It’s a fact. Today, every business needs a strong social media presence. No matter whether you run a small local shop or a multinational company, social media should be an essential part of your marketing strategy.
Not only a social media platform helps you connect with your target audience, increase awareness about your brand, but it also boosts your leads and sales to a great extent.
Since around 2.96 billion people use social media platforms worldwide, it’s no passing trend. According to Statista.com, by 2021, this number is going to reach 3.09 billion. So, if you’re not using this fantastic tool yet, you’re surely missing out on an incredible marketing opportunity.
Undoubtedly, social media is one of the ideal platforms to market your business. However, due to increased competition and the rise of social media algorithms, the entire landscape of social media has changed. If you really want to stay ahead of your competition, you need to look for unique social media marketing ideas that can spice up your social media campaigns.
In this post, we will make you familiar with some creative social media marketing ideas. However, before that, let’s have a quick look at some social media statistics that is important for you to know.
- 95% of adults (aged between18 to 34) are most likely to follow a brand through social networking. (Source: MarketingSherpa)
- Around 63% of customers expect businesses to offer customer support via social media channels. (Source: Smart Insights)
- 42% of the world’s population has an account on one or more social media platforms. (Source: Statista)
Tips to boost your social media marketing strategy
1. Layout your goals
Having a solid marketing goal is essential for every business. However, if you don’t know what you want to achieve, how are you supposed to attain it?
Before you jumpstart your social media marketing, make clear goals and objectives that will align with your marketing efforts. It is advisable to write down your goal. A study reveals you’re more likely to be successful if you write your goals.
To layout your goals, you can:
- Use number (such as reach 10,000 Facebook followers)
- Set a deadline
- Make your goals Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Based (SMART)
2. Learn about your audience
To create a successful social media strategy, you must have adequate knowledge of your audience. You should be able to know their needs, wants, and desires. Below are a few tactics that can help you better understand your audience.
- Survey your audience to know their pain points better
- Take a look at their demographics
- Participate in conversations on forums used by your target audience
- Respond to comments on your social media channels.
- Get feedback
When you exactly know who your target audience is, you can better help them.
3. Produce diversified content for different social media platforms
For most businesses, it is easy to post pictures to Instagram and short tweets to Twitter. However, on most social media platforms, you can display different kinds of content, including video, photos, infographics, blog posts, and more. It is essential because if you keep producing the same content time and again, it may bore your audience, and that can keep you from reaching your goals. By providing diversified content, you also determine the best content types for your target audience.
4. Don’t ignore video content
Video marketing is one of those social media marketing trends that has been continuously growing. In 2018, 85% of all internet users in the United States watched online video content monthly on different devices. It shows that video is an excellent medium to promote your business.
There is no doubt about it that millions of hours of video content watched every year on different social media platforms. However, your videos must be watched by the right people. After all, there is no use in a video going viral if viewers do not belong to your market.
Try to target the right people so that they can take the actions you want them to take after watching your videos. For the same, you must define your target audience before planning your marketing strategies. Some of the tools you can use to identify your audience include Google Analytics – Audience Tab, Keyword Planner, Facebook Business Page Insights.
Narrow down your audience based on their gender, interests, age, occupation, knowledge level, or location. Also, create a quality video with tools like Magisto that precisely explains your product or services and answers most of the queries of your audience and prospects.
Don’t forget, high production values, smart use of keywords, and timing of your videos matter a lot in the success of your video marketing. Also, track your results from time to time and customize your tactics based on those results.
5. Try sharing user-generated content from your fans and followers
When you share user-generated content on your social media profiles, it gives your followers a fresh perspective on your brand and helps you build stronger relationships.
Even a survey reveals that people trust content from an average person more than they do from businesses.
You may ask your buyers to share their experiences with your products and services so that you can use that content on your social media profiles.
For example, if you run a furniture store, you can ask your buyers to share the picture of how they position your furniture at their homes. After that, you can share those pictures within your social profiles with the profile link of the buyers to give other prospects an idea about how they can use your products. It will surely boost the interest of other potential buyers in your brand.
6. Give education
No matter what your goals are, you must provide education about your products or services to your customers. Providing education is one of the best ways to build relationships with your target audience. When you give your audience practical advice or valuable information, they look to you as an authority and become your loyal customers. Social media is a great platform where you can educate your followers about your business without any hindrance. As per your convenience, you may provide educational resources such as blog posts, white papers, webinars, and more.
7. Less promotion and more storytelling
When you take an educational approach, you do more teaching than selling. Storytelling is also educational in nature. Nevertheless, the power of storytelling lies not in teaching people things they weren’t aware of, but in showcasing relevant characters and situations evoking emotional responses. These responses stimulate action more effectively than the content involves self-promotion on social media.
8. Try influencer marketing
Influencer marketing is an ideal way to promote your products via social media platforms. When you collaborate with an influential person not only it boosts brand awareness but also builds trust. Perhaps this is the reason, around 2/3 of retailers in North America use some form of influencer marketing.
Always choose a social media influencers whose vision matches with your own. Below are a few tips for selecting the perfect influencer for your brand.
- Examine the engagement metrics and other insights of your potential influencer
- Take out some time to invest in social listening so that you can find an influencer who is relevant to your business
- Take a look at their skills. Since influencer marketing is more than just likes, communication, and engagement, an influencer must have some technical knowledge. It will be a bonus if your potential influencer is skilled in graphic design, crisis management, and other practical experience.
9. Make use of VPN (Virtual Private Network)
If you think VPN is a tool to hide your IP address only, you’re mistaken. VPN is not just a security tool that ensures your privacy on a public network; it’s much more than that.
Most new businesses are not aware that a VPN can help them understand their competition. From launching marketing campaigns to monitoring PPC adverts to evaluating search engine rankings, there are plenty of places where VPN is helpful.
Since in this post, we’re discussing social media platforms, let’s find out how can VPN help you with YouTube advertising.
It wouldn’t be wrong to say that YouTube is the most popular video platform of the time. According to Alexa, YouTube is the 2nd most popular search engine worldwide, behind Google. There are numerous benefits to advertising on YouTube. One of the most significant advantages is that it provides a broader reach to your business.
If you have an audience in different regions, states, or countries, you will need to know what works best in that particular region. Well, VPN can help you with this situation. Using a VPN, you can get your location to the region or area your target audience is. Thus you learn about your audience – their issues and needs. Based on that information, you can understand your customer’s persona, what they are looking for, and create marketing strategies accordingly.
Nowadays, several VPN providers available in the market, but not all are equals in terms of quality and customer support. It is advisable to look for the best VPN only. Read reviews of different providers before making your final decision.
10. Take advantage of the enthusiasm of loyal customers
Your loyal customers have the potential to become brand advocates. They can boost awareness of your brand by providing social proof that helps prospects to build trust in your business much more quickly.
Social media is a great tool to motivate your loyal customers to become brand advocates. Below are a few tips that you can put into practice.
- Ask your followers for reviews on social networks such as Facebook and Google
- Take interview of your satisfied customers and share their stories on Facebook and Instagram
- Support the submission of positive user-generated content and use them in your different social media campaigns.
- Hold contests and give discounts. It would motivate people to spread the word about your business on different social media platforms.
11. Increase humanization
We all respond strongly to people in comparison to robots. By humanizing your brand on social media platforms, you can boost your marketing strategy. Perhaps, you interact with your followers by responding to your comments and user-generated content. However, it is not enough. To stay ahead of your competition, you must highlight your team members and their stories, and connect each of your social media marketing efforts back to your unique brand story.
Try to infuse humor in your posts. However, it does not mean you can go with anything. Keep a balance of fun and information.
12. Use of chatbots for social media marketing
Over the years, chatbots have come a long way. Today’s bots are more smart and useful. They are capable of providing initial customer service, automating a function, and boosting user experience.
Even people have started liking bots. A survey conducted by HubSpot concluded that 47% of respondents were open to buying products using a chatbot. It would not be wrong to say that chatbots have become more widespread on social media.
You can synchronize your chatbot with multiple platforms. For example, you can offer a chatbot on your Facebook Messenger, and it can also be used through Twitter direct messages. It will ensure a consistent experience across your social media profiles.
Chatbots can be used to start conversations, encourage sales, answer questions, and offer individual customer support.
Final thoughts
Social media has turned into an essential part of the marketing strategy for any business. And why not? It is a great way to reach a wide audience, demonstrate your expertise, show your authenticity, encourage engagement, and offer responsive and quick support.
Although social media marketing takes a lot of hard work, its benefits are difficult to ignore. If you’re not taking it seriously, you will miss out on leads, customers, and ultimately sales.
Don’t forget, social media platforms are created for conversing with others. You won’t see the desired results until you don’t make your audience a top priority. Moreover, each social media platform is different, so you must know what kind of content works best on them. We hope the methods mentioned above will help you take your social media marketing to the next level.
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by Roman Daneghyan
source: Search Engine Watch
