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Today, offline businesses have more competition than ever.  Besides competing with other offline businesses, they have to also compete with online businesses. Today, traditional marketing methods are no longer effective as earlier. Social networking has changed the way businesses interact with the customers and social media marketing has become a necessity for every business - Offline and Online. Before you jump on the idea of attracting customers on social media platform, here are few things you need to remember. 

Register your online presence

 The social media is a happening place and your customers are already there talking about your business, your competitors businesses and their experience. The interaction is already happening; the only thing is you are not present. The first thing you need to do is establish you online presence. Interacting on social media platform increases your brands visibility.

Find followers and friends

Once you have established your online presence, the next thing you need to do is posting some useful content that is related to your business. If you are a local business owner, it is necessary to develop a social media strategy based on location and keywords of your business niche.  You can start looking for followers based on the keywords in their bio or users residing in a specific location.

Twitter for business is a great tool to find followers and friends. You can join industry related conversations with help from social media influencers. You can collaborate with other business in online promotional activities and share content between Twitter accounts.  Offline businesses also have an option to run Followers campaign where an ads solution is used with precise targeting to get more followers. No matter what social media platform you use to promote your online business, here are few things you should always remember

• Post great content
• Make the content shareable
• Write a professional bio
• Use hashtags
• Stay active
• Engage with others
• Reach out to influencers

Engage before you sell

 Bombarding your followers with sales and promotional messages will take you nowhere. Always remember, you need to always follow engage first, sell later policy.  You may find this policy counterproductive but the social media engagement success can be built on this strategy.  One thing you should never forget that the followers have chosen to connect with your brand because they are looking for relevant and free information that you can provide. By providing the content they want to see, you will notice the sales will naturally follow.

Local marketing

One thing that is useful for offline business is location based marketing. There are several social media apps that send customer push notifications when they are near stores.  These notifications are based on their previous purchases or preferences they have mentioned on social media platforms. Local marketing gears up the local business to offer a seamless and personalized experience based on interaction and information based on social media profiles.

In-store coupon codes

Everyone likes to save money. In-store coupon codes are attractive for customers and they still give good results.  These coupons work great to establish loyalty and continuity purchases.  The improvement in technology have provided with better targeting technology, new deployment options, and new response mechanisms.  There are several reputed sites like www.frugaa.com that are popular with shoppers.   You can find hundreds of retailers offering enticing discount coupons that customers cannot ignore.

Offline businesses need to think social media platforms not just as marketing platforms but as extension of their store.  The interaction on the social media platform should provide same level of customer service that they get in a face-to-face environment.  Offline businesses should respond to all comments, requests and handle complaints promptly so that customers look towards your business as a friend and not just as a brand who is only interested in selling.