That Will Make Your Business More Successful.
Social media is absolutely crucial to your business’s digital marketing strategy. However, many times I see brands and businesses not using this powerful tool to its maximum potential.
With the latest Global Digital Statshot from We Are Social and HootSuite revealing that the number of people who are using social media around the world just passed the 3 billion mark, the potential of tapping into this growing global audience for your business is increasingly important.
To help you out, I have put together my top 10 social media strategies that you need to implement this year, whether you are a solo entrepreneur or a well-established global brand.
1. Create an engaging and helpful content marketing strategy.
Youtility marketing expert Jay Baer famously once said:
“Make your marketing so useful people would pay for it.”
And I also shared this concept in my recent talk at General Assembly.
Indeed, with the immense competition in the online space today, the quality and usefulness of your content are absolutely crucial to your social media strategy. High-quality content optimised for the search engine will help you to reach the right customer at the right time.
Regardless of your industry, a content strategy should deliver on the 3 E’s, Educate, Entertain, and Enlighten.
Once you have figured out the type of topics that resonate with your audience, scheduling a content calendar to ensure that you consistently create valuable content can help you to create efficiency and free yourself from scrambling the last minute.
Remember, a great content marketing strategy can be implemented for free, and paired with the right types of social media promotion using hashtags can help you reach even more people.
2. Use only social media channels that are relevant to your audience
I see so many brands and businesses try to create a social media profile on every single platform out there with the aim of reaching as many people as possible.
This will often lead to burnout and inefficiency as you will not reach your ideal target audience. For example, you won’t be on Pinterest to promote your corporate security services, and you won’t be on LinkedIn to attract diners to your restaurant.
Try this instead, you can choose 2-3 social media platforms that are perfect for your audience, and maximize your effort by creating unique content for each channel. Once you grow your audience on these channels, you can always branch out to other ones at a later date.
3. Tell your story by going live
There is nothing more exciting than seeing content that is being shared in real-time. Facebook and Instagram, amongst other platforms, such as YouTube Live and Twitter Live, have created a special feature that a lot of brands haven’t yet used actively to its full potential.
By engaging and inspiring your customers with entertaining live content of your business and memorable events, you can beat the diminishing organic reach of social media platforms and compete with other brands by being a step ahead in this “live” strategy.
4. Focus on community buildinh with your audience
As the famous marketer and author Seth Godin said in his book Tribe:
“A crowd is a tribe without a leader. A crowd is a tribe without communication. Most organization spend their time marketing to the crowd. Smart organizations assemble the tribe.”
Despite the vanity metric of having a lot of followers on social media, the key metric that will create value and success for your business is community engagement.
To avoid sounding robotic, you need to show your audience your human side. Use humor and emotions when sharing content will help your audience see the real side of your brand.
Don’t forget to ask your audience for their opinions and feedbacks, create call-to-action in your posts such as likes and shares, and share their content when it’s relevant to your brand.
5. Use paid social media promotion to boost your organic content
We are no longer in a world where social media organic reach can be enjoyed for free by all. Unfortunately and fortunately, paid marketing on social media is to stay, and if used correctly, can be a super cost effective way to market to your audience.
You can set aside a small marketing budget for social media, and test the waters by starting campaigns as little as £5-10 per day. By connecting with existing and new audiences through paid marketing, you’ll find that social media will become the place for you to create deeper connections with your prospective and current customers.
Laurie Wang is an award-winning digital marketer who gets businesses seen by audiences that are hungry for their products or services. Her knowledge and understanding of the digital landscape have benefited an eclectic mix of clients from young start-ups to FTSE 100 giants, from Google to global advertising agency Ogilvy. In 2017, she was named by the British Interactive Media Association
as a top Rising Star in the Digital industry.
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