Posted by Social media has always been a place for reaching a wider set of audience. Social media marketing surpasses other marketing techniques in its ability to let you develop a deeper connection with your audience.
Although effective, it does take a lot of effort to make your business a success through social media marketing.
This post is your go-to guide if you’re planning to create a powerful social media marketing campaign in 2021.
Whether you want to make money online, start a small business, or become a creator, social media benefits everyone if used strategically. It helps you raise your brand recognition and connect with your customers, generating more engaged audiences and eventually leading them to conversions.
With more than 3 billion active users on social media, the power of social media to build an engaged audience is here to stay.
There are so many strategies and techniques you can adapt to enhance your business using social media, and we’ve done the work of choosing the best ones. Check out these 9 social media marketing hacks to power your social media strategy in 2021.
Let’s get started!
1. Leverage the Power of Video Content Marketing
Video content should be the number 1 priority for anyone planning to play it big on social media. Video content is booming regardless of the mediums or platforms you choose to share the content. According to The Marketing Helpline, social media posts with videos get almost 50% more views as compared to posts without videos. Further data claims that close to 90% of marketers believe videos turned a good return on their investments.
The future of online business depends on videos and visual content, and that doesn’t mean you have to spend a heavy budget on cameras and artificial lighting. Even a beginner can make professional-looking videos easily and without spending much.
YouTube, the go-to platform for streaming videos online, has more than 2 billion users, and the figure keeps increasing. Apart from gaining fame, you can earn money on YouTube just with a solid number of engaged views. While the competition is quite high, you can succeed when you provide interactive and unique content your audience loves to watch.
While YouTube remains the bigger market, you can take advantage of the new-age video platforms such as Instagram Reels and TikTok.
TikTok and Reels have gained a lot of prominence among Generation Z. Audiences are not only conscious about the brand values but also want brands to attract them in unique and innovative ways.
If you’ve already set up your brand’s Instagram account, you’ll know the overwhelming power of an IGTV video or a reels video to increase your reach on the platform.
If you haven’t made your first move with the Instagram Reels yet, now is the time. Instagram’s algorithm is giving major importance to reels, and you won’t see it fading anytime soon.
Some prominent brands like Louis Vuitton are already going viral with Reels.
While they used to showcase their clothing and accessory collection through high-quality photos, they are now changing their marketing strategy with reels. You can easily look at the huge difference between any of their reels and other content.
Videos can be the best chance to establish your business. Give them a try!
2. Explore the Influencer Marketing Landscape
If you’re looking for individuals with a huge amount of followers to share your brand’s information, you should be looking at Influencer Marketing.
Influencer marketing is one of the best hacks for business growth. The audience that follows these Influencers trusts their opinion and content. This leverage could be used by your business to build a relationship with a new market. The impact of influencer marketing is visible from the fact that 89% of marketers said that the return on investment from influencer marketing is better than the ROI from other sources.
We’ve already seen Instagram as the platform to use Influencer marketing. It’s safe to say that this was the platform where paid partnerships were born. And the best part? Instagram influencer marketing isn’t difficult, and it isn’t expensive on the pocket.
You just have to make a list of micro-influencers you’d like to work with and ask them to promote the product for you.
How to integrate influencer marketing into your marketing strategy?
- Find influencers who cater to the same audience as you are targeting
- Divide the influencers into small, medium, and big ones based on their following, insights, and other engagement numbers
- Develop an influencer reach out plan with a focus on building long term relationships
- Finalize the influencer agreements and work on your first few influencer marketing campaigns
As you keep working on these campaigns, you will get proficient in choosing the right strategies and the right influencers to work with.
Here’s influencer marketing in action:
One of the top travel influencers on Instagram, Annette White is seen promoting one of the spa and golf resorts called Pueblo Bonito in Mexico. With over 100k followers, it takes no time for her posts to reach a lot of people and travelers who are living in and traveling to Mexico. And that’s a powerful market presence!
Although Instagram was the first one to boost the influencer marketing world, TikTok and Pinterest are next on the queue. You can choose the right influencers and the right platform to work on, depending on the niche of your business.
3. Establish and Popularize Your Brand’s Purpose on Social Media
In recent years, the internet has given a new voice to its users, and they are using this voice to focus on social and environmental responsibilities. This year, this trend will flourish even further. Using corporate social responsibility to improve brand awareness is significantly becoming the golden rule.
And now is the time for the brands to support and become the voice of their customers. Brands with value are seen by a younger generation with a lot of admiration. They highlight where they stand in the real world.
Hanahana beauty is one such handcrafted skincare brand that wants to disrupt the beauty industry through transparency and sustainability. Another goal that they want to achieve is to treat every skin equally. They are standing strong on the mission to empower black women.
The proceedings are also shared with the women who work for them in Ghana. Their Instagram feed is filled with self-love quotes and inspirational content.
Audiences connect better with brands that work for a cause with profit. You can leverage this strategy to build a voice for your brand that your audiences connect with.
4. It’s Time to Talk About Corporate Responsibilities on LinkedIn
The talk of purpose and responsibilities by brands is not just limited to Instagram. People have started to be more vocal on other platforms such as LinkedIn too. Transparency drives more followers on social media platforms to connect with your brand.
While on Instagram, people talk about society and the environment, LinkedIn has opened prospects for talking about corporations and work ethic.
While creating a successful LinkedIn marketing strategy, you just need to make one small social shift this year. Just like other social media platforms, you can leverage the power of LinkedIn marketing tools to measure engagement and capture insights for your efforts.
Being transparent about your brand’s challenges and work culture can help you build a relationship with users based on trust.
Companies like Amazon or LinkedIn do an extraordinary job of highlighting the stories of their employees. This provides an inside look at the working environment of the company.
Showcasing your corporate responsibility can set you apart from the crowd. Make sure it is authentic and true to you and your organization.
5. Take eCommerce one step ahead with Social Shopping
eCommerce platforms are not just restricted to websites. They are slowly taking the center stage through social media. The fact that people are getting comfortable buying from social media platforms says a lot about how social shopping is taking its defined shape.
Earlier, a brand needed to build a strong social media presence to redirect the customers to the brand’s website. According to Absolunet, while over 85% of the eCommerce shoppers agreed that social media assists them in making their shopping decision, 30% agreed to directly purchase it from the social media platform. This statistic is predicted to significantly grow every year.
With the latest updates, the customer buying journey has decreased. You no longer need to spend hours finding a suitable online marketplace, social media platforms like Instagram do the work for you. While discovering a product on Instagram, a customer can plan to buy directly without having to leave the platform.
The shoppable posts on Instagram can help you convert a follower into a customer. The idea of social shopping is going beyond Instagram as well. TikTok has also established a partnership with Shopify to integrate social shopping into their platform.
Social eCommerce will be a huge boost for small businesses that don’t have the desired resources to run a whole website or an online store.
Take this unique approach followed by Ful Candles as an example. The brand has done a commendable job of selling small batches of eco-friendly candles on Instagram. It has managed to build its own online community that can serve as a potentially high return audience for the brand.
It is advisable to keep your social selling simple. Instead of having too much marketing pitch, try to frame your product as a help or support. That way, you can build trust among your customers!
6. Don’t forget Live Streaming – The Future of Social Media Marketing
The year 2020 has been the year of virtual events. Zoom, one of the best webinar software, had the online world attend a class or a business meeting, all through the comfort of their homes. The power of live videos and virtual events can’t be stressed enough.
The outstanding features of live content are starting to influence our feeds. They have started to become more important, and this trend isn’t going out soon. It’s best to include going live in your social media marketing strategy. According to Livestream, over 80% of consumers prefer live video content from a brand as compared to a simple social media post.
It will help your brand to build a real-time connection with your audience. It would help them gain information that isn’t normally available.
You don’t need to have a lot of followers to make your live event a success. You need to come up with unique ideas to make viewers feel fortunate to be a part of your live video.
You can even integrate influencer marketing with this strategy for the best results.
Kohl is a shopping brand that decided to go live with a vlogger on the occasion of the Black Friday Sale. The live video showed how the vlogger went to a Kohl store for shopping on this occasion. As soon as the vlogger posted the video on her platform, the video gained a lot of views, attracting potential customers to shop at Kohl.
Make the most of Facebook and Instagram live and take it one step ahead with Virtual events!
7. Share Content in the form of Stories on Every Platform
Remember the time when “Stories” were only limited to Snapchat?
Nowadays, you can see stories on every social media platform such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and even LinkedIn. Stories do not only allow your brand to share crucial moments with your audience but also change the brand’s interaction with the audience.
According to 99firms, almost 60% of brands link their Instagram stories to a shoppable page. The major benefit of this statistic can be concluded from the fact that 15-25% of users swipe up to the link when they see branded stories.
Although Instagram stories are currently ruling the stories industry, it’s better to select a stories channel for your brand and strategically work on it. Simply put, if your organization deals in B2C and wants to reach a young audience, go for Instagram Stories. And for the professional growth of your brand, we’ll advise you to opt for LinkedIn stories.
Converse’s Instagram profile always nails their post! Their stories seem to be in perfect blend with their posts.
8. Include the Memes Culture in Your Social Media Content
Humour is something that no one can say no to, even if it comes from brands.
Individuals look for relatable memes when they scroll through their social accounts. Brands have adopted the meme culture and turned it into a success for them. The use of memes by brands has even birthed the term “Meme Marketing”, and a lot of brands are leveraging the use of memes to grow their brand’s audience and boosting its engagement statistics.
The best part of adopting a meme-based marketing strategy is that you can make the best out of a new meme trend every week. You get more chances of getting viral with memes.
If you think that it will spoil the professional appeal of your brand, follow Gucci on social media. One of the most luxurious brands in the world is embracing the most loved language of social media. They are using memes to launch their new series of watches.
Netflix is another example that is growing its social media followers regularly by sharing funny memes. So far, they have over 26 million followers only on Instagram.
Interesting, isn’t it? There’s a flip side, though. Make sure you don’t overuse memes for your brand too. Keep it simple, authentic, and relatable, and your audience will love it.
9. Enhance Your Social Media Strategy by Involving in Conversations
Social media is a place where you can build relationships with your audience.
This can be easily achieved if you engage in conversations with them.
Many big corporations are starting to realize the importance of engaging in conversations on social media. They have started to hire a team that is solely focused on building a conversation with the customers.
Lately, many brands have started to engage in social media banters as well. These banters have a deep impact on the social media audience as they see it in all good spirits.
Here’s how you can engage your audience into conversations:
- Trigger a conversation by asking your audience questions.
- Involve them in polls and other opinion-based questionnaires.
- Reply to people’s comments on your posts and stories.
- Try to answer every question asked by your audience.
Showing that you’re serious about your customers will help gain their trust.
Best Buy is an online store that deals in various items such as electronics, furniture, and baby products. When it comes to their social media presence, they are one of the best in engaging in customers. They make the best use of their social media platforms to provide commendable customer service while maintaining regular interactions.
Conclusion
Social media has always been the easiest yet effective marketing platform to establish yourself or your business. It all comes down to how well you manage your business on social media. You can learn a lot from these top 9 tricks and implement them to find a path for your brand.
If we’ve missed any important social media marketing hacks, do tell us in the comments. We take our conversations seriously!