6 Social Media Best Practices for Shooting Ranges

It’s common knowledge that social media can do wonders for local businesses’ promotional efforts. But that’s only true if you use it effectively, keeping in mind your target demographic, your ultimate goals, and the most recent developments in the social media landscape. You need a solid social media marketing strategy to reap the full benefits of social media marketing for your gun range.

Let’s review 6 best practices to improve your social media marketing efforts.

1. Don’t Over Promote

The way customers think and what they like has changed. And it’s important to change with them. Do you know what doesn’t work well with them? Too much promotion.

Instead of being pushy with your advertising, try storytelling instead. The point of a story isn’t always to teach people something they didn’t know before. Instead, it is often about making characters and situations that people can relate to.

Since most decisions are based on how we feel, stories that trigger potent emotions get people to act more than constant self-promotion.

2. Educate Your Audience

No matter your social media objectives for your shooting range, focusing on education is always an excellent strategy. People will view you as an authority if you are a reliable source of useful information and/or actionable advice, which could lead to repeat business.

Examples of material you could cover with your audience are range safety procedures and proper gun handling. But you can get creative and educate them on many range-related topics.

You can either use your social media accounts to provide direct educational content for your followers or those channels to drive traffic to external educational content on your blog.

3. Diversify Your Content

Getting caught up in the Instagram and Facebook photo-sharing culture is easy. However, you can share more than just photos and status updates on the most popular social media sites; you can also publish blog posts, gifs, and videos.

Constantly creating the same content may get boring for your audience. You should also consider that not all content will be well received by your target demographic.

So, to spice things up a bit, try your hand at making and sharing some new kinds of content on your social media accounts. You will gain invaluable insight into your audience’s wants and needs, and strengthen your ability to maintain their interest.

4. Make The Most of Your Loyal Customers

If you can keep your loyal customers happy, they will eventually become “brand advocates,” or people who actively promote your range to others. As a bonus to raising your company’s profile, they also serve as persuasive examples of satisfied customers, which can help you gain the trust of other prospects faster.

Social media brand advocates can do amazing things for your range business. However, you are the one who must provide the inspiration. For that, try:

• Asking for reviews
• Encouraging user-generated content
• Interviewing with happy customers and publishing their testimonies

Your most devoted clients will be your social media marketing team, coming up with engaging material and promoting your brand for you.

5. Make it Human

People have always met irrelevant and insincere advertising with disdain. During the pandemic, that was an even bigger turnoff. In marketing, human interactions are more crucial than ever.

It is essential to interact with your audience through comments, tailor the content you provide to their interests, and promote user-generated content. Reviews are valuable, and you should incorporate them into your range’s marketing strategy.

And don’t forget to connect your social media marketing efforts to your brand’s origin story, mission, and vision.

6. Use Exclusivity to Your Advantage

People are more worried about keeping their data private, so social media is moving toward more private interactions. You can take advantage of this change in behavior by setting up more personal ways to connect with your audience.

This could mean starting private Facebook or LinkedIn groups or using direct messages to build relationships. This might make your current followers feel more comfortable interacting with you and encourage others to do the same, so they don’t miss out.

Use SMS marketing to get customers to leave reviews on your social media profile.

In today’s mobile-first society, it’s a no-brainer to use text messages to communicate with customers. While initially businesses used SMS text technology in mass marketing campaigns, it has since proven useful for collecting customer feedback and creating unique experiences.In order to get feedback from satisfied customers, you can use the Otter SMS tools to contact them after they’ve visited your range. That you took the time to write them a thoughtful message rather than just pointing them to the app in the store really makes an impression.