Posted by Social media marketing is largely considered to be one of the most effective ways in helping your brand achieve awareness, reach, and reputation. Whether you are a webmaster, business owner, or a digital marketer, it helps to pay close attention to industry news, marketing news, and any relevant updates like product launches and releases. Below are some examples of how you can leverage social media marketing to boost sales, increase conversion, and promote interaction with your target audience.
1. KNOW THE RIGHT SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORM
At the moment, there aren’t that many social media networking sites for people to choose from. The big three are Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Others would say YouTube is largely considered to be a social media platform despite its focused being on videos.
For entrepreneurs, it can get jarring trying to choose the right platform to promote their business. Although the choices are quite limited, the effort to pull off a social media marketing campaign requires time, effort, and resources which is why many social media marketing agencies try to limit their efforts into one or two platforms to make their strategy more effective.
Choosing which platform to choose from means researching where your target audience spends the most time.
According to a study done by the Pew Research Center, Facebook has the most widely diverse and distributed users of all social sites. With almost 3 billion active monthly users, Facebook is a good platform to begin any social media marketing campaign.
Facebook is the best platform if your goal is to increase brand awareness and generate more leads. But if you want to connect with other influencers, entrepreneurs, and professionals then LinkedIn or Twitter are better options.
2. USE LIVE VIDEOS
Live videos are becoming indispensable factors for any brand’s marketing strategy. It’s a great way for them to connect and engage with their audiences. In fact, a survey suggests that 80% of audiences much prefer watching live videos from a company or a brand rather than reading their blog.
Also, another 67% of people who watch live videos are more likely to purchase tickets or products after watching a live video about the product or the event.
If you want to improve your digital marketing efforts, then you should jump on the live video bandwagon and include it in your marketing strategy. Live streaming isn’t a complicated matter. A service Periscope is a great way to engage and interact with your audience in real-time.
Sharing live events with your audience helps to make them feel connected with your brand. A crucial thing to remember is to not only show audiences but also letting them be part of the event. You can create stories that show what’s happening in more than one location. This will ensure that viewers don’t get bored watching you in only one setting.
You also have the option to host live interviews with important personalities within the industry, or even employees or clients. This will help facilitate engagement among your audiences.
To cite an example, the Verge is a popular online magazine that tackles topics about science, technology, and culture. They host a daily event on Periscope titled, “Let’s Discuss,” wherein they discuss the things that are covered on their website.
3. CREATE A BRAND STORY
Your brand’s messaging conveys a lot about yourself. Similarly, how you’re saying it can have a big impact on the opinion that your audience has about your brand. All of this points to the fact that important storytelling plays a crucial role in your brand’s marketing strategy hitting its goals.
Stories are always a great way to create an emotional connection between companies and their target audience. The medium with which your brand displays its messaging is also quite important. Social media is an effective platform to share to your audience what your brand and company is all about, building connections and fostering relationships with your audience.
A great example of an effective brand messaging is one undertaken by the soap brand, Dove. In essence, the brand’s marketing tactics utilized three things: daring strategy, distinctive positioning, and demonstration of strong leadership. To put it simply, Dove leveraged emotion to differentiate itself from other brands. Their messaging focused on real people and loving one’s look and it was plastered in different mediums, and especially on social media.
One particular program they carried out for their social media marketing strategy used the hashtag #ShowUs which was designed to increase the representation of real women across different marketing channels. This simple yet effective messaging really resonated with audiences and put Dove as one of the top beauty brands within the industry.
4. RELEVANT USER-GENERATED CONTENT
One of the most powerful and effective ways to promote your brand or company is through user-generated content, or UGC. This is because people tend to believe what others say a lot more than some marketing claims or gimmicks about the brand.
Through UGC, your audience will get honest feedback from other customers instead of relying solely on the claims made by your brand. This is also another form of social proof, in line with reviews and feedback, which helps to position your brand as one that is trustworthy.
UGC also affects customers’ purchasing decisions. According to a report, around 84% of Gen-Yis more interested in seeing feedback coming from other customers during the pre-shopping phase.
User-generated content is also more trusted than any other form of content. In fact, over 50% of respondents agree that UGC visuals have more of an impact and influence than the brand’s own images and videos.
In the end, it will always benefit the brand or company if they reserve a platform wherein users can share about their purchase and shopping experience. To make it easy for loyal customers to share their stories, create a social media page for your brand where they can post their comments, feedback, or experience for others to see.
Coca-Cola put its user-generated content to good use when they created their ‘share a coke’ campaign through ads and social media. It was an immediate hit and received a response from customers around the world. People started sharing pictures of ‘share a coke’ bottles on social media making the campaign an instant hit.
5. USE SOCIAL MEDIA-FRIENDLY VISUALS
In our modern times, it can be very difficult to find social media marketing content that doesn’t use pictures. Almost every single social media marketing agency will recommend using images for a brand’s social media marketing campaign.
The deluge of visual content in almost every brand’s social media post has saturated platforms and made users more discerning which images they allow themselves to notice. Brands have become privy to this information and have solicited the help of designers to create visually appealing images they can use for their social media campaign efforts.
A tool that many have relied on to create social-friendly images is Venngage. Basically, the service creates beautiful infographics as well as original graphics. It has hundreds of templates for customers to choose from. Users can choose templates based on their level of expertise – beginner, intermediate, or advanced.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Showcasing your brand and the products and services that you offer is the main goal of any social media marketing strategy. The points mentioned above are only a few tips in making sure your SMM is as effective as it can be.
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