Are you interested in learning how to compete in social media marketing wars? Looking for the latest social media marketing tactics? Perhaps you want to know what social media marketing pros are doing today.
It is not hard to accomplish these objectives. We’ll share with you how the most successful small businesses use social media to grow brand loyalty.
How many times have you seen companies requesting people to friend them on Facebook?
Like farming followers were the name of the game. Sad but true. The truth is that social media marketing campaigns are really about cultivating relationships with potential customers. Fan ‘skins’, by themselves, are of very little value.
What is the importance of social media in your small business? Dialog with customers for sure. What about reading your content and remembering? Appreciating your help? Marketing? Building relationships? We believe it is all of these things, but the bottom line goal is relationship building.
Marketing for small to mid-sized businesses is a different animal than it is for big brands. For the former, the cost is always a factor, they insist on measurable results (even if their metric is as vague as “Do we think it worked?”), and creativity usually takes a second place to cost-effective, day-to-day manageability.
And yet, whether you are Millefiore Skin Care, Black Tulip Restaurant, or Coca-Cola, the challenges are much the same: To grab prospects’ attention; re-explain quickly and memorably how you make life better, and give them good reasons to buy now.
No matter how many zeroes appear on your marketing invoices, there is never enough money to reach the market the way you’d like to, so small businesses need to experiment with new ways to reach their target markets.
Why social media campaigns are so important
Social word-of-mouth
Social media enables consumers to generate and tap into the opinions of an exponentially larger universe.
While word-of-mouth has always been important, its scope was previously limited to the people you knew and interacted with on a daily basis. Social media has removed that limitation and given new power to engage a much wider set of consumers.
Hyper-informed consumers
Social media is transforming the way that consumers across the globe make purchase decisions.
Consumers around the world are using social media to learn about other consumers’ experiences, find more information about brands, products and services, and to find deals and purchase incentives.
Here’s how to win the social media marketing wars
Here are 19 action considerations for winning social media marketing. These are the ones we use most often with our clients. We believe they are the ones most critical to the success of your social media marketing:
It all starts with knowing who your customers are and knowing as much about what makes them tick as you can. Without this step, most of the other steps become just a shot in the dark.
So spent a lot of your time on this action. Keep in mind that you can’t be everything to everybody. Remember that not all customers are alike.
Choose the best channels
Once you understand who your target customers are, you’ll need to study which social media sites they use most frequently and to what end. Social media takes a lot of time and energy, so you need to know where your time will be best spent.
Share unique content
Your content goal is simple … be as helpful as you can and be entertaining, or else be ignored. If you are going to put in the time and energy, you don’t want to be ignored.
Capture customer hearts in the first 30 seconds
What are you doing to make their first 30 seconds on your platform extraordinary? If you can’t answer this question, you need to start here. First impressions are everything.
Strike an emotional chord
Make consumers feel something. If you want to grab my attention on social media, make me laugh. Make me cry. Make me feel something, anything.
When I have a super busy day, and I am replying to tweets on Twitter, I have no choice due to the amount of them and time constraints but choosing where and when I am going to respond. It is an easy choice for me. I respond to the people who grab my attention.
These are the people who are nice, who make me feel good. The people who are genuine. The people who make me laugh. Pull an emotional chord.
Don’t send snarky tweets trying to get attention. Most people can see right through the snark and won’t respond. I ignore the trolls and the folks looking only for attention. Be genuine and offer something of emotional value.
Listen and engage
Listening comes first and foremost to understand what customers are saying about their needs and perhaps about you. Once you have heard, then engage in as near real-time as you can.
Be YOU and be consistent. Remember customers deal with people and not businesses.
As we said previously, social media marketing takes a lot of time and energy. There many good tools in existence that will help in the workload. But keep this in mind … customers take note when it seems they are dealing with a robot. Don’t be that robot.
Emphasize social
They emphasize social.
One of your key business objectives is to build relationships with customers. That end game results in customer advocates and trust. This process takes constant attention to being social on a very consistent basis.
Tell short stories and educate
Not sure what content your fans want? Prototype and test your ideas. Try posting different types of status updates, related and not related to your product and company. Also, use your social media insights to see what your readers are engaging with the most, and then deliver more of it.
Many brands build ads and then share them with fans on their social media sites. A great example is with the Guinness ad we discussed in our article on Guinness marketing using storytelling. This technique used subtle messaging with a great story to appeal to fans. The story’s light touch made sharing the story seem less like an advertisement
Doing a great job of creating campaigns that tell short stories and have subtle messaging is an effective campaign tactic.
If you’re inexperienced in video marketing, that’s okay. There is a very large variety of articles on the topic, and a good place to learn. But remember the best way to learn is by doing and practicing. Start your video creations with free tools like Vine and Instagram.
Consumers always enjoy good stories and helpful information that educates.
Partner with complementary small businesses
Contests and giveaways are standard tactics on social media campaigns. You can overcome this challenge with some creative thinking. Find complementary small businesses that fit with your objectives … say for contests.
You can also retweet content on Twitter and likes Instagram photos of complementary brands that promote something related to your products and services.
Capitalize on local events
During the Sochi Olympics, Coca-Cola hosted a contest/series called #CokeGames. The gist of it was that they created simple Olympics-inspired games like Bottle Cap Hockey, Coke Curling, Ice Cube Ski Jump.
Then, they asked their followers to play along by filming and uploading short videos of the Coke fan playing the game. The incentive was an opportunity to win a $100 gift card.
Your small business could adopt this idea, using any local event as inspiration. It might be a local seafood festival or perhaps a local hockey team championship game. These local events happen all the time and offer great opportunities for the attention of your brand and therefore your relationship building.
Stimulate conversation
How do you create fan conversation? One great way we have found is through asking fans a thought-provoking question. Use questions that relate to your brand.
For example, Internet Explorer asked how people imagine the web in 5 years. Remember that you need to be part of the community and give your answer.
When asked to share their vision of the future, fans had fun sharing their thoughts, and others used the Q&A as a way to voice their opinions on IE’s products.
Show your fans the fun
It’s always appropriate for any business, large or small, to show its personality. If it’s a personality that wants to be a little weird occasionally, go ahead and get a little weird.
Skittles is a great example of this tactic. Yes, most of their posts are silly, but it’s working for Skittles.
A typical day’s posts can include observations such as “Really boring pirates carry pigeons on their shoulders” and shots from the page’s ongoing BFF series, in which it posts photos from users posing with their beloved Skittles.
If you’re a product-based company, ask your users to send photos of themselves using your product or service in exchange for a shot at a prize, or for the honor of being featured on the page.
Post fun facts
Not all of your company’s posts should be brand-centric, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be branded. Kit Kat posts fun facts and takes advantage of popular topics, but also includes their tagline, “Break Time. Anytime.” on the images they share.
You should always look to tap into a trending local topic, particularly if it relates to your products and services. Find useful creative visual designs to reinforce the message.
Crowdsource ideas
Always use any and all ways to gain customer insights that you can employ. One way to accomplish this is to crowdsource ideas from customers. We have written about two companies that have used this technique very successfully. (See our two crowdsourcing articles … one on Starbucks and one on Legos.)
My Starbucks Idea website is at once a crowdsourcing tool, a market research method that brings customer priorities to light, an online community, and an effective internet marketing tool.
Encourage customers to give their opinions and reward the best ideas. It’s a great example of how a business can use social media as a mini–focus group and learn what customers want.
Social media as a customer service/ experience gateway
There are many ways a business can use social media to help manage customer service and experience. Start small, just collecting all inputs, good and bad. And then grow from there.
For example, the Olive Garden showcases their food with “Yum!”- Inducing photos to draw attention to their social media as a way to solicit customer service insights. That’s to be expected of a restaurant.
What’s more impressive, though, is that Olive Garden uses their platforms as a gateway to customer service. They encourage customers to chat with their guest relations team about experiences at their restaurant.
Don’t you think you can follow this model? You certainly don’t have to be a restaurant. How serious are you about customer service and customer insight engagement?
You don’t have to make the social network your main source for support, but you should respond and interact with your fans to answer their questions. You’ll not only boost engagement but also show that you’re human and you care about their opinions and questions.
Create new customer experiences
At the core of Ford’s social media marketing strategy is an effort to give the company’s potential customers a chance to experience the brand and the product in ways they never expected.
Before the unveiling of the 2011 Explorer, Ford created a Facebook page that gave its fans sneak peeks at features and video interviews with the design team and chief engineer. And in both campaigns, it’s the customers themselves that are selecting and talking about the new experiences.
Scott Monty’s advice on whether Social Media Marketing is right for your company,
If your customers are there, you need to be there too … he also went on to say ‘You need to listen.’ Observe how they behave and act similarly.
Respond to everyone
No matter what you do, if you want to build engagement, you have to be engaging with all customers and potential customers. What does this mean? Do a great job of responding to most comments.
Tag people in a comment stream to let them know that you’ve responded to their inquiry and appreciate their comment.
Analyze, correct, iterate, and learn
Analyze your measurement results, and continuously make corrections, iterate, and most importantly, learn.
Follow the 70/20/10 Rule
Here is an important guideline to keep in mind for all of your social media sites. Follow the 70/20/10 guideline … not a rule, but a guideline. Let us break that down for you.
The majority (70%) of content that a social media site page puts up should be brand- and business-building, meaning it’s information that is valuable to your followers. Content shared from other sources makes up 20% and the remaining 10% or less (NEVER more) is self-promotional.
Apply the 70/20/10 rule to your content mix and generate more interest in your social media and increase your customer engagement.
The bottom line
There are a lot of misconceptions about social media marketing. Just because you read something in a blog post or hear something from a credible source doesn’t mean it is true or true for you and your business.
Always do your research, and continually try to improve. Social media marketing is here to stay, and it can drive a lot of business for you, assuming you are leveraging it correctly.
There is more opportunity to fail in social media than to succeed if we treat it like any other marketing vehicle. Social media requires us to get away from being promotional and sensational and instead treat our customers with special attention. Special attention means being social, building relationships, and creating trust.
The bottom line, listen more than you talk. You’ll be amazed at how much you can learn about your audience when you shut up and listen. Try it!
Do you have a lesson about making your customer experience better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add to the section below?
Need some help in capturing more customers from your social media marketing or advertising? Creative ideas to help the differentiation with your customers?
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy to innovating your social media strategy?
Do you have a lesson about making your advertising better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add to the section below?
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way.
More reading on marketing and advertising from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.
For those, who are unfamiliar with the concept, a crawl budget is a frequency with which the crawlers of the search engine go over the contents of your website to enable them to be indexed and ranked. Optimizing crawl budgets refers to the process by which, you can boost the frequency of crawler visits to your website so that the page indexing is done more quickly and you start deriving the benefits of your SEO efforts.
Even though it is a vital aspect of SEO, the crawl budget often gets neglected because the SEO practitioner has too many things on his plate. While it is natural to think that a higher frequency is advisable, the process also slows down the site, which may not be what the business managers would want.
Reasons
Why the Crawl Budget Is Often Ignored
Perhaps the biggest reason why the crawl budget is one of the most neglected SEO activities is that crawling is not a direct ranking factor as Google itself has clarified. With this being made clear, it is generally enough for most SEO professionals to stop thinking about it.
However, the fact is that the crawl budget makes sense for very large websites that have millions of pages; however, it is not something to concern yourself if you have a mid-size website. The fact that you have millions of pages on your website is also a good indicator that you should trim it down to a more manageable size.
However, as people who are familiar with SEO know that you cannot get the results you want just by changing one factor. Effective SEO involves looking at dozens of metrics, which may need incremental changes, and it is the job of the SEO manager to ensure that all these changes are optimized to the extent possible.
In this context, the observation by Google’s John Mueller should be kept in mind that while the crawl index may not be a significant factor by itself, it does lend itself to superior conversions and better health of the website.
Important
Aspects of Optimizing the Crawl Budget
Permit robots.txt to crawl the most important website pages
This is perhaps the most fundamental step in optimizing the crawl budget. The management of robots.txt can be done manually, or you could use a website auditing tool. Normally, using the auditing tool is more convenient, simple, and effective.
All you need to do is to select the auditing tool of your choice and add the robots.txt file to it so permit or even block the crawling of your web pages. Thereafter, all you need to do is to upload the edited document and you are good to go.
It is evident that this also can be done manually; however, when you are handling really large websites where repeated corrections may be needed, a tool represents the easier way out.
Spot the redirect chains
Under ideal circumstances, you should take care to avoid the occurrence of even a single redirect chain on your domain, however, when the website has a large number of pages, it is inescapable, and you are bound to have a situation where there are – 301 and 302 redirects.
The problem is that if there are a large number of these redirects bunched together it can hurt the ability of the search engines to crawl your website. This may be even to the extent that the crawl may just be completely stalled, as the crawlers may not be able to cut through the maze of redirects and reach the pages that need to be indexed.
While a few redirects will not cause too much damage, it is always a good policy to eliminate them for improved SEO, observes an Atomic Design SEO consultant.
Use HTML as much as possible
The reason why it is better to use HTML is that even though Google’s crawlers can now crawl JavaScript and have gotten better at handling Flash and XML, other search engines have yet to catch up.
To ensure that you do not spoil your chances with any search engine crawler, it is better to stick to HTML that is universally accepted.
Do not allow HTTP errors hurt your crawl budget: It is an accepted fact that 404 and 410 pages have a negative impact on your crawl budget and on top of that, they also spoil the UX.
This is the reason why you must take care to set right all 4xx and 5xx status codes. While it is possible to undertake a manual process, using a website audit tool is far more convenient.
Pay attention to your URL parameters
SEO practitioners always need to remember that individual URLs are considered as separate pages by search engine crawlers and the larger the number of URLs, the more the wastage of your crawl budget.
The best way of preserving your crawl budget is to inform Google regarding the URL parameters. The bonus is that this step will also avoid concerns about duplicate content.
By taking care to ensure that the XML sitemap is updated with the latest information, you will facilitate the task of the search engine bots as they endeavor to understand where the internal links point.
It is a good practice to use only canonical URLs for your sitemap and also make sure that it matches the latest robots.txt version uploaded to the web.
Analyze your localized pages with hreflang tags
Search engine crawlers use hreflang tags to analyze pages with localized information. Effective SEO comprises keeping Google informed about the localized versions of your web pages as explicitly as possible.
The best way of doing this is to use the <link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”lang_code” href=”url_of_page” /> in the header section of the web page, where the supported languages are represented by the “lang_code”. To be able to point to the localized page versions, you should always use the <loc> element for the specified URL.
The bottom line
All
SEO practitioners who have so far ignored the optimization crawl budget will
now know the different reasons why it is important. They will also know the
various tactics by which the optimization can be achieved helping the search
engine crawlers to crawl the web pages without interruption and index them for
best rankings.
With over a billion active users each month, you need to be on Instagram to get attention for your business. These Instagram tips and tricks will help.
While you might
already be on Instagram with your personal account, if you’re not using it to
promote your business, you’re missing out on leads and sales.
If you’re not
sure how to use Instagram for business, we have Instagram tips and tricks that
we are going to share with you, so you can become a pro. Continue reading this
article to learn about using Instagram for your business.
Use Hashtags to
Build a Community
Hashtags are a
great way to bring likeminded people together. You can create a campaign around
a hashtag and have people post their photos for the hashtag.
You’ll see that
your customers and fans are interacting with each other, and this will build a
community and make people have another reason to continue doing business with
you.
Relate to Your
Target Audience
When you’re
creating your Instagram content, think about your target audience and why they
are on Instagram. If you’re posting content that they don’t want to see and pushing
your brand, it’s not going to go well for your brand.
Look at your
buyer persons, figure out why they are on Instagram, and create content they
want to see. When you’re creating this content, you need to keep in mind that
it still needs to be relevant to your business. You don’t want to just post
things they want to see and not get your message across.
Don’t Go Crazy
With Posts
If you’re new
to Instagram, you might want to build your Instagram profile up very quickly.
If you already
have people following you, calm down on the posting. You don’t want people to
unfollow you because you’re posting too many images throughout the day.
It’s better to
add a couple a day to get your profile established slowly and then start
sharing consistently than to try to get everything on your profile at once and
look like you’re spamming the feed.
Promote Your
Instagram on Other Platforms
When you’re
growing your Instagram profile, you need to promote it on your other platforms.
Let people on Facebook know you’re now on Instagram. Send an email blast to
your subscribers and let them know they can find you on Instagram now.
Don’t announce
that you joined Instagram and leave it at that. When you post new content, you
can share it to Facebook and other platforms so people will naturally click on
it and follow you to see more similar content.
Use the Tools
Instagram Provides
Instagram is
constantly upgrading its platform and giving creators new tools to make great
content.
There are
editing tools, filters, and special effects. Learning how to use these will
help you get attention in the feed. If your posts are too boring, people are
not going to click on your content, and you won’t get any leads or sales for
your business.
Spy On Your
Competition and Fans
Do you feel
like you’re running low on ideas and you need something to freshen up your
feed? Spying on the competition is the perfect way to get ideas for your feed.
You can change
the ideas up a little bit and make them unique for your company, but spying on
the competition is a great way to get ideas that you know work.
There are so
many brands that are sharing on Instagram, and you should be following all of
the ones that are having great success. There is no use in recreating the wheel
when you have proof of what is working and how you should go after the
attention of Instagram’s users.
Not only should
you be looking at your competition though, but also look at your fans. What are
they posting and raving about?
You can learn a
lot from your fans and how you can give them the content they want. You may
even want to share a screenshot of something that one of your fans shared on
their feed.
Interact With
Important Accounts
When you want
to get attention from a certain account try interacting with their content.
Heart and comment on their photos frequently, and if it is appropriate, send
them a DM.
If you don’t
want to be on your phone watching Instagram all of the time, you can
learn how to DM on
Instagram on Mac so you can get your message to them easily.
You can DM
people to ask them about influencer partnerships, discounts, and other
important things, but make sure to use this sparingly.
Go Behind the
Scenes With Instagram Stories
Instagram stories are a great place to go behind the scenes of your Instagram. You can’t really post too much on Instagram stories. If people don’t want to see all of your stories, they can easily swipe away.
Let people get
to know you better and understand what you’re all about, and you’ll see your
Instagram success soar.
You’re a Pro
With These Instagram Tips and Tricks
Now that you
know more about Instagram, you can use these Instagram tips and tricks to get
to the next level in your business. Instagram is where people like to hang out
and look at cool photos, but it’s also where they gather inspiration for what
to buy next.
What else would
you like to learn about Instagram or other important topics? Continue reading
our blog today to become informed on other topics you care about.
Most businesses now know the value of social media budget, and usually, have some sort of expense put aside for it. But if your business is too small to have a dedicated social media manager, how do you make the most of this? When you’re trying to cover all sorts of different responsibilities, social media can often fall by the wayside, so here are some strategies for small businesses to succeed online.
Start building a following, even before you launch
Followers can translate
into sales, with 77% of people in a study saying that they’re more likely to buy from brands who they follow on
social media. Even if it’s just
friends and family at first, the sooner you get people viewing and interacting
with your posts, the more likely they’ll appear on your follower’s timeline.
Facebook’s algorithm tends to prioritize posts that people want to see, so
that’s why likes and comments are important from day one.
Set yourself some objectives
Every company will have their own idea of what they want to achieve on their social media page. Usually, it’s as simple as getting someone to click through to your online shop, fill in an inquiry form, or send a message via messenger.
Once you have some
objectives in place, you can put together a social media plan. You should
create a calendar so you can clearly lay out when certain campaigns will start,
seasonal marketing, and posts highlighting things like awareness
days or other events relevant to
your industry. Whatever you decide to post, you should think about how this
will boost your brand and whether it’ll be effective in meeting your
objectives.
See which posts perform best
After you’ve spent a couple
of months on social media, you can look up details of your post engagement, including:
The number of people who bought something/filled in an inquiry or other interaction
The number of video views and how long people watched it
There’s no point doing certain types of the post if people aren’t interested, so try a few different things and you’ll be able to pinpoint what works for your followers.
See what competitors are doing
While you want to lead your
industry, not just follow trends, it can be helpful to know what the
competition is doing so you can react accordingly. If you decide to go through Lean Six Sigma Online Training, you’ll know how important it is to deliver the
products and services that people want, and not overwhelm the customer with too
many choices. This is why it’s worth looking at the successful companies in
your industry and seeing if you can work out what they do well.
While you may not have the
budget for someone to do your social media full-time, small businesses can
often make a big impact with a little bit of planning, even if they have a tiny
budget.
Social networking is not about farming followers, it’s a way of cultivating relationships. How many times have you seen companies requesting people to friend them on Facebook? Like farming, followers were the name of the game. Sad but true. The truth is that a social media plan and its marketing tactics are really about cultivating relationships with potential customers. Fan ‘skins’, by themselves, are of very little value.
What is the importance of social media in your business? Dialog with customers for sure. What about reading your content and remembering? Appreciating your help? Marketing? Building relationships? We believe it is all of these things, but the bottom line goal is relationship building.
In the ever-changing landscape of social networking, you might be wondering if you are getting the most out of your business’s social media marketing tactics? Here we define social media community engagement as the process of gaining website customer traffic, attention, interaction, and ultimately relationships through social media sites.
Have you ever thought about how to build positive social media community engagement?
This task starts with what customers want and need. Most people want to: feel needed, be valued, be appreciated, be fulfilled, share emotions, laugh and be happy, succeed and be inspired. Make them feel something that feels unique to what other brands are blasting at them. To do this you must know who your community is. You must know how to catch and hold their attention.
So let’s examine our recommended game plan to build positive social media marketing tactics for community engagement:
During the Sochi Olympics, Coca-Cola hosted a contest/series called #CokeGames. The gist of it was that they created simple Olympics-inspired games like Bottle Cap Hockey, Coke Curling, Ice Cube Ski Jump.
Then, they asked their followers to play along by filming and uploading short videos of the Coke fan playing the game. The incentive was an opportunity to win a $100 gift card.
Your small business could adopt this idea, using any big local event as inspiration. It might be a local seafood festival or perhaps a local hockey team championship game. These local events happen all the time and offer great opportunities for the attention of your brand and therefore your relationship building.
Tell short stories
Not sure what content your fans want? Prototype and test your ideas! Try posting different types of status updates, related and not related to your product and company. Also, use your social media insights to see what your readers are engaging with the most, and then deliver more of it.
Many brands build TV commercials and then share them with fans on their social media sites. A great example is with the Guinness ad we discussed in our article on Guinness marketing using storytelling. This technique used subtle messaging with a great story to appeal to fans. The story’s light touch made sharing the story seem less like an advertisement
Doing a great job of creating campaigns that tell short stories and have subtle messaging is an effective marketing tactic.
If you’re inexperienced in video marketing, that’s okay. There is a very large variety of articles on the topic, and a good place to learn. But remember the best way to learn is by doing and practicing. Start your video creations with free tools like Vine and Instagram.
Show appreciation to other brands
Sharing company-branded media highlights of synergistic partners of your business can be a big win-win. It starts with finding ‘soft’ synergistic partners that could easily help spread each other’s messages.
.
Employ user-generated content
Eye-catching photos, hashtags, and tagging are all good ways to support engagement and sharing. They can all be used effectively building on user-generated content.
Dove used the hashtag option with its #beautyis campaign. The campaign was branded but relied on user-generated content like fan pictures using the product to tap into a younger demographic. Their approach was to focus on customer input to help generate traffic and engagement without the hard sell.
You’ll find that brand campaigns permit good consistency in marketing messages across multiple social media sites
Give updates on sales and discounts
Give your fans what they want: a heads-up on sales or discounts. These types of rewards keep them returning to your website. Fans love to see this kind of information on social media. According to a Syncapse study, 42% of respondents said they like a brand to give “a coupon or discount.”
Stimulate conversation with thought-provoking questions
How do you create fan conversation? One great way we have found is through asking fans a thought-provoking question. Use questions that relate to your brand.
For example, Internet Explorer asked how people imagine the web in 5 years? Remember that you need to be part of the community and give your answer.
When asked to share their vision of the future, fans had fun sharing their thoughts and others used the Q&A as a way to voice their opinions on IE’s products.
Show your fans the fun
It’s always appropriate for a brand to show its personality. If it’s a personality that wants to be a little weird occasionally, go ahead and get a little weird.
Skittles is a great example of this tactic. Yes, most of their posts are silly, but it’s working for Skittles.
A typical day’s posts can include observations such as “Really boring pirates carry pigeons on their shoulders” and shots from the page’s ongoing BFF series, in which it posts photos from users posing with their beloved Skittles.
If you’re a product-based company, ask your users to send photos of themselves using your product or service in exchange for a shot at a prize, or for the honor of being featured on the page.
Share interesting news about your company
Got some great company news to share? If your business just won an award or competition, share the news. Jeep wasn’t shy when the 2014 Jeep Patriot won a Kelley Blue Book 5-year cost to own award. They announced the award on social media. It was a great way to share good news and promote a product without overtly selling.
Post fun facts and popular topics
Not all of your company’s posts should be brand-centric, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be branded. Kit Kat posts fun facts and takes advantage of popular topics, but also includes their tagline, “Break Time. Anytime.” on the images they share.
You should always look to tap into a trending local topic, particularly if it relates to your products and services. Find useful creative visual designs to reinforce the message.
Social media marketing tactics … crowdsource ideas
Always use any and all ways to gain customer insights that you can employ. One way to is to crowdsource ideas from customers. We have written about two companies that have used this technique very successfully. ( See our 2 crowdsourcing articles … one on Starbucks and one on Legos.)
My Starbucks Idea website is at once a crowdsourcing tool, a market research method that brings customer priorities to light, an online community, and an effective internet marketing tool.
Encourage customers to give their opinions and reward the best ideas. It’s a great example of how a business can use social media as a mini–focus group and learn what customers really want.
Use social media as a customer service/ experience gateway
There are many ways a brand can use social media to help manage customer service and experience. Start small, just collecting all inputs, good and bad. And then grow from there.
For example, the Olive Garden showcases their food with “Yum!”-inducing photos to draw attention to their social media as a way to solicit customer service insights. That’s to be expected of a restaurant.
What’s more impressive, though, is that Olive Garden uses their platforms as a gateway to customer service. They encourage customers to chat with their guest relations team about experiences at their restaurant.
Don’t you think you can follow this model? You certainly don’t have to be a restaurant. How serious are you about customer service and customer insight engagement?
You don’t have to make the social network your main source for support, but you should respond and interact with your fans to answer their questions. You’ll not only boost engagement but also show that you’re human and you care about their opinions and questions.
Follow the 70/20/10 Rule
Here is an important guideline to keep in mind for all of your social media sites. Follow the 70/20/10 guideline … not a rule, but a guideline. Let us break that down for you. The majority (70%) of content that a social media site page puts up should be brand- and business-building, meaning it’s information that is valuable to your followers. Content shared from other sources makes up 20% and the remaining 10% or less (NEVER more) is self-promotional.
Apply the 70/20/10 rule to your own content mix and generate more interest for your social media and increase your customer engagement.
Inspire your community
In any social media site, you need to learn what inspires visitors to visit your site. This means you try many sources of content and visual content and learn what attracts the most customer targets. And is sticky enough to keep them.
For example, the Quicksilver brand page plays to their audience with stunning images of ocean waves and surfers and acknowledges sponsors and events. All of their content reflects their mission to “inspire people to seek new adventures.”
In one update, they posted an image from a video of a professional surfer. It would have been easy enough to just post the video on their page, but they chose to help drive traffic to a website they thought their users would like. They were thinking of the customer first and that got them a lot of feedback.
Take advantage of the visual design
First and foremost, prioritize visual design in your efforts. Presenting your content in a visual format has a number of benefits. First, humans recognize and process images much faster than text; this is why visual content has much greater appeal. A study by 3M showed that 90% of the information sent to the brain is visual, and visuals are processed 60,000 times faster than text.
Second, using a diversity of image types makes your content continuously fresh, which encourages readers to explore more. In visual design, the combination of photography, illustration, videos and data visualization keeps the eyes interested and moving around the page. More time on site means more engagement with your brand.
Employ brand-specific APPs
As we move through time, more and more customers are using smartphone technology for everything to do with marketing, shopping, and purchasing. Find some good mobile APPS that could help your business and offer them to your customers, including information about how they could be of help to them.
Social media plan … Build email subscription lists
Like all pages on social media, most brands use their pages to introduce new products, share videos, talk about upcoming events, and grow their email and customer base lists.
Here is an example, your business can build their email subscription list by creating a photo album to promote a new product or service.
Another example, if customers want to be reminded when a future product (coming soon) will be available, they can sign up for an email alert. A nice seamless way to engage consumers and move them through the sales funnel.
Respond to everyone
No matter what you do, if you want to build engagement you have to be engaging with all customers and potential customers. What does this mean? Do a great job of responding to most comments.
Tag people in a comment stream to let them know that you’ve responded to their inquiry and/or appreciate their comment.
Social media strategy outline … employ cross-channel incentives
It is vital that businesses integrate their marketing in all channels. Tie your inputs in social media to your newspaper ads and your in-store marketing activities.
Here is an example: Williams-Sonoma, a brand with a full-featured online store and over 250 brick-and-mortar locations in the U.S., invites social media fans to in-store events. Not only will this help spread the word; it’s also a good way to entice in-person shoppers, who may have happened upon the event, to stay in-the-know by becoming social media fans, too.
Certainly local small business doesn’t have this scale, but the example applies to small businesses as well.
Capture customer inputs and insights
An engaged social media audience can serve as an ongoing, cost-effective way to discover what fans like. Wrapping the information up in a quarterly report or more impromptu sharing of information could also help keep fans engaged.
Not sure what content your fans want? A prototype, test, and test some more. Try posting different types of status updates, related and not related to your product and company. Also, use your social media to see what your fans are engaging with the most, and then deliver more of it.
As an example, the Zillow brand uses social media to share real estate in specific regions of the U.S., but that’s not all. Zillow leverages their access to fans to capture a lot of information about preferences for room styles and settings.
The brand uses questions to solicit those opinions. On their page, you’ll notice that they use both open-ended and multiple-choice questions for market research. Certainly a good idea for most businesses, big and small.
The bottom line
In this article, we’ve explored a multitude of creative ways brands use social media status updates to increase engagement. The key takeaway is to know your audience and what they’re most likely to respond to. Give them more of that!
It’s OK to promote your company and products, but do it in a way that capitalizes on your audience’s deepest interests and connects with them on a personal level. Avoid selling.
Need some help in capturing more customers from your social media marketing or advertising? Creative ideas to help the differentiation with your customers?
Call today for a FREE consultation or a FREE quote. Learn about some options to scope your job.
Call Mike at 607-725-8240.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy to innovating your social media strategy?
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed at how reasonable we will be.
More reading on social media platforms from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on, and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on Facebook, Twitter, Quora, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.
You may have heard this statement before: the networked consumers know more than most companies about their products and services. Whether the facts are good or bad, they tell everybody about what they know.
Have you had this experience with networked consumers? Certainly, it motivates you to know about small business social media tactics and marketing doesn’t it?
What is social media?
“Social media” is a way for people to communicate and interact online. While it has been around since the dawn of the World Wide Web, in the last ten years or so we’ve seen a surge in both the number and popularity of social media sites. It’s called social media because users engage with (and around) it in a social context, which can include conversations, commentary, and other user-generated annotations and engagement interactions.
Publishing content has become exponentially simpler over the last several years, which has helped skyrocket the use of social media. Non-technical web users are now able to easily create content on a rapidly growing number of platforms, including those that are owned (hosted communities, blogs, etc.), rented (social networks or third-party communities), and occupied (commenting, contributing, etc.).
For businesses, the shift in web consumerism and the accompanying rise in social media brings excellent opportunity. The real magic lies in the ability to grow lasting and scalable relationships with your organization’s customer base through social media. Whether your business is listening and engaging or not, customers are having conversations relevant to your operations. It’s better to be part of the conversation, right?
Marketers get four main benefits from social media:
LISTENING
Every company needs to listen and to hear what customers are talking about
REACH
The number of customers you can communicate with
NURTURING
Build trust with customers and have the opportunity to educate them
RELATIONSHIP BUILDING
Increase the strength/quality of your relationships
One of the most frequent requests we get from small business owners who are either new to social media marketing or struggling with it is to provide them with a simple system they can implement and manage to achieve success. Unfortunately, the truth is that there is no such system.
Every situation is unique and social media is as much an art as it is a science. However, having said that, there are some general social media rules that provide a framework of wisdom–wisdom that you can apply in almost every unique situation to capitalize on social media opportunities and maximize your potential for success.
While there is a virtual cornucopia of valid rules out there, the following list represents 14 core social media rules to get you started and (hopefully) headed in the right direction–towards success in your small business social media marketing!
It’s the value add
Social media is like a bank account. You simply cannot withdraw more value than you deposit into your account! Too many people wrongly view social media as an auto-pilot cash cow, money tree, or limitless personal ATM. I assure you… it is not. It requires effort and careful planning, and you will only get out of it what you are willing to put into it.
A quick splash of value-free content will only produce quick and limited results at best. Just as Chinese food always leaves you hungry an hour later, quick social media splashes always leave you dying of thirst in a social media desert sooner rather than later.
Social media is a 24/7 business—not once a week occasion! You need to monitor and interact with others constantly. You can’t pencil in “social media time” on your Google calendar once a week and hope to be successful.
Blog content drives conversions
Don’t make the fatal mistake of using more ads to compensate for bad content. Rather, create quality content to convert to your ads. If folks don’t like your content, they are not going to stick around long enough to be converted (i.e., perform an action such as clicking or subscribing).
Likewise, more social media postings and links won’t compensate for bad content and poor headings either! It all starts with content, and everything else depends upon it for results.
Keep refreshing your pages
Keep your social media pages and profiles up-to-date and synchronized across platforms. You wouldn’t hand out old business cards with the wrong information… so don’t do it with your social media.
Focus on emotion
Social media, like most marketing, is emotion-driven. People’s behavior (e.g., sharing your content or buying your product) is based on emotional responses. Your social media content should appeal to their hearts–not their heads. (You can—and should—appeal to their heads through quality content on your website or blog)
Best social media … more channels is not a strategy
Don’t go to social media platforms because of their image… go to where your target audience is. For example, Facebook–despite its well-documented and highly touted popularity–is the last place some small businesses should go.
Don’t chase after the “best” or “most popular” networks—chase your audience! Find out where they are and live there.
Chase customers, not competitors
Just because something is working for your competitor is no guarantee that it will work for you. Chaos theory teaches that every situation is unique and requires a different model. Thus, understanding your customers is far more important than understanding your competitors.
Besides, let’s be honest, when it comes to social media, they are more than likely just blindly following somebody else! Stop being one of the three blind mice and be an entrepreneurial leader.
Social media sites like Facebook.
Measurements and more measurements
Just because you can measure something doesn’t mean you should. Not all metrics are created equal—or even worthwhile. Carefully select those metrics that provide feedback related to your social media plan and strategies.
Einstein reportedly once had a sign hanging in his office that read, “Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.” Every social media manager should have that sign hanging in their office!
There are no magic formulas
When people try to give you a formula for how to be successful with social media–no matter how well-intentioned they may be… ignore them!
There is no formula for success–not in traditional marketing and certainly not for social media marketing. While there are some general rules (more like guidelines), such as the ones offered in this article, there are no consistently repeatedly formulas to achieve success.
Every situation is unique (see Rule #11). Understand your situation and design a social media plan that uniquely works for you.
A schedule is needed, but it is not a strategy
While schedules are good (they are a tool for increased efficiency and productivity), they are not a social media strategy. A strategy provides both direction and reason. Scheduling when and where you will post content provides neither. You may send a lot of lead downrange but it in no way ensures you will hit your target!
Networks channels are different
To be successful in social media requires understanding and mastering the inherent differences between social media networks. For example, Facebook embodies the spirit of pure social interaction, while Twitter is all about communicating news and information. Understand the difference and act accordingly!
Make stories a centerpiece
Marketing always has been and always will be about telling stories… stories that influence behavior and convince people to act. Make sure your social media content tells a story and that your story is compelling and relevant–especially your headlines.
Social is different from traditional marketing
The nuances of social media marketing are entirely distinct from that of classical marketing. Just as it is important to understand the differences between networks, it is equally important to understand how and why social media marketing is different from traditional marketing. (And make sure your boss or clients understand as well!)
If you are not sure about the differences, click here for a great infographic that spells out some of them. [Note: The site is not in English; however, the infographic thankfully is]
Experience is king
I’m not talking about your experience… I mean your customers’ experience! Strive to keep their experience consistent, enjoyable, and simple. For example, don’t ask them to do X, Y, and Z, or jump through 3 hoops simultaneously. Rather, stick to just X or one hoop. Folks don’t like to make decisions, so keep the decision as simple as possible for them!
The bottom line
The purpose for you to become more actively involved with social media is to find additional opportunities to connect with customers and share information with them that they enjoy receiving.
This is the core of building customer relationships and trust. They are fundamental to winning and keeping customers,
Need some help in capturing more customers from your social media marketing or advertising? Creative ideas to help the differentiation with your customers?
Call today for a FREE consultation or a FREE quote. Learn about some options to scope your job.
Call Mike at 607-725-8240.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy to innovating your social media strategy?
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed at how reasonable we will be.
Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on, and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on Facebook, Twitter, Quora, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.
Do you struggle with ways to conclude a blog post? It is the most important paragraph next to the introduction, isn’t it? Many bloggers don’t write a final paragraph. They share their tips, and that’s it. Their content just winds to a dull ending. But it doesn’t have to be like that. You can conclude a blog post better than the average bear, right?
But as bloggers, our task is not simply to share tips but to encourage our readers, to make them feel good, to spark action … to be a good teacher.
Ways to conclude a blog post.
But how do the best teachers inspire you?
Start with imagining your favorite reader. What’s stopping him from implementing your advice? Does he feel overwhelmed? Does he think he can’t do it? Does he feel it’s too much effort for too little gain? Let’s hope not.
When you understand what’s holding your favorite reader back, you can help him with specific advice. Give a pep talk or remind him of the benefits of implementing your advice.
Once you’ve defined the aim of your final paragraph, write a draft, and edit it for power and inspiration:
Do you agree that an intriguing tone hooks people’s attention right away? We do. This tried and tested method makes people think of a “what if” scenario that keeps them reading on to the next paragraphs. Open with this hook, and you’re sure to keep people interested.
Repeat the best
Imagine a long list post with 18 writing tips.
Would readers feel overwhelmed? Would they remember anything?
A simple way to write your final lines is to repeat the essence of your message—the one thing you want your readers to remember.
In the following paragraph, for instance, the reader is reminded that good blogging is a conversation with your readers:
You’re starting a conversation with your readers. To have a good chat, you need to listen more than you talk.
Learn who your readers are. Understand their struggles. Know their frustrations.
Treat your readers even better than you would treat a friend. Help them overcome their doubts and fears. Encourage them to realize their dreams.
Captivate them. Seduce them. Enchant them.
Sweep them off their feet.
End with a compelling idea
People are tired of hearing the same old thing over and over again. Jumping out at them with an interesting and unique idea makes your content shine through the competition. If you don’t have any snappy ideas yet, try to reframe a simple sentence into an engaging one.
So circling back to your introduction gives your writing a finished and balanced feel.
How?
Communicate a powerful image in your opening paragraph, and go back to this image in your closing lines.
For Copyblogger, I wrote a post about vivid writing, and the opening paragraph talks about your message standing out like a red poppy in a sea of gray content.
In the closing paragraph, I repeat this image:
How often do we read content that surprises and delights? That will enchant readers, yes?
How often are we inspired by a blog post?
Life is too short for monotone voices. Life is too short for wishy-washy writing. Life is too short to regurgitate ideas without adding value.
It’s time to have fun, infuse your content with your personality, and dazzle your readers with your words.
Come on. Dare to be that red poppy shining brightly in an ocean of gray content.
Let your ideas sparkle, shimmer, sing, swing, swirl, shock, and sizzle.
You’re the leader your readers are waiting for.
Get ready to spark change.
Tell readers why they should care
You and I both know that change is hard.
How can we encourage our readers to roll up their sleeves and implement our tips?
Tell them why they should care. How will their efforts pay off? How will they feel better?
The paragraph below, for instance, is the closing of a post with six tips for conversational writing. To encourage readers to do the hard work of editing, they’re reminded why a conversational style is powerful:
Do you ever think back to a conversation you had with a friend? Do you hear her voice in your head?
That’s how readers should experience your content. Let your words linger in their minds. Inspire them long after they’ve read your words.
In a world of endless pixels and meaningless likes, we crave human connections and voices that resonate with us.
So, be you. Brew a cup of green tea. Offer your readers a slice of homemade cake.
Don’t go over-the-top with your initial paragraph. Your purpose is to hook your readers in, not distract them with a wordy start. Keep it simple with a clear and concise beginning. Avoid putting in unnecessary descriptions or filler words that might move away from your main points.
“Don’t go into great detail describing places and things, unless you’re Margaret Atwood and can paint scenes with language” – Elmore Leonard, a famous novelist gave his recommendation for writers.
A pep talk often works well
Sometimes, we ask nearly impossible from our readers.
Because a big obstacle sabotages their efforts to implement our advice. Obstacles like self-doubt, feeling overwhelmed or being totally stressed out.
The concluding paragraph gives readers a pep talk to overcome their self-doubt.
You may feel overwhelmed. But quit doubting yourself.
You may even feel intimidated by others bragging about their huge followings, their launch successes, and the amount of money they’re making.
But remember, everyone starts at zero. Zero followers. Zero subscribers. Zero profit.
You may doubt whether you’re able to pull this off.
That’s normal.
Even people like Neil Gaiman, Sheryl Sandberg, Sonia Sotomayor, and Emma Watson feel like a fraud sometimes.
Nobody is perfect. Nobody knows everything. And nobody possesses the perfect blueprint. We all stumble around from time to time.
So pick up the courage to get started.
And keep moving forward.
Ways to conclude a blog post … paint an image
A vivid picture in people’s minds will give your conclusion a better edge. To create a neat but descriptive start, think of just one main idea. Once you’ve zeroed in on your chosen topic, describe it in the best way you can. Don’t resort to simple adjectives. Think of more unconventional and creative ways to paint that image.
Provide comfort to readers
As a blogger, you position yourself as a voice of authority.
But the problem with authority is that it creates a distance between you and your readers. Readers might think … she can do it; she’s an authority. But I can’t. I’m not good enough.
This is when you can offer comfort and a sense of connection … tell readers they’re not alone and that you’ve had the same doubts:
When I started writing, I didn’t think of myself as a writer. I doubted my skills. I didn’t know whether I had enough ideas.
But every time I had to write an article, I learned more about writing. I followed my curiosity. I discovered what I’m passionate about, and I learned what resonated with my audience.
You might think you don’t have enough to share. Or you might doubt your writing skills.
This is what I’d like to tell you:
You’re unique. You have unique experiences. And you’ll discover your voice and your passions when you write more. Writing brings clarity, deepens your understanding, and strengthens your ideas.
So, commit to writing. To creating valuable content. To be helpful to your readers.
Start making tiny ripples.
That’s how change begins.
Invigorate your readers
A good blogger understands the beauty of language, and how to use words for maximum impact.
But choosing the right words is a superficial form of beauty.
The real beauty comes from within … a willingness to help, to be honest, and generous. A spirited drive to share your ideas. A real sense of human connection.
The real beauty of writing comes from a deep understanding of your readers, and a desire to spark change, no matter how tiny.
Empower your readers.
The bottom line
These are things that we already know, of course. They are not rocket science and shouldn’t be.
This list of little things simply reminds us of what we have forgotten. Then it is up to us to put these lessons (or reminders) into daily use through persistence and practice.
Remember … your experience and learning trumps all!
Need some help in capturing more customers from your social media marketing or advertising? Creative ideas to help the differentiation with your customers?
Call today for a FREE consultation or a FREE quote. Learn about some options to scope your job.
Call Mike at 607-725-8240.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy to innovating your social media strategy?
Do you have a lesson about making your advertising better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed at how reasonable we will be.
More reading on social media marketing creativity from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on, and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on Facebook, Twitter, Quora, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.
Data is one of the most powerful tools that
any business has at its disposal. As long as they use it properly, of course.
Doing social media well is a challenge, and it is one area where many of the
biggest businesses still fail. Here are some of the ways that data analytics
can take any business’ social media to the next level.
Anticipate Trends
It doesn’t matter what specific market or
industry your business operates in, if you are able to accurately predict market trends then you will
have a serious advantage over your competitors. Being able to predict trends
means that you can get ahead of the curve and can plan proactively instead of
reactively.
But if predicting trends was so easy,
everyone would do it. By setting up social media bots and listeners to gather
and scrape data for you, you can automatically monitor the most important
people and groups on the platform who are relevant to your business. This data
enables you to anticipate what your competitors are going to do and what your
audience is about to start demanding.
Getting even slightly ahead on this stuff
can translate into a massive advantage over your competitors, so it is worth
investing the time and money necessary to set up an effective social media scraping and listening operation.
Gain Insight About
Consumers
Understanding your market as an abstract
entity is important, but it is also important to understand your consumers as
individuals. Think about all the communications that your customers send to
their friends and family through social media. If you can gain insights about
these communications you will gain similarly prescient insights about the
individuals sending them.
Not all of these communications will be
accessible to you, but a great many of them will be, more than enough to be of
value to you. Social media listening tools will enable you to identify when
messages relevant to your business are being sent and automatically capture the
data.
Of course, the analytics are just as, if
not more, important than the data collection itself. If you don’t currently
have a data specialist on your staff, consider hiring someone with a graduate certificate in data analytics or
higher. Make sure that you pair your listening setup with a streamlined
workflow for the storage and analysis of any data that you collect.
Precisely Target Your
Content Strategies
Social media users are used to having
content wash over them. There’s so much content coming at most users that they
will only interact with a small fraction of it and won’t even be aware of most
of it. If you want to capture your users’ attention and win their engagement,
you need to serve up content that speaks to them.
The more data you have about your users and their engagement with your existing content, the more you will be able to refine your future approach. It’s no good just telling your social media manager to be more engaging.
Instead, you need to give them specific direction. If you can show them the data underlying your decisions, this will enable them to do their job better.
Collecting and analyzing the right data
from your social media efforts will make it much easier to formulate effective
strategies for the future. Don’t rely on indirect metrics for assessing your
social media performance. Instead, use listeners and scrapers as you need to
get the data you need.
Social media works the way the grass grows. You rarely see it working, but every week you have to mow the grass. Social media has been around for more than a decade now, so it should be easy to figure out how to leverage it, right? And avoid bad social media marketing trends, for sure. But hold on for a minute.
What is the importance of social media marketing trends to your business? Dialog with customers for sure. What about reading your content and remembering? Appreciating your help? Marketing? Building relationships? We believe it is all of these things, but the bottom line goal is relationship building.
How many times have you seen companies requesting people to friend them on Facebook? Like farming, followers was the name of the game. Sad but true. The truth is that social media marketing tactics are really about cultivating relationships with potential customers. Fan ‘skins’, by themselves, are of very little value.
In the ever-changing landscape of social networking, you might be wondering if you are getting the most out of your business’s social media marketing tactics?
Or perhaps little to no value at all. Here we define social media community engagement as the process of gaining website customer traffic, attention, interaction, and ultimately relationships through social media sites.
To gauge your ads here is a short video to illustrate the best creative ads of 2018:
In part it is true, but things get complicated by all the misinformation circulating about social media marketing. From leveraging tactics to tracking issues, you are bombarded with conflicting messages, including whether social media marketing is worth using at all. And all of this misinformation creates more and more social media marketing mistakes.
Here are 15 social media marketing mistakes that we have all made at one time or the other. We’ll review them here in hopes to reduce them in the future:
Bad marketing trends … Focusing on fans, not relationships
What would you rather take? More fans/followers or an engaged community that’s ten times smaller? I hope you’d pick the engaged community. Social sites look at how much traction your post generates in relation to the number of followers you have. If the ratio is good, they will start showing your content to more people outside of your circle.
That’s how you generate more traffic: focus on getting the right followers who will become your engaged community.
Do you hold secrets?
Hold secrets close to the vest
Google is probably the king of holding secrets close to the vest, but they’re big and can afford to. The rest of us need to reach out and give away the farm. And avoiding secrets at all costs.
Don’t be afraid to email companies and potential customers that you think you can help. What’s the worst thing that they can do… ignore your email?
More focus on traffic compared to conversion
If social media traffic didn’t convert, do you think Facebook would be worth over 100 billion dollars? And it’s not just Facebook, it’s all the good social media sites. These companies are worth a lot of money because their user base spends money. The users spend enough money to make advertising on these sites profitable.
I’m not saying you need to start spending money on paid social ads, but you should leverage these sites because their visitors to convert.
It starts with traffic, of course, but that is the means and not the ends. The ends are the conversions.
Not only does social media traffic convert, but you can also measure that conversion. By setting up goals within your Google Analytics, you can see how much each of these social sites is generating for you.
Not showing fans fun
It’s always appropriate for a brand to show its personality and some fun. If it’s a personality that wants to be a little weird occasionally, go ahead and get a little weird.
KLM is a great example of this tactic. Yes, most of their posts are about making customers have some fun, and it is working very well.
Whether you’re a product-based or serviced based company, ask your users to send photos of themselves using your product or service in exchange for a shot at a prize, or for the honor of being featured on the page.
Future of marketing 2020 … misusing happy customers
Too many companies create happy customers and then fail to leverage their happiness. That is truly missing an awesome opportunity to turn those customers into advocates.
Contact a few of your happy customers and ask them if you can do a case study for them. This is essentially how MarketingSherpa built their business.
When a successful campaign occurred, they would then flip them into a case study. As they generated interest in their company more and more companies started signing up. Eventually, big companies came calling after seeing all the success they were having.
But you don’t have to do a formal case study to leverage happy customers. Testimonials are also powerful tools. Satisfied customers are eager to share their excitement about your company, so make sure you capture and promote that excitement.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last year, search on Google has gotten hyper-personal. For instance, your results are tailored to your location.
How can you leverage local search? One way a company we know did this was to claim that Hyatt Hotel in Seattle where their office location was located.
This has led to this business to appear when you search under that keyword: “Hyatt Hotel in Seattle.”
Push the envelope was their motto.
Assume social media will make you a winner
The biggest mistake I hear about social media marketing these days is that everyone should be leveraging it. Although I wish it were true, social media isn’t a good fit for everyone.
For example, Lockheed Martin is a company you probably don’t see much of on social media. Why not you may ask? Because most of their income and revenue comes from government contracts.
Sure, they are on G+ and Facebook. They even have a blog. But none of those things help them bring in revenue. A lot of what they do isn’t public, and never can be, due to their government contracts.
Social media won’t really help a company like this.
Don’t take advantage of visual design
First and foremost, prioritize visual design in your efforts. Presenting your content in a visual format has a number of benefits. First, humans recognize and process images much faster than text; this is why visual content has much greater appeal.
A study by 3M showed that 90% of the information sent to the brain is visual, and visuals are processed 60,000 times faster than text.
Second, using a diversity of image types makes your content continuously fresh, which encourages readers to explore more. In visual design, the combination of photography, illustration, videos and data visualization keeps the eyes interested and moving around the page.
More time on site means more engagement with your brand.
The more you publish, the better off you are
If you have great information to share on a daily basis, that’s awesome. You should use the social web on a daily basis.
But if you don’t, then consider using it less frequently. Don’t publish average or repeat material. It can actually harm your efforts.
Focus on creating high-quality updates and interactions instead of being on these social sites because you have to.
B2B strategies are different than B2C strategies
Every time I write about social media marketing, someone will comment:
“Those tactics look great for companies who target other businesses, but what should I do if I have a consumer-based company?”
Whether you have a consumer-based or business-facing company, you use the same tactics. From sharing great information to responding to people who have questions to promoting your own products and services, the tactics are identical.
What works for one usually works for the other.
Ignoring negative feedback
The worst thing you can do is ignore negative feedback. If someone isn’t happy with you or your company, you shouldn’t ignore that person. Instead, you should embrace criticism and try to improve.
Just look at Comcast. They even have a Twitter channel dedicated to supporting. Every time anyone tweets something negative about them, they apologize and try to help. It doesn’t matter if it is their fault or not, they are continually trying to improve.
As a business owner, you should embrace negative feedback. Respond to it, and try to solve the problem without getting emotional. It will help your business get better.
Not focused on building trust
The world has a trust problem, and according to Nielsen, we marketers are a big part of it. Only 40% of consumers trust marketing content, but 90% trust content from their social networks. Compounding the problem, there are troublemakers among us, who have flocked to social media to expand their marketing reach, promoting the same alienating content they use in other media. And then they wonder why they don’t see a return on their investment.
It’s time to enlighten our brethren and teach them how we can collectively participate in social media in a way that puts us in a more trustworthy light.
Failing To Network
Let’s say you can’t speak at a conference. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t attend one. These events are going on all the time throughout the year, and they are excellent opportunities to meet new people, build relationships and close business.
Related post: Content Development Strategy … SEO Mistakes that Will Kill You
Not everyone you meet will lead to business, but for every person, you meet you suddenly know everyone they know. In other words, they might not be able to help you, but somebody they know could. You just need to ask them, but you need the relationship first.
Conclusion
There are a lot of misconceptions about social media marketing. Just because you read something in a blog post or hear something from a credible source doesn’t mean it is true.
Always do your own research, and try to improve. Social media marketing is here to stay, and it can drive a lot of business for you, assuming you are leveraging it correctly.
There is more opportunity to fail in social media than to succeed if we treat it like any other marketing vehicle.
Social media requires us to get away from being promotional and sensational and instead treat our customers with special attention to including their thoughts in our offerings, being truly interested in what they have to say in the real world, and communicating about the things they care about — with a vocabulary that illustrates they can trust us.
Need some help in capturing more customers from your social media marketing or advertising? Creative ideas to help the differentiation with your customers?
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More reading on social media mistakes from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on Facebook, Twitter, Quora, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.
You must utilize visual content for your business’ social media and digital marketing campaigns to make a tremendous impact on your success rate. This includes increasing sales and fostering the audience’s loyalty to your brand. Scientific research by MIT found that the human brain only needs a tenth of a second to fully comprehend the message of an image. In contrast, reading 250 words will take around 60 seconds or longer for the reader to understand the text.
This proves that visuals are more effective in growing traffic, inviting clicks, and generating conversion, which is the reason why 80% of marketers prioritize visual assets in their social media and digital marketing campaigns.
If you want to grab your target audience’s elusive attention and boost engagement, then you must utilize photographs, memes, GIFs, infographics, or videos in your various social media content. These kinds of posts elicit more engagement with a higher number of likes, shares, and comments, as opposed to simple text updates. Here’s how to utilize visual content on social media to maximize marketing and boost audience engagement.
Use Videos and Live Streaming
Videos are a big hit on all social media platforms, so you must capitalize on them to promote your business. On YouTube alone, there are over 1.9 billion logged-in users that are monthly visitors. Because of its popularity, the popular video channel can now be navigated in 80 different languages with a local version in more than 91 countries.
In fact, YouTube is the second most searched engine next to Google, which means putting your company credentials along with your products and services on this platform will help boost your company’s reach. It is important to note that you need high-quality content to engage a ton of subscribers.
The number of followers is a big deal on Youtube, Facebook, and IG as the more you have, the more people you can reach with your company’s content, as reported by Social Media Daily. Take note that videos have a way of capturing attention immediately, which is critical as they can lose their concentration after 8 seconds if they do not find your content entertaining.
It is also crucial to tap into social media platforms that make live-streaming possible with their “live stories” function. The reason you have to make an effort to produce videos for your company is that 64% of consumers or buyers have been documented to be more likely to purchase a product online after they’ve seen reviews or advertisements on video.
Choose a Variety of Image Types and Formats
Due to the natural attraction to visuals, narrative content with visuals garners 94% more views when compared to pure text updates, making it essential to add images to your posts. You can also choose to add screenshots of your how-to videos and tutorials, so your clients can easily see how things are done.
You can also craft a graphical checklist or create an informative visual summary of your post for easier understanding and faster dissemination of information. Memes and GIFs are perfect tools for you to showcase your brand’s personality. This will give your page the edge it needs to make your site even more inviting.
Think about this, the click-through-rate of a website becomes 47% higher when they contain images. Thus, it is important to choose a wide variety of image types and formats for your content. In return, this will bring attention and of potential clients focused on your business.
Don’t forget to include pictures of your team at an event, at work on a project, or behind-the-scenes stolen shots because all of these add authenticity to your content. Utilizing various images serve your business well because studies indicate that people remember visual messages six times better than hearing or reading about the information.
So for your Tweets on Twitter, be sure to add a corresponding image because tweets with visuals garner 18% more clicks and are successfully retweeted 150% more than those without them. The primary thing to understand is that the images you choose to use must be aligned with your brand’s message, as well as your complete marketing strategy.
Optimize Your Visuals for SEO
You have to work hard in optimizing your images and videos for SEO or search engine optimization because visual search has increased during these modern times with 27% of all searches being solely for images. Over the past years, search engine technologies have improved, so there is now a better understanding of image components which lead to more reliable SEO results. It is crucial to amplify your visuals with the right keywords and descriptions.
These keywords and descriptions will ensure that both your images and videos will always be ready to come up on top of the list for any kind of visual search. Of course, as much as possible, you want to remain on top search results whether it is on Google, Yahoo, or Bing, especially since 93% of searchers never go past the first page, often using the first ten results only.
It is important to note that visual search results can drive your clients to make purchases and to increase traffic to your website. When you are working on these details, you have to include the ALT tag in the source code. This is a vital attribute that works for the indexing of your visuals. Remember, 91% of adults use search engines to find the information they need on the internet.
Observe Copyright Laws
Every visual out there is protected by copyright law. If you share something that is not yours, then you may face severe penalties because you have broken the law. This is an important criterion that is often overlooked and forgotten. Save yourself the heartache and save your company from the expensive penalties that can be levied for illegal use or illegal distribution of images.
A simple rule to abide by is if you made it, then you own all the copyrights and it is safe enough to post. As for any other images that you may choose to use, you will have credit the original owner, or better yet secure a consent form. Without the right protection, all of your marketing efforts will be in vain if you do not follow the right protocols.
An effective social media marketing and digital marketing strategy always start with having a real understanding of your target audience. They are the key stakeholders you are trying to please, so it is critical to fully comprehend their wants and needs.
This kind of understanding will ensure that all your content creation efforts are not wasted. The kinds of posts you make should resonate well with your intended market all the time.
On top of that, make sure to keep track of your sites data analytics. You have to measure the success of all your marketing efforts. You need to see which methods were successful and which weren’t, so you can drop them and stop wasting your resources.
In the same token, you have to know which methods had the most engagement, so you can craft and continue to share similar content. Visual content creation is not a one-shot deal and you always have to stay on top of your game to remain effective and to continue producing positive results.
