Social Media Marketing: How to do it,
Types, Tools & Tips
Times are changing.
There’s more to social media marketing than posting on Facebook and Twitter a
few times a day. If you want to build your brand, engage your prospects, and
increase sales, it takes time and work.
You need to stand out
from a plethora of competitors, social media noise, and even compete with
influencers, celebrities, and other big names.
You need a brilliant social media strategy.
Often, like with any innovative marketing, you’ll find that you have to step
away from traditional social media platforms—and continuously find new ways of
reaching your target customers.
The popularity of TikTok highlights the importance of keeping up-to-date with the
ever-changing digital world, as to not miss out on key opportunities.
Social Media Marketing Guide Definitions
Here are some common terms
you need to know when developing your social media marketing strategy.
Content
Content is whatever you post
on social media. It can be a Facebook status update, a video on Instagram, a
Tweet, and so on.
Content comes in many
different forms, and you need to tailor it to each platform. What’s even more
important than content, though, is context.
Context
Gary
Vaynerchuk said, “Content is king, but context is God.”
For instance, you might have
a great joke, but if you place it somewhere inside a 3,000-word blog post, very
few people are likely to see it. On Twitter, however, that same joke as a tweet
might crush it.
Plus, anyone
can get in on the fun. When looking at the most
retweeted, funniest Tweets ever, we can see even the CIA sees
the value in using social media to create some positive buzz.
The opposite is also true.
Packaging your entire blog post into one tweet is hardly possible, so try a
good call to action with some relevant hashtags instead. And that brings us to
hashtags.
Hashtags
By
now, you probably know that hashtags are
a very common tool that people use to add meta information on almost all social
media channels. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest all use hashtags to
let you describe the topic of your content or mark it as part of current
trends.
They make your content easy
for users to discover and therefore more likely that they’ll share it.
Shares
Shares are the currency of
the social media world.
When people engage and
interact with your content, that’s good. But when they share it, that is the
time to celebrate.
A
great social media tool to measure shares and
the overall impact of content is BuzzSumo.
The more shares, the more
people love your content. Shares are the best form of engagement that people
can have.
Engagement
This is a general term
referring to how people interact with the content that you produce. It can be a
like, a reaction, a comment, or a share. All of these are good, but the shares
are where it’s at.
Now that we’ve covered some
social media definitions, let’s take a look at the core pillars of social
media.
Core Pillars of Social Media Marketing
There’s no doubt about it:
these days, your business needs to be on social media, and you should
concentrate at least some of your marketing efforts (and budget) on your social
media strategy.
With 4.48
billion people owning social media accounts,
there’s a whole world of potential customers that any business can access,
simply by logging in and creating
brilliant content.
Brands
like BooHoo, Depop, and Chipotle excel
at social media, and there’s one simple reason: they
integrate the core pillars of social media marketing.
There are five main pillars.
Let’s talk through them one by one.
1. Strategy
A sound social media
marketing strategy is the backbone of your social media presence. Without a
strategy, you’re wasting time, unlikely to achieve your goals, and will most
likely struggle to reach your target audience.
In case you’re not sure, a
content strategy consists of getting the “Right content, to the right people,
at the right time.”
In
its most basic terms, a content
strategy helps you achieve your business goals by enabling you to:
·
create valuable content
·
drive engagement
·
increase conversions
A good social media marketing
strategy has clear goals, specific plans to reach those goals, and must be
measurable.
Finally, you need to set
benchmarks to see how things are going and whether you need to change your
approach.
2. Planning and Publish
Social media is a powerful
tool, but you can’t just go out there and start publishing content without a
plan behind it.
When you’re planning content
make sure that you:
·
Know your audience: You need to know the demographic of your
audience in order to connect with them.
·
Focus on quality: The quality of content is just as important as
the quantity.
·
Consider your brand: Keeping in line with your brand values is
crucial.
When it comes to publishing,
there is one golden rule: consistency. A regular publishing schedule keeps
people coming back for more.
3. Listening and Engagement
Plan your content and above
all, actually engage with your audience.
Your feedback might not
always be positive; but, if you don’t make changes, neither will the tone of
your responses.
Listening and
engagement are all part of a successful digital transformation, especially if
you’re going to enhance the overall customer experience.
It’s also worth mentioning
that social listening isn’t just about customer experience. It can allow you
to:
·
pick up on new trends
·
identify new streams of income
·
gain industry insights
·
find influencers in your niche
Need
some assistance to get started with social listening? Hootsuite has a free introductory tool for
measuring key terms and hashtags.
4. Analytics
The success of any social
media marketing campaign depends on analytics for tracking and collecting data.
Without this information, you can’t:
·
understand user behavior
·
refine your strategy
·
find which platform works best for your brand
·
discover the best times to post
·
analyze your competitors
Once
you have all this, you’ll know with certainty what works and what doesn’t. That
way you can spend more time on what does, and waste less. In turn, analytics
will inform the decisions that you make for future campaigns—and highly
influence the success rate.
Similarly, A/B testing is great for
determining what content, design, CTA, etc. work best.
If you’ve been noticing
certain types of content receiving double the engagement than other posts, play
on that.
For example, if you’re a
small business, your followers are most likely going to be family and friends
who will love the personal insight and celebratory posts because they care
about you and your successes.
Producing high-quality
content that your audience isn’t interested in will mean that engagement levels
tank. You need to work on making sure your posts appear in people’s feeds
before you start feeding through those insightful industry blogs.
5. Advertising
For
anyone looking for an audience, social media advertising is worth exploring.
With approximately 2.89
billion active monthly users on Facebook alone, that’s an
incredible amount of prospects.
The three main types of
social media advertising are:
·
Organic: Content that picks up
views naturally and you don’t pay for.
·
Paid: Content that an
organization sponsors and therefore costs money to post.
·
Earned: Content that has been
given freely in the form of shares, likes, and comments.
There are several ways you
can advertise on social media. For example, you can:
·
Create content: This includes posts and
videos.
·
Promote content: Create posts
that are promoted/sponsored.
·
Engage with people: Get active in
groups related to your industry, interact with influencers in your industry,
etc.
·
Grow a following: Get people in
your industry to follow your brand by creating and sharing content that appeals
to them.
·
Get downloads: Offer PDFs, white
papers, PowerPoints, videos, podcasts, etc. on your social channels and
profiles.
Additionally, if you aim to
enhance your brand recognition, build loyalty, and increase conversion rates,
advertising could be the way to go.
Aside from these main
pillars, you should also:
·
ensure you focus your content on a specific niche or demographic
·
build quality connections with influencers, brands, and
customers you can build relationships with
·
add value with your content and comments
Finally, ensure you’re
accessible on social media so your customers know they can reach out to you.
Don’t just wait for feedback. Invite it!
Different Types of Social Media Marketing
Aside from the likes of
Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, social media marketing takes many different
forms, such as:
·
content marketing/content creating
·
advertising/sponsorship
·
social media management/community management
·
paid media
·
building your following
·
contributing to forums
·
reviews
If you’re serious about
growing your brand, don’t just focus on the large sites with a vast audience.
Although they’re an obvious place to start, look for different, more creative
ways to engage your prospects and develop leads.
Also, while you’re exploring
some of these other methods, find which content works best for each channel to
optimize your results.
Social Media Marketing Trends to Pay Attention To
The social media world
changes faster than any other online space.
Keeping up with it isn’t an
easy task.
So here are a few trends
you’ll want to keep in mind. Most likely, these trends will impact not just
this year, but also the future.
Here’s what they are.
Organic Reach is Down
Once upon
a time, a social media user could post compelling content and easily grow
their social media following.
After a few months, they’d
receive loads of friend requests, comments, shares, and “likes,” all because of
their amazing content.
Today, that’s the case. In
fact, most social media platforms are making it increasingly difficult to build
an organic following.
It’s not unintentional.
Here’s why. As the ability
for organic superstars to shine goes down, something else goes up.
You guessed it: Ad spend.
They make it more difficult
for users to grow organically so businesses have to spend more money on
advertisements.
In
fact, one change that Facebook made caused a 52
percent drop in organic reach per post in just a few
months.
Remember: At the end of the day,
social media platforms are businesses.
Social Is Becoming “Pay to Play”
As organic reach becomes more
difficult, businesses have to pay to play.
That’s
not very surprising, really. Social media companies make practically all
of their money from advertisements.
In other words, social media
is only free for users because advertisers are paying loads of money to reach
those users.
The
user is the
product.
But to reach them, you have
to pay.
The
good news is the investment is often worth it.
Most social media sites still
have very reasonable advertising costs, and with so many people using social
media, you reach audiences you may not be able to tap into otherwise.
Channels Are Merging
As entrepreneurs create
social media websites, the possibilities become increasingly endless.
And that trend isn’t slowing
down. As new ways of communicating, reaching customers, and pulling leads
develop, so do strategies that are equally innovative.
Take, for instance, cart
abandonment emails.
Once, the only place to send
and receive cart abandonment messages was through email.
Now,
however, Facebook Messenger and
a swath of other messaging platforms are equally viable.
For
instance, Recart lets you send Facebook
messages about abandoned Shopify carts:
So, what’s the point of all
this?
Channels are changing, and
the way marketers use them is changing even more.
As more and more social media
sites find their footing, expect the merging of different marketing channels to
happen even more than it already has.
Tools Are Merging
But
it’s not just the channels that are merging. The social
media tools we use are also merging.
How many times this week, for
example, have you logged in to a SaaS product with Google or Facebook instead
of creating new login credentials?
As more tools flood the
Internet, all of it becomes cluttered for the users of those tools.
Fortunately, marketing tools
all around the Internet are working to integrate seamlessly with the giants of
advertising.
Take MailChimp, for example.
With
MailChimp, an email marketing software, users can create Facebook
and Instagram Ads natively from their MailChimp accounts.
They can then preview their ads and post them to their chosen platform.
The more that this happens
between social media platforms and SaaS companies, the easier time you’ll have
marketing to your target audience.
With these trends in mind,
it’s time to look at the most popular platforms (and some that are up and
coming).
We’ll start with the biggest
beast of all: Facebook.
1. Facebook
Facebook is the biggest
social media platform. It offers marketers some of the robust most data and the
most precisely targeted ads.
Facebook Ads walks
you through the process, so even the newest social media marketers may be able
to succeed on the platform.
Facebook Business Manager
If you want to advertise on
Facebook, the first thing you need to know about is the Facebook Business Suite
tool.
You can think of this as a
hub for managing your advertisements, pages, inboxes, and people.
It’s free and quite simple to
use.
Simply
go to the landing page for the Facebook Business and
create an account. You need to already have a Facebook account for it to let
you in.
Once you log in you’ll see
your Business Suite dashboard.
This tool is an absolute must
for anyone who’s serious about advertising and marketing on Facebook. It will
give you a single place to worry about your marketing performance rather than
having to jump from tab to tab.
Facebook Advertising Options
The
first thing you’ll get to choose when creating a Facebook advertising
campaign is the goal of your campaign.
Do you want to drive traffic
to your website, drive conversions, promote your Facebook Page, get engagement
on your post, or something else?
Just select the one you want.
You
can fully customize your audience via
the ad manager link in the target audience popup (which shows up when you’ve
chosen your goal), or you can use their simple suggestions:
Finally, you’ll be able to
select the devices you want to target and where you want your ads to show up.
Facebook recommends using
auto ad placement, but if you disagree, you can just as easily decide where you
want your ads to go and what device you want them to target.
Many social media platforms
make all these decisions for you. But Facebook puts you in the driver’s seat
because they know you’ll likely do the best job of finding your ideal
customers.
You, after all, know your
target market best.
Want to make the most of
Facebook’s marketing features? Here’s a quick rundown on how to dominate
Facebook marketing.
Understanding Facebook’s Lookalike Audiences
Facebook
allows you to create lookalike audiences or
smart audiences. They use the data from people who have previously engaged with
your ads or page and create an audience they think is best.
That
means that if you have an audience that is performing remarkably, you can
create a similar audience that should also
perform well.
Instagram Integration
Did you know that when you
create an ad on Facebook, you can also run that ad on Instagram by clicking a
single button?
That’s right. It takes you no
extra work.
You can click the Instagram
ad placement button and select “Feed,” “Stories,” or both.
If your ad is highly visual,
you might want to consider using this automatic integration. It will expand
your reach with no extra work.
Facebook Live
People
love Facebook live.
There’s just something about
live video that makes it more appealing.
Maybe it’s the chance that
people will mess up. Maybe it’s the transparency. Maybe it makes us feel more
connected.
Whatever the reasons, the
fact is the same: People enjoy live video at least as much as they do
traditional videos.
Users
watch live videos for 27 percent longer than
they do pre-recorded ones.
In
other words, live video might be well worth your marketing time and money on
Facebook. Here are Facebook’s instructions on how
to go live.
Facebook Marketing Resources
2. Instagram
Instagram
is and was always about pictures, and its video function is pretty popular too.
Out of all of the big networks, Instagram has the highest
engagement rate.
You
can also release short or long-form videos and share
Instagram stories. Both formats do well for brands.
Tools
like InVideo can help you create and edit
professional videos that increase engagement and reach more
people.
But, if I were to start a new
Instagram account from scratch, I’d focus mostly on pictures. Here are a few
categories that work well:
·
inspiring quotes
·
questions in text form to they engage your followers
·
well-done product photos
Of
course, you must also make use of hashtags, give a call-to-action with
each photo, and make sure that you’re using your bio is properly optimized.
You can also focus on
Instagram influencer marketing.
Influencer Marketing on Instagram
If
there is one social media platform that represents the pinnacle of influencer
marketing, it’s Instagram.
The reason for that is
difficult to understand.
Perhaps it’s because the
platform is so visual. Or perhaps it’s because advertisement overloads haven’t
yet annoyed the userbase.
Or perhaps the influencers
enjoy sporting their content more on Instagram than on Facebook, Twitter, or
the like.
Whatever
the case, Instagram is winning big.
It’s
no surprise, then, that 65
percent of brands participate in influencer marketing.
You might want to consider
joining them.
Instagram Stories are Stealing Users From Snapchat
Instagram Stories is a
feature that lets users create a coherent series of pictures, videos, or gifs.
The feature exploded the
moment that Instagram created it.
In
fact, in 2017, the number of people using Instagram Stories passed
the number of users on Snapchat, which is a similar
platform.
In other words, if you’re
going to use Instagram, then you should probably create a Story of your own.
Perhaps you should create a
Story that shows users behind the scenes of your business or offers special
deals.
How Brands Are Using Instagram Today
Instagram is one of the top
best social media platforms for user engagement.
Of
course, that doesn’t mean that you can’t sell on the platform and market your
products as well, especially now that there are features like product
tags and links
in Stories.
Pushing for audience engagement first, before you try to sell, is your best bet. Then, once people learn to love your brand, they’ll buy from you.
3. YouTube
This social network has
changed the way we consume video since it has made it easy (streaming is super
fast) and free, and it gives us a way to express our opinions instantly (thanks
to comments).
Almost 5 billion videos are
watched on YouTube every single day.
YouTube has spawned entire
industries and kickstarted thousands of careers.
For marketers, it’s a great
way to share long-form content with your audience, especially if they’re not
avid readers. For example, you could turn your blog posts into video tutorials.
Pro tip: Use other social
media channels to drive your followers to YouTube by giving excerpts, snippets,
and previews of your videos. The little, bite-sized teasers will spark
curiosity and make people want to see the whole thing.
There
is no limit to how long your videos can be, and people have published entire
courses in the form of a single, three-hour video.
If you’re trying to be funny,
you should be funny on all channels. It doesn’t make sense for your brand with
a blog about PPC advertising to suddenly make animal jokes on YouTube. You’d be
better off teaching some of your strategies on video.
Don’t overcomplicate this.
You don’t need high-quality recording equipment or fancy editing. The chances
are good that you are a few steps ahead of most people in your niche, so just
get in front of your webcam and start teaching.
As Nathan Barry says:
The Rise of DIY Video Filming
With social media, anyone can
become a star, and YouTube is no different.
Sure, since YouTube is
video-based, it requires a bit of videography knowledge and a bit of the right
equipment. With decent light, a microphone, and a camera, your business can
start using YouTube to drive traffic and generate leads.
Even
your iPhone will do.
Post-Production and Editing
It’s
not just video filming that
the DIYers are taking over. It’s also post-production and editing.
In fact, every year it seems,
new tools come out that allow people like you to edit your video content with
ease.
For
editing your own video content for YouTube, consider
wevideo. It is free and easy to use.
You can use it to layer
content, cut content, and even add new graphics.
What’s not to like? Plus,
it’s free.
YouTube Video Ads
Finally, you might want to
consider using video ads on YouTube.
Currently,
there are several types of YouTube ads.
Depending on the type of ad
you choose to use, viewers will either be able to skip your ad after a few
seconds or YouTube will make them watch the entire thing.
Naturally, different
strategies will work for different businesses.
Don’t be afraid to try different
things. A/B test to see what works best and what doesn’t work at all.
In
the end, your advertisement on YouTube will
only be as good as your determination to find out what works.
Spend the extra time and
money to do so.
You won’t regret it.
4. LinkedIn
LinkedIn’s
growth never exploded as much as Facebook’s, but they’ve been around for 18
years and have grown to over 774+
million members.
On LinkedIn, it’s all about
being professional. The casual writing style that’s used on some blogs doesn’t
work as well on LinkedIn. People are there for one thing only: business.
They want to learn about
what’s new in their industries, who’s hiring, who’s firing, and how to optimize
their performance at work.
A SlideShare about baking
muffins won’t do nearly as well as an in-depth company presentation from a tech
conference.
If your content helps people
expand their networks or conduct business in a better way, it has a place on
LinkedIn. If not, you might want to focus on other channels first.
LinkedIn Groups
If
you’re familiar with Facebook
Groups, then LinkedIn
Groups shouldn’t be difficult to understand and navigate.
Just think of Facebook Groups but for business people.
Basically, LinkedIn Groups
are a place for like-minded professionals to gather and discuss topics of
interest or establish their expertise.
You might want to consider
joining one to establish your business as an expert on certain topics.
After all, the more people
that believe your business knows what it’s talking about, the more people who
will work with you in the future.
It’s an easy strategy for
making connections and growing your content marketing audience.
LinkedIn Advertising
As
with all social media platforms, you can also use LinkedIn
to run your advertisements.
And if your business falls
into the B2B category, LinkedIn might just be the best place for your
advertisements.
In
fact, LinkedIn
is one of the most effective social media platforms for
B2B companies. LinkedIn is also one of the top
platforms for lead generation.
Evidently, since people on
LinkedIn are there to talk business, they also don’t mind interacting with
businesses.
That means that your business
can get some serious attention on the platform if you play your cards right.
Advertisements might just be
the way you choose to do that.
5. Reddit
Reddit’s
slogan claims that they are the “front page of the Internet,” and they aren’t
very far off. With 1.5
billion visits from May 2019 to May 2020,
Reddit might just live up to its description.
Reddit
is another college-originated social media
site, and it’s a very special one at that. It focuses entirely on
community benefit. In fact, Reddit’s users will ferociously attack you for
spamming link bait or dumping promotional links on their boards (or
subreddits).
If
Redditors like what they see, they
can easily drive enough traffic to your site to crash it. You
shouldn’t take a Reddit traffic storm lightly.
Two key factors that helped
Reddit grow to such a massive platform are AMAs (Ask Me Anything) and their
voting feature.
Users can upvote and downvote
entries, links, and comments. The most popular and helpful submissions always
show up on top.
Reddit rewards (or punishes)
accounts with karma, which they display separately for links and text posts.
This way, users don’t have to
dig through tons of content before finding what’s good. They can see what’s
popular right at their first glimpse.
The platform took off when
celebrities started doing AMAs. During AMAs, Celebrities hang around on the
platform for a while and answer user questions live.
People
who have done AMA’s include Barack
Obama, Arnold
Schwarzenegger, Tim
Ferriss, David
Copperfield, and even Bill
Gates.
Reddit requires people to
post proof that they’re doing an AMA.
Reddit is tough to crack. You
can’t use it as another distribution channel and just submit a link every time
you publish something on your blog.
You have to be present,
communicate, and provide value to fellow Redditors without asking for anything
first.
Submit funny and helpful links
for a while just to build up your karma, and then refer back to your content.
But only do so where it’s appropriate. And be sure to make the links a side
note rather than the entire content of the post.
Reddit Marketing Fails to Avoid
Reddit mostly hates
marketers. It’s not necessarily the fault of marketers, though. Reddit is just
a unique community.
They don’t like people who
are too blatant in their marketing, and they don’t like businesses trying to be
pushy.
For that reason, even some of
the top businesses have made massive mistakes on Reddit.
The CEO of a large outdoor
gear retail chain started an AMA on Reddit, hoping to generate brand awareness.
Here’s what he got instead.
That’s a bit of a Reddit
disaster, huh?
Take some time to understand
the audience before you start using the platform to advertise and market. Once
you do understand Redditors, though, the platform represents a well of
marketing potential you won’t be able to pass up.
Reddit Ads
If you don’t want to try and
grow an organic following on Reddit, then you can consider simply posting ads
on the platform.
First, though, you’ll need to
determine if Reddit is the right place for your advertisements.
As we
already discussed, advertising gone wrong can hurt instead of help your business on Reddit, so
make sure that you know what you’re getting yourself into first.
The
platform consists primarily of males under the age of thirty (though
other demographics are growing on the site), so if that isn’t your target
audience, you might want to advertise elsewhere.
If you’re going to run ads on the platform, then be ready to respond to some serious heat. But if you live through the heat, you could harness some serious potential.
6. Snapchat
Snapchat
has 293
million daily active users. While the majority of those
are women (about 61 percent), men on the platform have one thing in common:
they’re young. In fact, 69
percent of teens use Snapchat.
Since all images and videos
disappear after 10 seconds max, content on the platform is fleeting and
short-lived.
Naturally, it makes sense to
provide content around that same theme.
For example, you could give
your audience access to a live event. If you’re giving a talk at a conference,
take a few snaps when you’re on stage and share them with your followers.
Let your audience behind the
scenes. Show them the happy hour on Friday at the office, the IPO party, and
even how you act when you’re alone at home.
You could show them your
practice run of the speech, how you screwed up your makeup, or what a cool car
picked you up from the airport.
Snapchat marketing is
all about sharing those precious moments that we all have so few of in life, so
make sure that you use it for just that.
B2B Marketing on Snapchat
Can you market your B2B
company on Snapchat?
Some people think you can’t.
After all, a large portion of
the current Snapchat user base consists of those who are teenagers or younger.
Don’t let that young audience
deceive you. As the platform finds its footing in the digital world, older
populations are flocking to the platform as well.
In
fact, one entrepreneur uses the platform to offer regular advice
to other entrepreneurs.
HubSpot
uses it to increase and establish its brand’s personality.
DocuSign used it to interact
with people during a conference.
So yes. You definitely can
use Snapchat to market your B2B company.
Plenty of other businesses
are doing it, and you can do it too.
Of course, Snapchat requires
a bit more creativity on your part than other platforms. Keep in mind that
users can only view your images and videos once.
That should at least partly
define the type of content you put out.
Plus, that restriction can also work in your favor. Since all your content is temporary, people might be more inclined to view your snaps while they can and fully take in the content. Once they do, it goes away.
7. Pinterest
Pinterest
is the number one social media platform for marketers who want to target
women. 60 percent of their monthly
active users are female.
You can think of Pinterest as
a giant digital scrapbook. Due to the nature of the pinboards, Pinterest is
also one of the only platforms where images look best when you display them
vertically. Keep in mind that your pics need special formatting to look good on
Pinterest.
Between their closed launch
in 2010 and 2012, you needed an invitation to get on the platform, so it’s only
been open to the public for five years. Nevertheless, the leads you acquire
from Pinterest are high-quality.
Influencer Marketing on Pinterest
Since Pinterest allows users
to market within whatever niché they like, influencers flock to the platform
like hotcakes at IHOP.
Since you’re a marketer
within a specific niché, you can use those influencers to advertise your
product to their existing audiences.
Growing your own audience
takes a ton of time. And maybe, just maybe, you don’t have a ton of time.
In that case, influencer
marketing may be your answer.
There’s a niché for
everything on Pinterest. That further means that there’s an influencer for
everything.
Do you want to market
clothing or tiny toy dogs or Harry Potter attire?
Believe it or not, there’s a
board for that.
Pinterest Ads and Buyable Pins
Of course, not everyone will
want to go through the hassle of finding, talking with, and hiring influencers.
Some
of you will simply want to run advertisements
on the platform and get on with your lives.
In that case, remember that
the majority of people on Pinterest are women.
For some of you, that’s a
good thing. For others of you, that’s not such a good thing.
However, despite that
gender-leaning, Pinterest is a remarkable platform for getting people to buy
your products.
The best part is that the ads
fit into the boards seamlessly.
If you have a product for women that’s highly visual and you don’t want to deal with influencers, then Pinterest ads are your solution.
8. TikTok
TikTok,
a Chinese video-sharing app, first launched in 2016. Unlike other social media
apps with humble roots in basements or dorm rooms, the company is the result
of two different apps merging. Today,
the app has more than 800 million active users around
the globe.
TikTok
users share short video clips of themselves dancing, lip-syncing, or sharing
thoughts about politics and social justice matters. The app stands out due to
the number of interactive features, such as filters, music, and
editing capabilities that allow users to be incredibly creative.
TikTok Marketing
Why
consider marketing on this highly popular video app? For starters, competition is low.
Most businesses aren’t bothering with it yet — and ads are still quite
affordable.
The new-ish platform is also
a great place to get creative and try out fun strategies that might not work on
more formal platforms, like LinkedIn.
Are
you considering diving into the world of marketing
on TikTok? Here are a few ways to leverage the platform.
TikTok Marketing Videos
The most straightforward way
to market on TikTok is by creating exciting content related to your brand.
For example, you could create
short how-to videos about topics related to your brand. Use a keyword research
tool like Ubersuggest to find topics your audience cares about, and then create
short, snappy videos for TikTok.
You could also use the fun
style of TikTok to introduce your team members, show off your headquarters, or
highlight the features of a new product. Consider using the platform’s
interactive elements, such as polls.
Influencer Marketing on TikTok
If
you want to improve your engagement rates, consider working with established
TikTok influencers in your market. The average US
influencers on TikTok have a 17.99 percent engagement rate,
making influencers a powerful tool for brands.
To find influencers, use the
search feature to look for hashtags related to your industry and look for users
posting high-engagement content.
You
can also use the Influencer
Marketing Hub’s free influencer search tool.
Just type in a topic of interest, and the tool will provide a list of up to 10
relevant influencers.
TikTok Ads
TikTok gives brands four
different options for paid ads: brand takeovers, native ads, branded lenses,
and hashtag challenges. Before diving into these, you’ll want to understand the
differences:
·
Brand takeovers: Exclusive category takeovers that show up in
users feed, before any of the accounts they follow.
·
Native ads: Similar to boosted posts on Instagram, these ads
give your posts a wider reach.
·
Branded lenses: Design and promote a filter related to your brand,
similar to Snapchat’s sponsored lenses.
·
Hashtag challenges: TikTok is known for sending
challenges viral. Hashtag challenges allow the brand to
use banner ads to improve challenge visibility.
9. Tumblr
Tumblr is sort of a mix of a
blog, Instagram, and Twitter. The owners call it a microblogging platform.
As Tumblr itself
puts it, the platform is “so easy to use that it’s hard to explain.”
This platform is primarily
useful for curating images. Users can easily reblog and like these images sort
of like retweets and favorites.
Now,
users create over 15
million posts each day, and the site makes money with advertising.
There’s
one type of file, however, that Tumblr is clearly the number #1 platform for
GIFs. The animated, moving images are
right in between photographs and videos.
Funny memes, animated clips,
and short video excerpts make users scroll endlessly and binge-consume the
content.
If you’re in fashion, design,
photography, or another visual industry, be sure to take a very serious look at
Tumblr.
Tumblr Audience Demographics
The audience on Tumblr is a
bit different than any other social media platform.
Most of the people are on the
platform to have fun. They are there to share funny comics, memes, and gifs.
They aren’t particularly
friendly toward marketers, however. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t market
on the platform. It simply means you need to be more creative when you’re doing
so.
In fact, Tumblr is a great
place for your marketing strategies to take form.
Additionally,
the vast majority of Tumblr users are young. Most
are millennials.
While you keep in mind that
the users are young, also remember that they’re on Tumblr for entertainment.
They aren’t there to find
products, and they definitely aren’t there to hear about your brand message.
One
company recognized this with their product, the Holy Meme Bible.
They realized that Tumblr
loves memes and that the people there would likely respond well to their
product.
So, for three weeks, they
went full-board and marketed their Meme Bible on Tumblr.
As a result, they made over
$200,000 in sales in three short weeks.
If you have a product that works for the Tumblr audience, then you’re doing yourself a serious disservice by not using the platform to market your product.
10. Medium
Medium
isn’t social media in the traditional sense. It’s closer to social journalism,
as it’s a place where big-timers and everyday people alike can share knowledge
through long-form posts. The format
allows for social connections without (usually) as
much animosity as can appear on other platforms.
Since it’s a blog platform,
Medium naturally does well with long-form content. However, posts shouldn’t be
too long.
Medium
shows the estimated reading time for each post right anywhere you see them,
whether on the home page or
at the top of the individual articles.
If people see that it’ll take
20 minutes to read your post, you’ll scare most of them away. Most users aren’t
willing to make such a big time commitment.
Seven-minute
(approximately 1,600-word) posts do best, so
it makes sense to break up longer articles into a series of posts.
If you have a big following
already, you can use it to catapult your articles to the top since the posts
that users recommend the most land in the featured stories where most users
will see them.
As few as 50-100
recommendations within an hour or two can drive your article right to the front
page.
Big outlets like Huffington
Post, Business Insider, and Entrepreneur often pick up content that has done
well on Medium. That gets it additional exposure.
Medium Audience Demographics
Medium
receives 200 million visits per month,
give or take a few thousand. The majority of the traffic
comes from the United States.
This
offers a lot of potential to get your business in front of new prospects. Also,
keep in mind that the majority of visitors to the site are men with an above-average
education.
Similar to LinkedIn, Medium
is ideal for posting content that’s more professional in nature.
You
can publish content tagged for specific niche topics. Doing so may not get you
the attention of as many people as you would on Facebook or larger social
networking sites, but because the following is narrower, you’ll likely get a
higher percentage of the right people
to interact with you and your brand.
So, what’s the verdict:
should you use Medium?
If the topics you blog about
relate to more serious matters, then you have nothing to lose by posting them
on Medium. In fact, there’s much you could gain.
Marketing Content on Medium
If your content is relevant
for Medium users, then using the platform for marketing is a no-brainer.
In fact, using the platform
to benefit your business will require almost no additional effort.
All you have to do is take
blog posts that you’ve already written and repost them on Medium. Since you
still own the rights to the content on Medium, you can do with it as you like.
It’s an easy way to get additional eyes on all your hard work.
What do you have to lose?
You can use Medium to easily
get your blog content in front of new eyes, and it won’t take you any extra
work to do so.
Just copy and paste content
from your website, and voilâ! More people see it than before.
As an
aside: Unlike other sites, Medium
is really picky about what it allows in terms of
advertising. You can link to your own stuff to a certain extent and use
affiliate ads (with proper disclosure notices), but nothing remotely third
party is allowed. Medium is not free for users as a result; after a couple of
free articles, they need to pay $5 per month.
11. Quora
Quora is unique from other
social media platforms as it’s strictly based on the questions and answers.
Now, you might think “People
ask questions and get answers on Facebook and Twitter all the time. Why use Quora?”
Two reasons:
1. The
answers on other sites are sometimes not answers at all, personal stories, and,
far too often, just plain mean.
2. People
on Quora can establish authority without having to explain their qualifications
over and over.
For instance, on Facebook,
someone in a cat group may ask how to fix a mistake they made while cutting
their own hair. While some folks may give kind, helpful responses, chances are
they’ll also get a lot of rude answers about their “poor decision-making
skills.”
While answers like that on
Quora aren’t unheard of, the questions are more likely to be taken seriously
and, at times, answered by true experts whose credentials are shown next to
their names rather than hidden in their comments.
People
have built entire platforms from answering questions on Quora, and some
answers boast more than 1 million views.
This platform centers around
one thing: questions. You can get the most out of it by providing quality
answers to popular questions that users have re-asked lots of times.
Thanks to the voting system,
quality answers make it to the top. And, they usually stay there for a long
time.
Try to give answers that will
still be valid in a year or two or even five. Some of the most popular Quora
answers came from years ago. Emberton’s answer above was written in 2014 and
the number of views continues to grow!
You can double your benefit
from Quora if you use it to come up with content. For example, you could write
a blog post that gives a very detailed answer to a popular question.
Again, going back to that
Emberton screenshot from just a bit ago: He literally responded with a blog
post, complete with graphics!
Not only will you have a
great blog post then, but you’ll also be able to republish it as the answer to
that question.
This will also help you build
a reputation as an expert on your topic. If someone likes an answer that they
read from you, they’ll often browse through the other answers that you’ve
given.
Quora and Content Marketing
There are two ways to market
yourself on Quora: Answering questions and creating ads.
Quora is a great place for
establishing yourself as an expert on a
certain topic, and you can do so by answering questions created by other users.
The first thing to do is fill
out your profile. Once you sign up for an account, you can give some basics:
Some
people have their credentials
verified; others don’t. Profiles are only verified if a high number of
people recognize the person or brand behind the account.
This doesn’t mean unverified
profiles are lying, nor should being a smaller brand stop you from using Quora
because you can’t be verified.
Heck,
it’s not easy to become verified—the first-ever
verified Quora profile was Barack Obama, and
the rest on the first-round list to be verified were also household
names.
Regardless of if you’re
verified, once your profile is filled out, begin to answer your target market’s
questions. Imagine, for instance, that you’re a digital marketer and you want
to start establishing yourself as an expert in the digital world.
You
can go to Quora and answer questions
like these.
Then, if your answer is
remarkable, people may upvote it, making it a winner in the Quora SEO system.
In case that’s not good
enough, you can also use Quora to find topics for your own blog.
Fortunately, Quora makes it
easy.
Simply go to Quora and type
in your niché. Browse through the questions people are asking.
Then, all you have to do is
take those same questions and create your own website content around them.
You
can just make good old-fashioned ads
on Quora.
You can structure them like
other Quora posts, with questions and answers, like this ad for SiriusXM:
Or have them look more like
traditional ads, like Spokeo did:
Tips to Grow and Engage your Audience on Social Media
Social media success begins
with understanding your prospects and what they want from your brand.
From there, you can create
content that resonates with them based on their shared interests.
With such an approach, you can
build a loyal fan base that spreads the word about your brand organically.
You can achieve this by:
·
creating a social media strategy with a concrete goal in mind
know why you are posting on social media and what you want to achieve by doing
so
·
choosing the right social media channels for your company or
industry
·
experimenting with different content types such as live video or
GIFs
·
keeping track of current trends in your industry and adapting
your marketing strategy accordingly, but don’t copy what other companies are
doing; great advertising campaigns integrate something new!
·
holding contests and inviting user-generated content
·
sharing useful content
·
starting conversations and writing actionable content to inspire
people to click through, read more, or even download your free brochure or
mobile app
·
connecting with influencers
·
following your competitors and learning from them
·
using hashtags
Remember not to ignore the
basics.
Above all: share great,
original content, and get to know your followers’ wants and needs.
Provide them with the
products/services that address their everyday problems, and you’ll soon see
your social media marketing efforts take off.
How to Build a Social Media Marketing Strategy
A social media marketing
strategy is critical for any business looking to get the most out of its online
presence.
The best way to create a
successful social media strategy is to focus on the following factors:
·
target audience
·
content
·
engagement
·
social channels
Many companies are trying to
reach their target demographic through social media. This is a way to build a
brand, increase customer loyalty and generate word-of-mouth marketing.
There is no one right
strategy for everyone. The first step is to find out where your target audience
is hanging out on social media and what they are interested in. The next step
is to figure out the best times of day or week for you to post on these
platforms if you want maximum visibility and engagement with your content.
Finally, make sure you are
consistent with your posts and don’t stop posting just because it feels like
you aren’t getting any likes or comments, it will come!
Additionally, you
should:
·
Set goals and work toward them.
·
Understand your audience and their individual wants and needs.
·
Decide reach metrics to track. These will depend on your aims.
For example, if you’re looking for engagement, track impressions.
·
Create content that gets clicks. That means sharing inspiring
content, news stories, answering questions, and posting at the optimum times.
·
Assess and update your strategy as needed.
Social Media Marketing Tools
Most businesses could benefit
from a social media presence, but many business owners lack the time. The
solution?
Social media tools.
These tools are an essential
part of digital marketing, allowing users to measure the performance of their
posts, create and publish content, engage with customers on social media, and
much more.
They come in three main
categories: social media management, social advertising, and content creation.
·
Posting platforms: These tools help
you automate publishing on various platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
Some of them also provide scheduling features. Popular tools include Agorapulse, Buffer,
and SproutSocial.
·
Content creation and curation: These
tools help you create content like videos, slideshows, or GIFs for Facebook or
Twitter posts in minutes. ContentStudio, Drum Up, and Content Gems are just
some of the sites out there.
·
Social advertising: This includes
Facebook and Twitter Ads that allow you to promote your content to specific
audiences.
There’s
also a host of social media management tools to help with publishing,
scheduling posts, monitoring, and competitive analysis to simplify things
further. Think about the aforementioned Hootsuite or SocialPilot.
Additionally, there’s one extra player when it comes to social media marketing
tools: people. If you’re doing research because you don’t have an in-house
marketer (or you are one and you’re struggling), there’s no shame in getting
help. Marketing agencies around the world are great tools for content creation,
scheduling, strategizing, and consulting services.
Social Media Marketing FAQs
What
is meant by "social media marketing?"
Social
media marketing means marketing your brand on social media channels through
organic, paid, and networking strategies
How
do I know which social media channel to market on?
Determine
your target audience, then find out which platforms that demographic spends the
most time on.
Which
social media channel has the most users?
Facebook
has the most users of any social media platform.
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