If you haven’t started using social media for marketing yet, then it’s time to get on board.
Social media marketing is all about meeting your target audience and customers where they are and as they socially interact with each other and your brand.
1 | Identify why.
There are a variety of reasons why your company should use social media marketing.
We’ve created a list of the four most beneficial reasons to consider.
- Increased Exposure & Brand Awareness
In 2018, there were over 3.2 billion people on social media globally. Due to the sheer amount of people on social media, you can see why ensuring your business is sharing content related to your products as well as details about your company via a platform or two has the potential to help you improve brand awareness.
In fact, social media has been proven to boost brand awareness by driving up engagement. Social engagement includes things like comments, likes, shares, and re-posts. Social media also helps you increase brand awareness by directing traffic straight to your site. You can do this by including direct links to your website in your profile, bio, and posts.
- Generate Leads and Boost Conversions
Promoting and sharing your products on social media is a simple way to improve lead generation, boost conversions, and increase sales because you’re advertising to people who have opted to engage with you by following your account.
Here are some examples of ways you can use social media to generate more leads:
• Create contests for your visitors and followers to participate in on your social media profiles.
• Include links to your website and offers in the bio sections of your profiles.
• Host live videos to make announcements about products and provide updates or details about exciting news at your company.
• Implement a social media marketing campaign on one of your channels.
• Sell your products through your social profiles. For example, you can enable Facebook’s Shop Section or Instagram's Shopping feature on your profiles. These features allow your visitors and followers to click on products you’ve shared in posts to view information such as price, material, and size. Then, visitors can easily proceed to checkout through the platform and buy the product directly from you.
- Foster Relationships with Customers
By connecting and engaging with your social media followers, you’ll be able to build lasting relationships between them and your business. You can do this by interacting with them on your posts, responding to their questions and comments, and providing them with any help they may need.
You can also ask your followers questions about your products, their pain points, or create giveaways to help you build trust and show them how much you value their input and support.
- Learn from Competitors
Social media is a great way to keep tabs on your competitors — whether that’s in reference to their social media tactics, the products they’re promoting, the campaigns they’re implementing, or their level of interaction with followers.
Social media allows you to get a look at what is and isn’t working for your competition, and therefore helps you decide what should or shouldn’t change in terms of your company’s approach. Lastly, reviewing the social accounts of your competitors can help you make sure your marketing stands out and is unique to your brand.
2| There are so many social media platforms to choose from, but how do you know which one is relevant for your business audience?
While social media marketing as a whole is incredibly valuable and beneficial to your business growth, your strategy will differ based on which social networks your audience spends their time on.
Facebook
• Users: 1.79 billion daily active users worldwide
• Audience: Generation X and millennials
• Industry impact: B2C
• Best for: Brand awareness; advertising
Twitter
• Users: 186 million daily active users worldwide
• Audience: Primarily millennials
• Industry impact: B2B and B2C
• Best for: Public relations; customer service
Instagram
• Users: 1 billion monthly active users
• Audience: Primarily millennials
• Industry impact: B2C
• Best for: Natural-looking media, behind-the-scenes, and user-generated content; advertising
LinkedIn
• Users: 675 million monthly active users worldwide
• Audience: Baby boomers, Generation X, and millennials
• Industry impact: B2B
• Best for: B2B relationships, business development, and employment marketing
YouTube
• Users: Over 2 billion logged-in monthly users worldwide
• Audience: Millennials, closely followed by Generation Z
• Industry impact: B2C
• Best for: Brand awareness; entertainment, and how-to videos
Snapchat
• Users: 249 million daily active users worldwide
• Audience: Primarily Generation Z
• Industry impact: B2C
• Best for: Brand awareness; advertising
3| What next: Create Your Brand Story
What you say about your brand and how you are saying it can have a huge impact on how people feel about your brand. Effective storytelling is crucial to the success of your brands marketing.
Stories always help to develop an emotional connection between your brand and your target audience.
Apart from what and how you say it, the medium through which your brand is communicating your story is also important. Social media is a highly effective platform to share your brand’s stories and to connect with people.
4| Use Paid Ads
Instagram is one of the most widely used social platforms for social selling, now with more than 675 million active users on the platform. With a huge and diverse online community, Instagram has become a powerful social media platform.
The engagement rate on Instagram is higher than on Twitter or Facebook. Many top brands have witnessed a per-follower Engagement rate of 4.21%. So, if your brand is not using Instagram ads, you are losing out on connecting with many potential buyers.
But it’s not too late to start with Instagram ads. Make sure your ads are visually appealing and targeted at the right audience to ensure success.
5| Use Relevant Hashtags!
Hashtags are a great way to improve brand visibility. But to find the right hashtags to use, you need to do some research to find out the most relevant and effective hashtags for your brand.
The hashtags should also be relevant to your targeted audience. The more specific the hashtag is, the more relevant your audience will be. This will lead to better visibility and higher engagement rates.
Always try to use variations of hashtags and include a generic hashtag along with a unique and specific hashtag. Once you figure out what is working for you, stick to it. And use the same amalgamation of hashtags on all social media platforms. It will be easier to identify your key supporters and to track your mentions with the help of these hashtags.
6| Get Your Timing Right
The secret behind a successful social media post is to share the right post at the right time. No matter how strong your marketing campaign is, timing is a crucial factor. You might not get the desired results if you don’t publish your posts at the right times.
For a marketer, it can be really challenging to handle multiple social media platforms. So, it’s important to schedule posts for your social media platforms to make this task easier. Even if you are unavailable, the scheduler will make sure to post the content at the right time when your target audience is most active.
7| CONTENT! CONTENT! CONTENT!
Finally, content.
There’s nothing worse than poor quality content. I’d go as far to say that you may as well not bother, you’re just adding to the noise.
If it isn’t engaging and doesn’t add value, forget it. In a world full of content, you need to stand out or you’re going to fall through the cracks.
Check out what competitors are creating. How are they posting content? Look at people who are leading the industry and local competition. Find where the gaps are then begin building your content on the back of that. A bit of fun and authenticity really goes a long way.
Customers are getting pickier and are rejecting the use of stock images. But how do you create new and innovative images on your own when you are not a designer? For a start-up or a small business, it may not be viable to hire a designer. But there are tools such as Canva, Over, Venngage, Adobe Spark & many more that can help you address this problem.
So, make your own infographic, image, or template and see how social-friendly images can help you grab more audience’s eye!
If you need some advice and support in creating your social media strategy, why not get in touch and let our friendly social team help direct your efforts.