Social media is now part of everyone’s lives in some way, shape, or form.
With the rise of social media being so effective to many businesses, a well-thought-out social media marketing strategy should be a top priority to grow and expand your business.
Here are some social media statistics:
- There are 500 million+ daily active Instagram accounts
- Facebook receives approximately 4.4 billion visitors each month
- There are 192 million daily active users on Twitter
Let’s take a look at some ways you can improve your current social media marketing strategy…
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Run contests
Creating a successful contest on social media is one of the most enticing tactics you could use to increase engagement, followers, and online visibility.
There are a variety of different social media contest tools you can use to create a great giveaway for your followers.
The key to a successful contest is offering your following something either exclusive or of interest to them. With that being said, you need to make a conscious effort to get to know your audience.
Here’s an example of a contest that had great engagement and results:
How to successfully run a social media contest:
- Set out your goals/ what you want to achieve from the contest (increase your Instagram followers? More likes on Twitter? How many?)
- Select a social media platform you’ll host your contest on
- Create a deadline/ time frame for when your contest will end and when a winner will be chosen
- Create the contest. Figure out what format you want for your contest, an eye-catching graphic or image, and text to inform people what the contest is and how to enter.
- PROMOTE! The key to a successful contest is promotion and advertisement. A great tip would be to ask followers to share the contest on their social media as part of their entry.
- Set up extra entries for sharing or completing similar tasks. Such as ‘tag 3 friends, share on your Instagram story, or like my Facebook page’
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Connect with your audience
Building relationships with your audience and/or customers is literally a make or break for your business or social media following.
Expanding your reach is obviously the main goal for everyone however, the best way to do this is by being genuine online and creating authentic bonds with your followers.
Your social media should be a balance between your personal and business life. You should try to be more personal on Instagram stories and some grid posts as people will relate to you and therefore, trust your opinion on certain products.
Research shows that 73.3% of people purchase services or items they have seen on social media and because of the people promoting them.
Social media is arguably the most powerful tool for any marketing strategy, and this is mainly down to the fact that businesses can engage and interact with their customers.
Great ways to interact with your audience on social media:
- Retweet on Twitter
- Reply to Instagram comments and DM’s
- Post a Q&A box on your Instagram stories and reply.
- Engage in Facebook groups with a similar target audience
- Always reply to comments on your Facebook business page
Master this, and your social media and sales will surge!
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Layout your goals and objectives
Having a solid and well-thought-out plan, objective/s and goals is vital if you want to jumpstart your social media.
How can you achieve anything if you don’t know what you want?
Having a clear plan with goals and objectives not only gives you something to work against, but also allows you to measure and evolve your strategies over time and gives you something to achieve.
Your social media goals should align with your overall marketing efforts and objectives.
According to research, you’re 30% more likely to be successful if you write your goals down. In other similar studies, that number increases to 40%!
The most important thing to remember when setting goals is to make sure they are achievable. Start off small and work your way up.
How to set achievable goals to increase your social media engagement:
- Use numbers (E.g.- I aim to reach 10,000 followers)
- Always have a deadline in place (E.g.- I aim to reach 10,000 followers in 4 months’ time)
- Be specific. Use the SMART acronym (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, anchored within a Time Frame)
- Make sure all your goals align with your marketing strategy.
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Keep up to date with the latest trends
Staying on top of all the latest trends and tricks is essential in social media marketing.
All social media platforms are forever changing, and algorithms are constantly being altered. Making it a priority to stay on top of all the ever-changing trends on all platforms.
This also includes researching all the current statistics for each social media platform you use, and social media statistics and tips in general.
Some recent social media trends:
- Virtual reality in marketing is becoming increasingly more popular.
- Influencer marketing is highly popular
- Instagram stories are the preferred tactic for businesses and their customers
- Live video content and video content, in general, is on the rise (Tik Tok & Instagram reals)
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Use video content in your strategy
Over the last few years, video content has increasingly become more popular on social media and especially within social media marketing.
There are loads of different ways to use video content within your social media strategy. However, short videos such as Tik Tok’s and Instagram Reels appear to be the rage at the minute.
Live videos are also popular on social media and are a great way to connect with your audience in an authentic and genuine way that isn’t possible in other content formats.
Facebook live videos are a great platform to host your live videos on especially if you have researched your intended audience. Followers can engage by asking questions and you can give them an answer quickly. According to Facebook, you’ll see 6x the interaction and engagement with a live video.
Try and find a balance between fun pre-recorded short videos and live videos!
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Keep sales tactics to a minimum
It’s a fact that people don’t want to be sold to on social media, they want to establish a real connection and relationship with you before they buy and trust your product.
Consumers can sometimes find it off-putting when businesses and brands post too many promotions.
According to a study by Sprout social, 57.5% of people found it annoying when businesses posted too many promotions and 34.7% found it off-putting when companies have no personality on their accounts.
As an alternative, craft helpful content that people want to consume. Content that will ultimately lead customers to buy your products or services without forcing it on them.
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Research and learn about your audience
In order to connect and engage with your audience, you need to understand your audience.
You should know your follower’s wants, needs, and desires if you want to create a successful social media strategy.
How to learn about your audience:
- Reply to all questions and comments of all social media platforms
- Look carefully at their demographics
- Use each social media platforms analytics
- Survey your audience to better understand their needs
- Collect feedback where possible
- Respond to comments on your blog and comment on other blogs which have the same target audience.
Once you have a better understanding of who your target audience is, you’ll be better equipped to provide social media content for them. They want to engage with genuine people, not just a business that doesn’t care.
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Think about your social media content carefully
Each piece of content you post on social media should be thoroughly thought out. If you are posting for the sake of it or feel forced to post, chances are your audience will not engage with it.
Depending on which social media platform you choose to post on, you need to fully understand the purpose of each network:
Here are the main examples:
Instagram- Your go-to platform for visual content. Short videos and still images work extremely well on Instagram however, creating traffic back to your blog is difficult.
LinkedIn- This is a platform created for professionals which are perfect for B2B audiences. Great for connecting with similar professional bodies or individuals.
Facebook- Age is not an issue on Facebook as nearly everyone has an account. Great for entertainment/news-related content. Facebook groups are a perfect way to connect with your ideal audience.
Once you understand each network, you can focus on which one you think will work best for your business.
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Create eye-catching images
It comes as no surprise that posting great images for your social media is a top priority.
You don’t need to be a photographer or graphic designer to be able to create eye-catching images for your blog. You can utilize online sources such as Canva to wow your followers.
You’ll need great images for the following:
- Infographics
- Instagram images
- Facebook and Twitter posts
- Pinterest graphics
- Cover photos for each social media platform you use.
You need to make sure you keep up to date with each platform’s image dimensions so that your images can look their best!
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Create a Facebook group
Facebook is a great platform to release public content to your audience.
Launching and growing a Facebook group is a perfect strategy to add to any social media marketing plan.
Benefits are creating a Facebook group:
- Can increase your website/ blog traffic
- Gives you an opportunity to connect with your audience
- Allows you to build your email list
- Can promote your products in a non-pushy way.
We hope these tips have given you inspiration for your social media marketing plans. Social media planning doesn’t have to be hard work and these tips can make your day so much easier. If you still need a hand, please get in touch on email at [email protected] or follow us on our social media platforms at @catchdesigns
Thinking of using video for social media? You really should be!
