Here are 10 steps to help you market your business effectively.

Social media has turned into a polarizing marketing tool that has effectively, successfully, increased brand visibility which translates into sales. Here are 10 helpful tips to help you market your business effectively:

Choose your target audience. The goal is to create a following of buyers or clients who not only follow you on social media but most importantly utilizes your services (or purchase your products). There are several accounts that have 500 “Likes” with 500,000 followers. And yet less than 100 people are utilizing their services (or purchasing their products) on a consistent basis. The goal is to not only obtain a following but turn the “likes” into sales.

Provide your clients and or customers with valuable information. If you’re a Salon owner, post pictures of your work and healthy hair care tips as well. This valuable information provides the customer with the idea that you specialize in healthy hair and they’re more than likely to trust in you with your services. If you’re a life coach, providing potential clients with motivational tools and or resources that will help them become a better version of themselves, will likely result into the person wanting to work with you as their life coach. Don’t forget to include links and other helpful tools and resources.

Content: Content is King! Make sure that your content doesn’t come across as a selling tool rather than an informational tool. Allow your clients to provide feedback and engage in the information you post on your sites such as, asking what tips they’d like to learn. What topics they’d like for you to discuss. Your content should pertain to your target audience. Try to be diplomatic and professional with your responses. Avoid arguing with people on social media at all costs. It’s very unprofessional to see business owners arguing with people in front of customers particularly in front of potential customers.

Appreciation: Always show gratitude to those who are supporting you on social media. It’s imperative that your customers understand that your business appreciates their support and most importantly their business.

Contact: In order for your clients to properly communicate with your business, either leave a website, email, telephone number or what methods are best to contact your business. For example, Instagram has a Direct Message option that allows people to communicate with one another, without topic of discussion being on an open forum. If this is the best way to contact your business let your customers know upfront. Give your customers more than one option to communicate with your business.

Consistent Brand Identity: Your brand should be consistent on every social media platform you use. From logos, to content, to visibility. There’s no point of having one account that you’re hardly on while being active on another. If you wish to focus on one platform such as Instagram that’s fine too. If Facebook doesn’t bring you as much business as Linkedin then stick with what works best for you. Just do so on a consistent basis. Track your social media marketing campaigns to see what’s working and what’s not.

Paid advertising: Paid advertising is a great way to gain followers, visibility, and most importantly, new customers. Pay attention to the site’s audience before you decide to drop a chunk from your marketing budget. While paying for advertisement on a gossip site may seem logical due to the number of followers they have, it may not produce the results you want. Advertise with a site comprised of an audience who share the same common likes and or interests as your brand. Read the comments section to determine if the audience members can truly benefit from your services.

Blogging: Blogging is a great way to provide content and an excellent way to market your brand. You can blog about step by step tutorials, upcoming events and the latest seminar you attended.

Create marketing campaigns: Here are a couple of sites used to create social media marketing campaigns. Canva is a great way to create professional templates for your social media accounts and it’s easy! The templates can be used for blogs, Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest just to name a few. Hubspot is a great tool that helps you create campaigns for all of your social media accounts with just one click of a button. You’ll be able to track and monitor weekly or monthly campaigns which will allow you to measure the effectiveness of each campaign. Mailchimp is an email marketing campaign tool, that allows users to easily create professional email marketing campaigns to new and existing customers.

Use hashtags: Hashtags are a great way to help your users find the content they need. Try using hashtags related to the services you provide and the outcome as well. If you’re selling a t shirt create a hashtag that will go in line with the lifestyle of the brand. What the shirt represents. How it should make one feel when wearing it. When using Instagram for example, place the hashtags in the comment section instead of in your caption. The hashtags should never exceed your caption.

Remember to track the progress of each campaign. This allows you to determine which source is working and what's not. Each marketing source may produce different results. You may find that Instagram works better than Facebook,, or vice versa.