know!
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Kyriaki is a Content Writer for the LearnWorlds team writing about marketing and e-learning, helping course creators on their journey to create, market, and sell their online courses. Equipped with a degree in Career Guidance, she has a strong background in education management and career success. In her free time, she is crafty and musical.
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