Social media usage is the fastest growing trend in the history of our world. Participation has grown 9% since January of last year and there are currently over 2.77 billion global users in 2019. 
This valuable resource can be tapped into at no cost to quickly expand exposure to your product or service using hashtag marketing (#) to target your desired audience.
Here are my favorite top three sites based on popularity and ease of use:
Facebook
By far the most popular social media site, Facebook enjoys over 2 billion Monthly Active Users (MAUs) every month. This means with a global population of 7.5 billion people, 1 in 4 has a Facebook account.
This platform is easy to use since a large variety of content is acceptable: text, images with or without links, videos and even live videos. For your convenience, you can post on Facebook with either your laptop, tablet or smartphone.
I recommend that you create a new page for your business separate from your personal page and post 3 times per week with different content categories to keep things interesting.
Make sure your profile includes a brief intro along with your website or landing page address.
I avoid displaying an email or phone number in the profile to make it harder for those who are just collecting contact info for spamming purposes. They can go your website for more details or message you directly with questions if needed.
Here is a sample format for your posts.
Monday – Post a general motivational post with an image to get people’s attention and increase the number of initial likes to your page. For example, if you are promoting a business opportunity, go to the search box at the top of your Page and type in #entrepreneurs or #businessopportunity. The dropdown box will list similar categories for you to explore later but start with one so you can see the page to get a feel for what people are posting.
Make a list of the top 7-8 categories that you would like to expose your posts to (Group 1) and add this list to each post in the comment section. This will add your post to these pages and expose them to thousands of people in your target audience.
NOTE: You can search online for motivational quotes and match them with stock photos – just make sure you are not using copyrighted material. One of my favorite free photo sites is Pixabay.com with thousand of photos in every category imaginable. You can then upload your selected photo to Pixlr.com for easy editing and text additions which is also free, and then your images are able to be saved and downloaded to your device.
Pixlr will also suggest quotes for your photos if you would like to use them and they have a great blog link on their website with How To tutorials. Or if you don’t want to do it yourself, check out fiverr.com for low cost social media posting and graphic design, as well as many other service categories.
Wednesday – Post a thought-provoking question to your Page to encourage Engagement such as comments, likes and sharing. Again, visit your selected hashtag groups of your choice (Group 1) to get ideas from other posts, but make yours unique and compelling. If you are promoting a business opportunity, your question could be: Why do you REALLY want to start your own business?”, or “What is the biggest challenge you face when starting a business?” I think images get more attention so I would use Pixlr to include the text against the desired background or picture of your choice.
Friday – Use an Informational post this time describing the potential benefit of your service or product to your audience. Tying this benefit into some of the answers received from the Wednesday post is ideal to create a problem -solution effect to get people to click on your site. This post should invoke curiosity and link to directly to your website.
During the second week, switch to 7-8 different, but similar hashtag group categories (Group 2). There are many to choose from but go with the most relevant subject matter to your target audience and business. Use the same strategy with Group 2, but different posts. Alternate each week with Groups 1 and 2 to maximize your exposure. Keep all posts fresh for a 90-day period then you can start to repeat the most popular ones and edit hashtag groups if desired.
Instagram – Instagram users have been growing exponentially over the last few years with 1 billion MAU. Using the hashtag group strategy, you can use the same content for the posts you are using for Facebook, but they must all be in image form.
Be aware that Instagram will resize your images to their ideal 1080×1080 pixel size, so you will need to use Pixlr or another photo editor to make sure they are sized properly, or parts of your message may be cutoff.
I will always adjust the canvas size for the image to 1080×1080 and then add text to the black fill in space to balance it out. Save it as a JPG to avoid a background pattern being shown as in a PNG file. See the Pixlr blog for more details.
NOTE: Instagram posts are typically done from a tablet or smartphone versus a desktop. There may be an easier way, but I send myself an email with the desired image created on my desktop and then open it on my smartphone and save it to my cameral roll. Open your Instagram app on your phone and press the + sign to add your post.
Include your previously researched hashtag groups in the caption area and follow the same week alternating strategy.
Twitter – Twitter is a popular social media and online news platform with over 334 million MAU and ranked number 13 internationally. People communicate in short text messages called tweets, of up to 240 characters long.
You can link these tweets to photos, articles, your website, blog or anyplace you want to link to.
Although your posts may have to be modified to fit Twitter, you can follow the same content and frequency strategy along with your hashtag groups to maximize exposure and gain a following.
Make your posts motivational, engaging and informative and you will attract likes, comments and more followers. The hashtag group strategy is just one way to get started using Social Media.
I hope that you enjoyed this post. For more ways to drive traffic to your site, you can go to: http://www.yourtrafficmentor.com
To Your Success,
Natalie Kay
This is a guest post from Natalie Kay, if you would like to be considered for a guest post please contact me.
