As more customers turn to mobile devices like smartphones and tablets, you can also find them on social media. Almost 80% are on some form of social media, so it’s important to know that when you run ads, blogs and create your marketing and digital marketing strategies that you streamline them around your potential customers.

Use these key points to help you better understand how you can increase your potential customers from your social media ads, give them an in-depth or behind-the-scenes look at your business which can lead to increased band awareness. You can also strengthen your brand with consistent images they identify with your business and by posting messages regularly for increased SEO; your customers will come to look for your messages, blogs and ads.

Chances are your potential customers are at work or stuck on a bus or train going to/from work and they’re bored. They want new content so they can pass the time. That means, they want to find you! Give them great entertaining and engaging content and this can lead to them sharing your information. Let’s explore that more later. For now, let’ start with your customers and your social media accounts so you can better understand how to engage your target audience.

Your Customers Use Social Media and You Should, Too

There are a lot of businesses still working from the mindset that people are only using desktops and laptops. Ignore them because they’re probably still sending faxes from landlines. Over a billion people are only using smartphones or tablets and that means with increased social media, they’re sharing, tweeting, pinning and texting…and so should you.

The goal with using social media for your business is to direct your ads in a way that they always reach your customers in a way that’s easy to view. If you have a tweet from Twitter, then you know there’s a specific character limit of 140 letters. Make them count. Say something funny. Share a discount and have a quick call to action, or CTA. This can help your customers stay connected – and share your information quickly!

Action items: Try running your ads on social media. If you’re unsure what your ads should look like, check out your top competitors and you’ll soon see that their ads are entertaining, get people to respond, voice their opinion and share it with others. That’s what you want, too. Send a tweet about FREE oil changes midweek. Set up a local ad for a FREE diagnostics check, (or first 30-minutes free). Local ads can help drivers in the immediate area find your business right away.

Now let’s turn our attention to what can keep them on your pages and enjoying your content…Behind-the-scenes information.

Let Your Customers See What’s Behind the Veil

Do you remember the booming voice in Oz? As soon as the curtain was moved, it was a munchkin yelling into a megaphone. Customers love connecting with businesses and their brand. It can help them not just identify with you, but engage in your story, your mission and then they become part of your brand. So what does that look like in your social media ad? Good question…

Your ads can reveal a lot. You can open up from a personal perspective in a Facebook post, you can word your blog messages about how you started your business and struggled for a few years, and you can even mention how your brand is passionate about the environment and your new go-green initiative. These are revealing things that help customers see you as a person and not just another company. You also have to see all potential customers as future customers and when you do, it will help with the next point, building your brand.

Action Items: Tell the story about your business, how it started, photos of the kids and maybe a photo of your first location if it was a small shop. Let customers know how you help with emissions testing and promote recycling. These are all areas that help with your ads and brand.

Building Your Brand

Coke, Pepsi and Netflix made big mistakes a few years ago. They all made changes without considering the customer and how it would affect their brand. No one wanted New Coke, Clear Pepsi or a more expensive Netflix and it was the public’s disapproval that led to massive recalls and public apologies.

In building your brand, you want to consistently share the same images, logos, and campaigns across all social media platforms. It’s a way that people will come to identify with you. For example, how would you know Nike without the Swoosh? What if Coke was in a blue bottle? Because colors can also influence your customers, this is an area that you may want to test out through alpha and beta testing to see how your audiences identify with your ads and which they respond to the most. That way you can mirror these ads and also focus on your landing pages that get the most attention. If you need help with testing various ad campaigns, talk to your marketing manager about running these tests.

Action Items: Focus on the color scheme that you have or create a new one. Test it out. Consider a new logo or update your existing one. Make sure that your pages are also updated to show clarity across all user interfaces meaning if a potential customer is on a tablet, smartphone or desktop, they should be able to see your images clearly and the call-to-action buttons –especially on smartphones. If you haven’t set up your landing pages this way, talk to your marketing manager.

Build Your Blog

Whether you have one location or one thousand, people love blog articles and you can increase your search engine optimization (SEO) with blog content. You can actually get a lot of information to customers that they can use and they’ll sign up for your blog, giving you their email address. That means you can then email them your discounts and savings passes exclusive to them.

But what do you blog about?

Consider the weather and seasonal information that people need to know about. If you’re looking at the summer months, you know people want to travel and will need their air conditioning and radiator checked. They will also want to have tune-ups before they get on the road. For a mix of articles, write about the safest times to travel in the summer and include in your articles your keywords and links to your landing pages. If you can blog once a week that’s great, but 2-3 times is better to reach different audiences.

Also be sure that you set up your posts so they will automatically feed into your social media accounts – at once. No one has time to write on a Word Press blog, post it to Facebook, tweet it, send it to Instagram, make sure it’s on your landing page and then add it to Google+. Your posts should be seamless and less hassle for you. Talk to your marketing manager to help set up this time saver.

As you find great ways to engage your customers on social media and build your brand, you will see how easy they are sharing your information. Get in the habit of running your statistical data analysis and analytics to help you better understand how your market is growing and how social media is contributing to your increased social media management. Work with your marketing manager to help you set up the various parameters so you can view all you need to from your dashboard and watch potential customers turn into paying customers that are loyal and love your business and brand!