Social media is one of the great tools for online marketing, and that is why many brands spend money on social media campaigns. It is hard to gauge the potential that this channel has when it comes to the online sector. One thing that we can only say that it is hard to make it online without social media. Everyone nowadays is hooked up to social media (the young and the old) because it offers many openings to meet friends and make money online.
For nearly a decade now, marketers have used social media to reach their target users. It doesn’t have that hype it once had. It only means that everyone has made it part of their personal and business lives. It also gives plenty of ways to make money.
This guide about social media will explore the basics of social media platforms and how to make good use of it. Among the things that we are going to discuss in this guide include what it entails and what you should focus on when using it. We are also going to look at the steps you need to follow when creating your social media strategy. Ready to make your social media campaign thrive? Read this guide for more insights.
Like we said before, social media is more than a channel to meet make friends. It is also used to reach out to potential buyers.
Most of the social networks came to being about 15 years ago. This means that the aspect is not that old. It started trending about ten years ago.
The first social media network, which is LinkedIn, was launched in 2003. Facebook was the second to launch in 2004, followed by Twitter in 2006. In 2010, two other networks were launched – Pinterest and Instagram. The last one to launch was Snapchat, which came in the scene in 2011. These six social media networks have changed in a bid way how marketers engage with their users.
What is Social Media Marketing?
We can’t pinpoint what social media marketing is since it a broad online concept. We could sum it up as the act of promoting various products and services on social media platforms. To make it in social media marketing, you need in-depth analytics coupled with creative thinking.
As a marketer, you need to create great content and then share it on platforms. This will make your campaign reach many people and perform well. For a social media post to qualify, it needs to have the following:
- Text updates
- Eye-catching images
- Social infographics
- Informative videos
You can also include any other content that helps to engage with your users. For a larger plan, you can include witty tweets or clapping images on Instagram. Social media platforms have today realized their impact on the online world. Almost all of them have paid ad options. This allows you to easily reach your business goals. Social media also needs a budget that can be sustained to get you ROI. Marketers also need to test content on many platforms to find out what works and what doesn’t. Social platforms also play major roles in making this concept work. You need to know how most websites and apps work.
Each social network is unique in its ways and will stand out in different ways. You need to know which one will help you achieve your business goals. If you are aiming to network, LinkedIn is the best option. Twitter, on the other hand, is meant for quick updates, while Instagram will work better in reaching out to the millennials. The platform where most of your target users spend most of their time is a great place to start. Later, you can look for other platforms that relate to the kind of products you’re selling. The best strategy is the one that targets the right users, at the right time, and with the right social platform.
Also, you can read How to Increase Your LinkedIn Engagement by 386%
Benefits of Social Media Marketing
It’s wrong to imply that a social media marketing strategy is just a side project. It plays a huge role in giving your products a buzz, like when you are launching a new product. We are now going to look at the benefits you stand to gain from proper social media marketing.
Enhances brand awareness
In any business, you need effective ways to lure in your prospects. When you use social media to market, you make it easier for your target users to find you. Creative social media promotion methods, coupled with quality content, present a great way to thrive on new grounds and even turn your users into loyal customers. What makes social media the best option when it comes to online marketing is low ad rates. If you have just started a new online venture and you lack proper resources, this concept will help you reach out with little or no cost. Most of the social media channels don’t charge any fee to create an account. It will only cost you and your team a bit of time and creativity to build an audience.
Boosts inbound traffic
Site traffic allows you to get leads and conversions. When you add social media profiles to your plan, you stand a higher chance of wooing clients to your website. Besides that, you can easily win over new clients with every piece of content that you add in your social media profile. Various entry points into your website are created by these posts. Prospects will get into your site, and this also helps to boost your site rank. Since you didn’t trick them into your site, they will enjoy what you are giving.
Social Media Objectives
Goals are all about what you want to achieve, so let’s talk about that. Social media strategies are made to suit certain unique needs of the company. When putting up a strategy, these goals have to be put in mind. This section will address the many ways you can use to achieve these goals.
Brand awareness
The most common goal of this concept is to boost brand awareness. What makes social platforms great is how each platform has a unique way to bring new users to your brand.
Each retweet is an entry in a contest on Twitter or a promo for LinkedIn. Your users will be much willing to share the brand’s content with their networks when the price is worth it. You won’t believe your eyes once have new Twitter followers in a few days. That’s the power of social media. Your company’s identity comes from your brand. The best way to build your brand is by using your office, culture, and workers. For example, you can use your latest charity YouTube video, or employee Instagram takeover to humanize your brand.
See More:- How to Use Instagram Ads As Well As Their Cost
Community building
Apart from using social media to gain more users, you can also use it to build an online community. The community includes your brand and its social profile, your customers, prospects, employees, and more. When you engage with your users, you encourage them to build the community of users. Establish that mutual bond with your users. Don’t just tweet at people; post something that will make them curious, trigger emotions, or even respond. The list your content can do is make your users retweet or like your content.
One way to make your community engage with another is by using hashtags. Twitter isn’t the only platform that uses hashtags anymore; others are using them too. You can do this by brand-specific hashtags in your topic. This will make users keep up with what you are talking about.
Drive traffic to your website
Another way of using social media strategies is by driving site traffic back to your site. You have to build a big social following to fully benefit from this. If anyone wants to make a purchase, he or she will be sent to your website, which is the source.
It is any marketer’s wish that followers become loyal visitors and then clients. That isn’t as easy as it sounds, but it can still happen when you put extra effort into your social media campaign. This needs quality content that the user love.
Users are always looking for useful content that will help them solve their problems. And if your content can do this, they will have no choice but to go after it.
Builds the relationships between you and your users
Thanks to social media platforms, customer service has changed for the better. Apart from helping to develop forums, they have also help to keep relationships between brands and users dependable. It has helped turn loyal consumers into brand advocates. This makes things easy as they will also help you to spread the word about your brand. The way you realize social listening greatly affects the way your users passive your brand. You don’t post ten times to get rid of a negative comment. What you do is respond to the complaint fast. This shows that you are not just in to make money but also solve problems. The way you handle your clients will either destroy or build your reputation. You can also check our article on What is Social Monitoring and Why Are More Brands Using It?
Research
A Social media strategy also allows you to research on product development, employee concerns, and more. You will win your clients’ hearts when you engage with them regularly. This helps you understand what problems they are facing, the kind of solutions they are looking for, and their thoughts about your brand. This also gives you a chance to know if your competitors are doing a better job than you or not. Social media is the only place where you can see how your competitors interact with their users.
After coming up with your brand’s objective, what follows is planning your social media goals. The next section in this article will explain steps you need to follow in coming up with the right social media strategy if you want to explore farther about social media strategies, head over to Contentmart, which has a great resource on seven steps to social media success.
Social Media Marketing Strategy
Having an effective strategy isn’t as easy as it sounds. It doesn’t matter if it’s an account-based marketing strategy or revamping your events program. You should always remember to look at specific aspects of each technique. The same goes for social media strategy. If you think you can nail it with a few social media profiles, you are dead wrong!
Any marketing technique that is bound to work requires a good strategy. A social media marketing strategy is a crucial document that gives your entire marketing team guidelines to follow to ensure that you achieve your marketing goals. This section is all about building a social media strategy that is bound to give you the desired results. We are going to tackle your objectives, the competitive landscape, and the target users. These are the three crucial elements to consider when building a strategy.
Social media marketing objectives
We will start with the goals that we looked at before. Before getting down to business, you first needed to identify your key objectives. If you forgot, we talked about the five common objectives, which are – brand awareness, community building, increased traffic, enhanced relationships, and research. All of these objectives are vital. You all don’t need to focus on all of them at once. If you do, you won’t get positive results that you intend. For desired results, you need to focus on the goals of your entire company. After that, pick two or three goals that closely relate to these goals. The leading team will find your results great if you focus on the entire firm and not just one area.
Know first who your target users are
If you know who your target users are, you will have a good start. If you’ve not yet found out who your target users are, then you need to so before jumping into anything else. Once you know whom your products may interest, tags, the next step is to know which social media platform it spends most of its time on. Research on the demographics of the platform you are looking for.
Once you are done, compare the results with the target users. Is your target users much inclined to Facebook or is it Instagram. Instagram mostly appeal to the millennials and is perfect for LGBT marketing. You will also find our resource on How to Repost a Video on Instagram useful it comes up with a social media marketing strategy. You will establish where to put most of your budget and energy into, once you know where to find your users.
Research on the platform that competitor uses and how often
You all need to understand that social media is public and is forever. If you want social media to work for you while marketing your products.Their social media profile is public, and that is good news for you. This means that you can keep tabs with what social media strategy they are using.
You can also find out what social media platforms they are using or not using. You can go further and view what kind of content they are using in their campaigns. They say ‘put your friends close and your enemies closer,’ and the same applies to a social media plan. Check how they interact with their users how many followers they have the platform they are using.
You must document all the aspects of your competing landscape to help you maneuver with confidence. You will also discover which platform they are not using so you can capitalize on this to reach your new users. The game plan of any social media strategy is to know your users, brand, and competition. We are moving to a section for creating an action-based and result-based marketing plan from your findings.
Social Media Marketing Plan
In our guide to marketing, we said that experts believe that their marketing strategy and marketing plan can interchange with each other. This also applies to social media marketing. They are complementary to each other.
When you look at your social media strategy, you will realize that it caters to the entire marketing of your brand. Social media plan, on the other hand, refers to the tactical approach from the strategy.
Several sub-areas make up your tactical social media marketing plan. They include planning and publishing, community management, and analysis, and tracking. What makes the foundation is a regular social media editorial plan, which keeps you going. It will start with an Excel, Google Spreadsheet, or Trello. Later on, it becomes easier to handle with pro-social media tools. A marketing plan is the “what” and “how” of what you are going to do to achieve your marketing goal.
This section covers most of the aspects of your social media plan and what each aspect is all about.
Part 1: Social media audit
The first thing that you need to look at in your social media marketing plan is what the company is currently using to market itself. This needs an audit of the social media marketing plan. This may look easy, but it’s quite hard when you are dealing with a company that has been in business for more than six years. When you are deciding on the approach that you want to take in your social media marketing, doing an audit is very vital. Since I have been there and done it, I know what it entails. I will stress again that social media audits are vital in any company that wants to achieve its goals. You must look at the kind of social media platform that you are working with, and is it the one that most of your target users are on? How is it fairing compared to the one that your competitors are using?
Go to a platform that offers you value for your time and money. We will start by focusing on these few issues. You don’t need to worry if your brand if you haven’t built a social media presence yet. It is also good to start somewhere even if that place is nowhere. It is good to research on several platforms and their demographics. The worst thing to do is going for all the platforms without knowing if they are going to help you meet your goals. This will not only waste your time, but you may also not achieve your goals. The better thing to do is try focusing on one or two great networks. Once you’ve got them, go ahead and devote your time and energy to them, and you will achieve your goals without straining. Once results start trickling in, you can look for another network or keep the ones you have.
Part 2: Social Media Goals
The second part of your plan will deal with a list of goals that you want to meet using your marketing plan. Just like any business goal, they should be SMART – Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Results-focused, and Time-bound. What you need to do is check your objectives that we discussed earlier and look for two or three goals on each objective that will produce desired results. The goal should be:
- Specific – this points out to a particular social media network that you want to use
- Measurable – the goal should also help you know the number of visitors that you have right now and how many you want to have in a certain period
- Achievable – don’t have a goal that is not realistic
- Results-focused – it should have a specific goal that you want to meet
- Time-bound – you should also know how long it will take to achieve your goal
This is also where you need to decide which social media platforms are right for your business objectives.
Part 3: Tactics
Objectives came first, which turned to goals. We now move to the tact section to be more specific. A vital aspect of your marketing plan is the tactics that you plan to use. They will help you meet your goals with ease. Goals are meant to show us what we intend to achieve. This section is all about telling everyone how you intend to meet your marketing goals. What you need to do is take a look at each goal to decide on which tact you are going to use. If you are trying to in increasing site traffic into your LinkedIn network.
The best tactic would be making and sharing blogs per week to educate the user via LinkedIn. Visitors will have no choice but to visit your site for the same helpful content since they find it helpful. This boosts your site traffic in a big way. You need to have three-five tactics, based on the goal that you plan to achieve. We have provided you with a template that will help you get started with your business plan. You can use it yourself or share it with anyone that you want.
Click here to download the FREE Social Media Marketing Plan Template!
Social Media Calendar
A social media calendar comes in handy when you want to organize the content that you want on your social platform. A social media calendar refers to an application, spreadsheet, or software that is used to schedule posts. Besides posts, it is also used to organize your photos and other types of content. This helps to meet headlines when dealing with projects.
The way your business posts on social media is influenced by the way you implement your calendar. Since marketing is hectic, sometimes, marketers can forget things sometimes. That why you need a calendar sometimes to help you schedule posts so that they reach your users in good time. Check out these two free social media calendar templates that you can use to schedule your posts! We also have plenty of social media tools that will also help you track your posts.
See the Easiest-to-Use Social Media Management Software →
Examples Of Social Media Marketing Campaigns
Numerous unique social media campaigns are released every year. These campaigns are created to stir up the hype for new products in many companies. It can be as simple as a Snapchat filter, or as crazy as the $115 million-raising ALS ice bucket challenge.
Let’s look at some of the best social media campaigns that we have had in the past few years.
Social Media Example #1 – Taco Bell Cinco De Mayo Snapchat Filter
Who can forget the social media campaign released by Taco Bell on May 5, 2017? The funny thing is that it did not involve their food items at all. It was a unique Snapchat filter that celebrated the companies is customers and tacos. The user’s face was turned into a taco using a computer vision that recognized the user’s face.
The campaign was so unique that it shattered the previously held record by Super Bowl Campaign filter, which had more than 165 million views. Although Taco Bell’s Cinco De Mayo celebration filter was only put up for one day, it had a whopping 224+ million views. Taco Bell is a company in the US known for its cheap, tasty, and creative food that has captured the hearts of the millennials. Taco Bell paid less than one cent per view, with 224 million views in one day.
Social Media Example #2 – Dove – Real Beauty Sketches
“If you’re looking for a tear-jerker, you’ve come to the right place. I’d reckon you’ve seen this video before, considering.” This was another campaign that made a buzz and was one of the biggest viral video campaigns on Facebook ever.
The campaign was meant to encourage people to embrace self-love and natural beauty. They did this by employing a forensics artist who drew two portraits of various women. The artist had never seen those women before. The first portrait was painted based on how the women described themselves. The second portrait was painted based on how a stronger described the same women to the same artist. The results were intriguing since the two sets of paintings turned out quite different. The campaign was the third most shared viral video ever, with 114 million views.
Social Media Example #3 – ALS Ice Bucket Challenge
It is hard to forget the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge that trended on the Facebook feed for eight weeks in 2014. This campaign was meant to create awareness of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). Social media users were given a choice of pouring a bucket full of ice on their heads or donate to money to the ALS Association. If they went for the bucket filled with ice, they needed to film the event and later nominate one of the family members or friends to do the same.
They stipulated that if the nominated persons fail to complete the challenge within 24 hours, they will have to donate to the ALS association.
The campaign was highly criticized, but at the end of the day, it surpassed its projected budget three times. In eight weeks, the initiative raised $115 million for the ALS Association even though most of the people opt for the bucket of ice on their heads instead of donating.
Some of the people of participated in this campaign were celebrities, and you will find their videos compiled here. The best of them all, in my opinion, was from Bill Gates.
As you have seen, the campaigns dealt with only one platform. Next, we are going to discuss what you need to consider when choosing the best platform for your social media marketing platform.
Picking Your Social Media Marketing Platform
We have mentioned several times that the key to having a successful social media marketing strategy is to pick a platform that supports your needs. Not all marketing teams have the same needs or expectations. The same goes for social media platforms. They all appeal to different users and, therefore, offer different opportunities to marketers.
In this section, we will be looking at each of these platforms in detail plus how marketers use them. We are also looking at some of the best practices in each platform. Before we proceed to that, let’s give you pointers on how to brand your social media profile in any platform that you intend to use. We will also touch on the best practices while using these platforms.
Branding your social profile
Your social media profile should represent your website in the social media world. Always ensure that you keep your key message as you are tweeting or posting your status updates. You can do this by using your logo as your image on every platform. Don’t give your users reasons to doubt whether they are on the right page. Make it obvious and have a social media “name.” It can be a Facebook page name or a Twitter handle. The name should be the same as your company’s name or almost similar. In most cases, you will find that those who don’t have the same name as their companies are because the name was taken already. You can add a word or two to describe what you are dealing with. Your bio should also be updated. Although it needs to be brief, it should have enough info about your business.
Make your profiles easy to find since social media all about spreading the word of what you are offering. What you need to do is link your social media accounts to your website homepage. You can also link it to your blog or employee’s social profile. Your target users will easily find you when you put many entry points and avenues to reach your website. After that, you can go ahead and cross-share content on multiple platforms. It is good to post on multiple platforms even though you have a platform that caters to your business needs. You can post your YouTube videos on Facebook or post your tweets on Instagram.
Facebook Marketing
For most of us, Facebook is the first place to easily create our social media profiles. Remember the “Truth is” Facebook statuses and the heavily-edited profile pictures?
Marketers today use Facebook marketing to post updates, target users, and post content-rich ads. There are two main tools in Facebook that most businesses use: Facebook Ads and Facebook pages. Although each has its function, you can combine the two for greater marketing impact.
We will start with Facebook pages, which is quite common with small ventures. I am sure that you come across various Facebook pages if you are not following some of them. Facebook pages are meant for organizations, businesses, public figures, and non-profits.
As you can see from the above image, Starbuck has done a great job with the way they’ve displayed their products on their Facebook page. They have also used the right Facebook cover photo size. When you like a page, it means that you are befriending that brand. This means that you will not mind receiving updates from the page that you have liked. Anybody can like a Facebook page, unlike a Facebook friend request. It is not a must that the creator accepts the fan.
Checkout quick video review on Facebook Ads Strategies
Source: Wes McDowell
One great way of jumpstarting your social media marketing efforts is by setting up a Facebook page. Besides being free to use, it’s also quite easy to use. Most of the brands out there use their Facebook pages to share their content, post updates, engage with clients, or announce new products or features. One great thing about Facebook pages is that it offers a way for consumers to communicate directly with their favorite brands. This also means that these brands can also respond directly to them fast. The downside of Facebook pages is that it makes it hard to build a fanbase. Niche’s users make it even harder. You can start by asking your employees to like the page and sharing it with their other platforms. This will take time, but eventually, it will begin to yield the desired fruits.
Facebook Ads are for businesses willing to pay to get their ads published on Facebook. It can stand on its own or be complementary to a Facebook page. This feature makes it easier for brands to hyper-target ads in specific geographical areas, ages, gender, or education level. You can use this feature to target the users that you believe are going to be interested in your products.
Each ad will have a call-to-action button for users to like your page.
Since these ads have powerful parameters, they are beneficial to any business. Ad rates will depend on the ad that you want to put up and whom you are targeting. If you want, you can set a budget that includes the total amount you intend to spend in your campaign. Their ads information page explains that they will never spend more than you have set aside for your ad budget.
Twitter Marketing
Twitter is the perfect platform if you are looking to send short messages. It gives you a channel to engage in back-and-forth interactions. If you are a professional in your field, you are going to like this platform. Just like a Facebook page creating a Twitter account is free. You can have a Twitter handle no matter who you are. Just upload your profile photo and fill out your bio. Once you are done, you will be ready to post tweets as much as you wish. A stumbling block, like many of the other platforms, is building your following. To fully benefit from this platform, you need to constantly engage and interact with your users.
Twitter is a great platform if you want to network, share information and content, increase brand awareness, manage your reputation, and more. A few best-practices will help you make the best of Twitter.
Checkout quick video review on How to Get More Twitter Traffic
Source:- Neil Patel
One of these ways is starting a Twitter chat. This refers to a discussion that uses a hashtag to address a trending topic. Hashtags also allow followers to interact with one another and not for conversations only. This will help you quickly build your brand. As you continue with your conversation, always use an @mention. Your users will receive notifications and will love the attention that they receive from a brand. The chat feature allows you to engage with your followers and start a relationship. Visibility is increased when you use trending hashtags since they are currently being used often. Once you have logged in to your Twitter account, you will notice a list of trending hashtags left-hand side of your screen. These are hashtags that are trending in your area and the twitter community.
Always take advantage of hashtags even if they are not related to your business model. Popular hashtags are used by anyone, and you can use them too to reach out to your users. An example is this screenshot from WebMD that used #WednesdayWisdom to spread the fun on their Twitter account.
However, when you are doing social media marketing using Twitter, not all trending hashtags are going to help you meet your goals. The best thing is to research on the originality of that particular hashtag before using it. You also need to find out what it used for, especially if it’s ambiguous.
Don’t be like DiGiorno, a frozen pizza company that used the hashtag #WhyIStayed in one of their tweets. They did this without researching the originality of that hashtag. It turned out that the hashtag was created for victims who were in abusive relationships. It was their ignorance that made them look like they took the domestic violence matter lightly.
The damage was already done, even if the company later issued an apology for posting that tweet. As you can see, a simple hashtag can cost you your reputation if you fail to research on its originality.
Great success stories have come from companies that created unique Twitter persona. We have a few companies that have perfected the art of unique Twitter customer care and promos. Some even take it to the next level. An example is Wendy’s, a fast-food giant, which is known for its infamous Twitter trash-talking. Its Twitter tact has proven to work even if it’s quite risky. Its technique has humanized the brand, and customers share hilarious jokes hoping to receive a sassy response directly from Wendy’s.
Its 15 most savage tweets have found their way into the limelight, which was published by this article from BuzzFeed. Trade carefully when you want to go their way of using trash-taking sarcasm as a way of building a persona. If you don’t watch out, it may rub your users in the wrong way, and it may backfire on you. Below is an image that warns brands wishing to use the humorous approach on their Tweets.
What you need to know about Twitter while creating your tweets is that it encourages its users to post short, concise messages to pass your information across. This is one f their best practices, which means that you will have to post more than ten times a day to stay relevant. It’s a good idea to include an image, if possible, to make your appeal visually. It will also boost your tweet’s engagement since tweets that have images are 34 percent more likely to get retweeted compared to those that don’t have images. You don’t need much effort while coming up with a 280-character tweet. For desired results, always test different versions of your tweets to see one work better. Read our resource on the best time to post on Twitter for the best pointers if you want your tweets to work well for you.
Instagram Marketing
Instagram marketing offers brands a great way to display their culture, engage with clients, and even recruit new employees. It also offers an awesome way to showcase their products. Creating an Instagram account is the first step in building an Instagram marketing effort. The app is downloaded from a mobile phone. When signing up, use your business email. You may be tempted to log in with your Facebook account, but this is not a good idea. Just create a personal account and ensure that your brand’s account is linked to a company email.
It is always good to consider creating a dummy email. Something like “[email protected].” You can use this email to reply to social media messages and interactions. Once you are done creating your Instagram account, switch it to an Instagram business profile. Switching to a business account requires you to have a Facebook page. Since Instagram will import data from your Facebook page, you will have work cut out for you. Besides that, having a business profile simplifies content promotions allows customers to easily contact you, and give your users detailed info about your offering.
Checkout quick video review on The Best Way To Do Instagram Marketing
Source:- GaryVee
Smaller brands will also find Instagram perfect when they are trying to promote their items in e-commerce stores. If you are running an e-commerce store and you want to increase your traffic, the best thing to do is to use Instagram. The majority of e-commerce stores leverage Instagram to boost sales on your website. Many brands are benefiting from the Instagram platform right now. The best resource is showing your culture and employees who have their working gear on.
You can also try to rep your culture by posting pics of individual desks and the entire office. The place where you work gives you identity, which also tells a lot about your brand. The creative selves of your employees are represented by their personal space – the desk – at the working place. When you display this to the public, it encourages your employees to be creative in their personal space.
Excitingly showcasing your products is also another way of using Instagram. Glossier is a cosmetic brand that has come a long way by uniquely posting their products on Instagram. Ladies are always mesmerized by their lipstick tubes and foundation bottles. The company uses Instagram filters and product placement to showcase their unique products, which attract their clients who always come back for more.
Instagram is quite engaging when it comes to interacting with your clients. If someone features your product in his or her Instagram post, the best thing is to repost the image to your account, and don’t forget to tag the original poster. Besides being flattered that you shared their image, it will also encourage other followers to post your products on their Instagram account. RXBar is a Chicago-based protein bar company the does well in this. When some of their clients and followers post any of their unique protein bar products, they share these posts with other 260,000+ followers.
Posting motivational quotes is on their Instagram accounts is one-way companies use to lure in their prospects. They can also do this by using images to grab the attention of many followers. HubSpot uses this technique by posting a little #MondayMotivation quotes to its 100,000 followers almost every day, which always works magic.
You can also take advantage of Instagram Stories. These are Snapchat-esque posts, which have won the hearts of consumers and are used by 200+ million individuals every month. They are used to humanize your brand by showing off the daily routine in your company. Apart from that, it also gives you clear insights into the number of people who viewed your image or short video. The power of your Instagram Analytics should never be looked down upon. Checking your every week allows you to know the best time to post on Instagram in any venture that you are running. Since your users are unique to you, know ii and post whenever it’s active on this platform
Overall, Instagram has quite a few tips to help you make your page attractive to your followers. This is because most of its posts revolve around visuals. This means you only have to post pictures that of high quality and relate to your products. You can use the high-quality cameras to take pics and also employ the best picture and video-editing software to ensure that the images are bright enough to be seen clearly.
Although these steps will take some time, you are going to like its outcome. Unless you have the time, you shouldn’t always post on your Instagram account. A post per day will work out just fine. Taking time to edit the images and ensuring that they are of the best quality will reward you eventually.
LinkedIn Marketing
To many, LinkedIn seems like a social media platform for marketing us on a personal level. Which is true. However, you can also use this platform to show off your brand or organization. Just like all the other social media platforms, signing up for a LinkedIn account is pretty easy and free. It is a valuable resource, especially to B2B marketers. You don’t need to struggle with this platform since the majority of the users are there. Your LinkedIn business profile is just like your LinkedIn company page. Therefore it needs to look professional. The page should also offer your users more info about your brand and also give engaging content that your users can share.
Increasing brand awareness and generating leads are some of the goals of LinkedIn marketing. The more followers you have, the easier it is for you to meet these goals. Updates will appear directly in your users’ feed when they follow your company page. More followers give you greater exposure.
The content that you plan to give should relate to the users you are targeting. The best content choice for LinkedIn includes how-to guides, eBooks, and educational blog posts. As you offer these resources, don’t forget to add visuals as they increase appeal. The first impression from visitors is made in just 50 milliseconds in online posts, so you better give it your best shot. To grab their attention, instead of using too much text in your updates, also add multimedia content.
Checkout quick video on The Best LinkedIn Strategy
Source:- GaryVee
You should also have job seekers in mind when you are posting updates since they are the biggest user group on LinkedIn. Those looking for a new opportunity will find your company’s open role attractive. They may not apply, but your unique content will turn them into loyal followers.
LinkedIn offers sponsored content and ad campaigns, just like Facebook. These types of content allow you to target your users with your best work. On the other hand, LinkedIn Ads, include text advertising, sponsored content, sponsored InMail, and more. To reach your network of job seekers and business professionals, try deploying a LinkedIn ad campaign. These features are quite helpful and are vital for your success, but they require a bit of funds.
Pinterest Marketing
Many rely on Pinterest when they need to craft ideas, interior design inspirations, dinner recipes, and more. Marketers can use this platform as their secret weapon, even though it doesn’t have a massive Facebook following. If your users are made up of millennials, then Pinterest will work out just fine for you. The platform has unique functions in that it is not used to keep up with events like Facebook or network like LinkedIn. Most of the people who use this platform search for inspiration, not just in cooking, and crafting, but all walks of life.
You first need to upgrade to a free business account and claim your website before creating a Pinterest for business account. With this simple step, you will be able to unlock ads, Pinterest analytics, and other useful tools for your business. This platform allows you to create virtual boards based on a given topic. Your Pinterest boards can include makeup inspiration if you deal with cosmetics, hair styling tips, skincare products. Each board has a collection of pins that include images, links, or videos.
Once you start pinning, you stand a greater chance of gaining more followers. Always choose pins that are related to your business. Make sure that the pins that you use to engage with your users are niche-related. You can pin interview tips, resume templates, or business casual outfit inspiration if you are recruiting firm. With a Pinterest browser button, you can pin content straight from your website.
Checkout quick video review on How To Use Pinterest For Business
Source:-Alex Tooby
Always try to focus on the visual aspects of your pins when pinning, as this is what your users will see on their feed. Since 80 percent of users access their Pinterest accounts using mobile devices, try using vertical since they will look good on mobile devices. While writing your descriptions, ensure that they are SEO-friendly. Use keywords that fit naturally on a short description. Don’t expect other people to follow your brand while you are not following others. Follow relevant brands as they will help you gain more followers. Access to Pinterest analytics is granted when you use a business account. You will also get resources to help you boost your Pinterest marketing strategy.
YouTube Marketing
The power of YouTube marketing is underestimated. This makes it is a perfect choice when you are trying to reach an age group of 18-to-49-year-olds. We love watching videos as they have the power to make us laugh, cry, or simply get away from the stress that we have been through during the day. Videos are also great since they make it easier for us to grasp information compared to plain text. 59% of executives prefer videos over text for this reason. As a marketer, you can use this statistic to benefit from YouTube. This video sharing platform allows us to consume and share content easily. Marketers also have a chance to present their content in unique ways.
The first place to start with when you want to use this platform for marketing your products is by creating a YouTube channel. Since YouTube is owned by Google, therefore, you will automatically have a YouTube account if you have a Google account.
Discover What are the best YouTube alternatives you can find online?
The moment your Google account is set up, head over to YouTube. Your account will be displayed in the top right corner since you will be logged in with your Google account details. You will see a sidebar on the left side of the screen, which you will use to navigate to your channel. Ensure that you turn your channel into a YouTube brand account while setting up your channel. After that, update your account with your company logo and bio.
You will also get a chance to brand yourself. First, know what makes an ideal YouTube banner size and then make a branded graphic that reps your brand. After that, you can then upload the image to give your channel. Uploading a sub-par video will backfire on you since YouTube is a website for videos. What you need to do to succeed in your YouTube marketing is a video creating strategy. Have several brainstorming sessions, put down your goals, film your video, and finish by editing it. Film the video several times before you make it go live. This is to ensure that you get the quality that you are looking for.
Checkout quick video review on How To Promote Your Video If You Have Zero Subscriber
Source:-Neil Patel
The type of video that you want to share will depend on what you want to achieve. YouTube is a great platform when you want to share product demos, tutorials, customer testimonials, or business introductions. You can even upload a video that shows a behind-the-scenes look of your employees’ life. Making your first video is not that hard. You can go through video-making tutorials, plus there is plenty of free video editing software to help you get started.
If you have time, you can test them all. You will gain experience by using different angles in filming your videos and also understand better what your users are looking for.
With that in mind, you should know that videos are not everything in your YouTube content. You should also add the correct metadata. These include a title with proper keywords, tags, a well-written description, and an appropriate thumbnail.
When you want to increase the chances of viewers watching the whole video, you need to add captions to your videos. This means that they will understand what is going on in the video, whether they can hear or not. This will help you rank higher since the duel time of your users is among the ranking factors. Failure to add caption may lead to your users opting for your competitor. As a marketer, you need YouTube marketing since this video sharing platform has a massive community of internet users.
Snapchat Marketing
Snapchat is a relatively new social media marketing strategy. Not everyone enjoys its concepts, and many think that it is intimidating. Snapchat isn’t just another tool meant to “annoy.” There is a reason why it has 100 million daily active users. The platform is unique and has very few competitors if there is any. It is slowly growing and doesn’t have as many followers as these other social media platforms.
Snapchat is a great platform if you want to think outside the box and avoid your comfort zone when it comes to marketing. It allows you to engage with your users in an exciting way. To use this platform, you need to create an account using your email and a phone number. Snapchat is a platform meant for smartphones only. This means that your company needs to have a designated phone for social media purposes. Your company’s name will be your Snapchat handle or username. You should also set it as public so that others can also view and add your account. This guide will help you grasp the basics of how to use Snapchat.
If you want to acquire Snapchat followers, you need to use special events to attend and other social media profiles. It works by allowing you to make a “Snapcode.” This is its version of a QR code. By scanning this code, other users find you. Once they do this, they can add your account and view your Snapchat stories. You will get many Snapchat Trophies depending on the number of snaps you have.
Snapchat stories are almost the same as Instagram Stories. If you have a business account, you won’t be sending direct Snapchat to users. What you are going to do instead of that is to use Snapchat stories to announce new features or products, show off employee life, and more. I will be honest with you that unless you are in the media sector, you won’t benefit from this app.
The good thing is that it doesn’t need much of your time or funds. You are going to enjoy this app if you are looking for a unique way to engage with your users or gain another social media marketing skills.
Social Media Secret Weapons
Each year, new social media trends emerge that affect the way consumers consume and post updates on social media platforms. As a marketer, you should have a sixth sense of noting these trends and use them to craft effective marketing strategies. It is good to know what your users are looking for when it comes to social media marketing, as this is vital for your success.
The following section will highlight some of the biggest social media trends in 2018. You can use them to boost engagement between brands and customers. We have mentioned in this guide that the key to social media success is engaging with your users using the right platform. After posting on social media, 84 percent of consumers expect companies to respond within 24 hours. You will have to with the pace of your response once as your engagement grows.
Instagram Stories
Instagram Stories is one of the latest trends in the social media industry. Many brands and consumers have adopted it. Today, at least one direct message from a consumer in five organic Instagram Stories are from consumers to brands. Videos are trending among consumers. That is why Snapchat is popular. They present a great way to humanize your brand, but it works best if you have already build your users. You can track exactly how many people have viewed your stories, making them perfect for pro marketing.
Live to stream
The two platforms that have introduced live-streaming capabilities are Facebook and Instagram. They allow you to transmit a real-time video to your users through your social media profile. Many people like doing this as they create a sense of urgency. Apart from that, live-streaming allows marketers to build anticipation when they want to launch a new product or announce an event. Consumers are going to wait with anticipation if you regularly post something like “tune in at 10 a.m. when we release our most exciting feature yet.” This will make your live-stream event succeed.
Using influencer marketing
You can’t scroll through Instagram nowadays and not come across an ad by a Kardashian sister about hair vitamins or last season’s bachelor contestant raving about her monthly subscription box. This is an influencer marketing technique, where brands pay influential persons in society to speak or show their products to their users. Instagram influencer marketing keeps on gaining momentum by the day, and many companies are using this marketing technique to reach out to their users. You can’t believe that this works? You should know that ninety percent of marketers who used this tact in their campaigns say that it was successful.
Any marketer who wants to make it should always stay updated with social media trends. Trends that affect the way the targeted users use social media are vital for your strategy.
Social Media Marketing Jobs
The online marketing industry has changed for the better thanks to social media marketing. Until 2005, the title of “social media manager” was just a figment of the imagination. Today, many companies have social media managers, and if they don’t, they are trying to recruit someone to handle their social media marketing.
Skillset is, most of the time, overlooked when it comes to social media marketing. You shouldn’t take it as an intern’s job. Being a social media marketer demands more. Writing witty tweet and posting artistic images on Instagram is just the half of it. This job title needs someone that has what it takes to represent a brand, build an online community, driving quality traffic, among other things.
Below, we will talk about the common skills heeded by a social media expert. In any company, it’s hard to make it in online marketing without an expert who specializes in that sector. This includes knowing the optimal length of YouTube videos, which type of content works on what platform, and much more. If you only seek to understand different social media platforms, you won’t get anywhere. You also need to understand the type of users that each platform hosts. Key to become successful as a social media marketer knows how to use posts and interactions to engage with the users.
The ability to generate a set of goals should also there. As a marketing expert, you need to work with the leadership by discussing what your goals are at the beginning of each quarter. This brings us to the next vital skill of a social media marketer, which is content creation and management. Being a social media marketing requires you to have great skills for creating valuable content and publishing it.
The posts need to have vital elements that will help you achieve your broader social media campaign goals. You should also publish them regularly. Understanding search engine optimization is also needed by a social media marketer. This will help you find the best ways to enhance or boost the company’s site traffic. Know the connection that search rankings have with social media exposure. This will help you create content that is optimized for Google’s algorithm.
The last skill that we are going to discuss is community management. This vital skill involves responding to your mentions, answering questions, and fielding complaints. If you can do this effectively, you will help your company realize its marketing goals quickly.
Becoming A Social Media Marketer
Do you like what this job entails? Do you feel like you can handle all this without much hassle? Then you should give it a try. However, being a social media marketer isn’t as easy as it sounds. The good news is that we have steps that can help you achieve your dreams. You need a degree in marketing if you want to be a marketer. If you have this, becoming a social media expert isn’t rocket science, and you can easily switch to this career with little effort.
The first thing that is needed for designing and writing skills. Are you creative? Put that in your portfolio and explain where. Your work samples don’t have to come from social media. If you have done any creative work in the past and you have it saved, then it is going to help you. Another thing that you need to do is optimize your accounts. Potential employers won’t like it if your accounts are not decent, sloppy, or even worse, non-existent! If you want to create an impression, then the best thing to do is make your posts have a strong voice and be consistent while posting. You will have a better chance of being hired by including a previous vital post, or if you built a loyal following in the past. Building a brand is not easy, and if you did alone, it would give you a major boost in your job application.
Being updated with the latest social media trends give you an edge when looking for a social media marketing job. Showing that you are well-versed with Facebook live, Instagram stories, and other growing trends, put you on higher ground when seeking this kind of job.
Are you interested in switching to a social medial marketing career? What you need are social media marketing courses and certifications that are available online. You can take an online course in social media or a class at a local community college at reasonable rates. This is a great idea for those who want to improve their marketing skills or those who don’t have a marketing degree. The Buffer blog has 37 free social media and marketing courses for marketing experts. This is perfect if you want to taste the waters in social media marketing, before enrolling for paid courses.
Social Media Marketing Software
It is quite hard to track a half a half-a-dozen different platforms if you don’t have proper tools to do that as a social media marketer.
Social media marketing software
Once you start loving what you do as a social media marketer, you will find out that there are several software-as-a-service (SaaS) to help your meet your marketing goals. As a marketer, you can use these tools in your broader social media marketing strategies. They allow you to pass the right message to your users in the most effective and efficient ways.
In this section, let’s focus on common types of social media marketing software that allow you to easily achieve your social media marketing needs.
Influencer marketing software
Influencer marketing is one of the trending marketing methods that has proven its worth. However, tracking influencers requires and building relationships takes a lot of time if you don’t have the right tool to help you with that. Fortunately, the market is flooded with influencer marketing software to help marketers simplify the process. These tools help brands and persons to identify, communicate, and recruit social influencers. Besides that, the tools also help to bring in new influencers and retain relationships with existing ones. As a marketer, you always need a tool that helps to curate content generated by influencers and create brand marketing material.
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Social media management software
Managing your social media post is tiresome when you decide to do it manually. You need software that can help you schedule, post, and boosting your posts on many platforms. This kind of tool will help you link several social media accounts and also schedule posts on all these platforms.
These scheduling tools allow you to save time by posting your content in advance. Apart from that, you can use social media management tools to respond to inquiries from users on various platforms if you want to check to the different social media management platforms, head over to the Review on HootSuite for social media management software.
Social media analytics software
So, how can you tell that your social media marketing campaign achieved what you wanted? To do that, you require a special tool or a set of tools. These tools are called social media analytics software. Such software allows you to gather and report findings related to your social media accounts. These tools are perfect when you want to know which of your content is the most effective. Analytics software also helps to analyze your users’ real-time social actions and target your ideal demographics. As a marketer, you can use data obtained from these tools to improve customer satisfaction, boost brand awareness, and optimize your campaigns in the future. For the best social media analytics tools, head over to this article on social media analytics software.
Conclusion
As you can see from our detailed social media marketing guide, there is more to it than what meets the eye. We hope that you have found every info that you wanted to know about this social media marketing. If you have read this guide from the start, you now know what you need or have to do your social media marketing. Since there are many different platforms, select one or two that will allow you to reach your target users at the right time. Although this type of marketing is kind of new, many marketers love it because it reaches many people in the shortest time possible. Since this guide is quite lengthy, you are free to bookmark this page and go back to it when you want to refresh your mind.
Here are a few more topics that you shouldn’t miss:
Brand24 Review: Monitor Your Brand On Social Media And Beyond
The Best Social Media Tools for Your Social Media Accounts
Buffer App Review: Best Way to Manage Your Social Media Accounts
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