11 Tips On Social Media Marketing & Your Marketing Platform!

Social media marketing must always be a part of your overall strategy to attract your audience. Without it, your marketing is incomplete and ineffective. Social media is tremendously revolutionizing the way we do marketing, and it seems that it will be that way for a long time. The benefits of social media marketing are endless. But here are a few of the benefits you should know:

• It helps increase brand awareness.
• Expand to a large number of audiences
• Better engagement with your audience
• Increase lead generation
• Grow revenue

Now, let’s look at the following tips to help you gain an edge in social media marketing. These are easy and actionable steps that will help you build a solid social marketing plan and effectively strategize on posts and content. Let’s check them out!

Know your target audience

Before you lay out your social media marketing plans, you need to know who your target audience is. What are their needs? Why do they purchase your product? Do you have enough data to target the right audience who are most likely to convert? You can use the following ways to gain more understanding of your audience’s behaviour:

• Conduct surveys, quizzes, or polls
• Analyze demographic data
• Be active in forums
• Actively engage in the comment section of all your social media accounts or blog posts.
• Utilize tools to collect customer feedback

Having enough knowledge about your target audience or audiences can help you create precision and succeed in getting better conversions.

Check your competitions

Part of your preparation for creating effective marketing goals and strategies is to check on your competition. Analyze their business page and get some ideas about what posts or content the audience prefer over the others. You don’t exactly need to steal their hard work but rather adopt what is working and improve it. You can also check how they are engaging with their audience and see if you can do more.

List your goals and strategies to achieve them

To ensure your success in social media marketing, you need to be clear about your goals and strategies to achieve them. Without a solid goal and a properly laid out plan, your social media campaigns could fail, and goals can be deferred and even abandoned. You can use the following questions to guide you in your goal setting.

• Are your goals specific, attainable, and realistic?
• Can they be measured? And how are you going to measure them?
• Is it time-bound? When do you expect to see results?

If your goal settings satisfy each of these questions, you have a strong plan for your marketing strategy. If not, you should consider going back to your list and strategies to identify what else you can improve or change.

Plan your social media calendar

Social media platforms are a fast-paced environment, which is why having a social media calendar is critical. As part of your strategy, schedule when you post your content and try to be as timely as possible. Check what time of the day or what particular day in a week when you get the most engagement. This can help you with scheduling your future post more effectively.

Create content for each social media platform

Social media platforms have different purposes, which is why your content should also be made especially for each of them when looking to start a social media marketing campaign. Here are the different types of posts for each of the social media platforms to understand what this means.

• Facebook – Great platform to post questions, trending topics, behind the scenes, brand graphics and personality, product photos, tell stories, infographics, videos, infographics, blog posts, contests, promotions, giveaways, and sales.
• Instagram – This is a highly visual platform and short videos. You can post product images, post with product tags, brand storytelling, behind the scenes, Instagram reels, repost user-generated content, employee spotlight, new products and milestones, and more.
• Pinterest – This platform is similar to Instagram, where you can post highly visual images and seasonal content. You can use boards to connect with Pinners and target the right pinners with ads.
• Twitter – Twitter is a highly engaging platform. You can post questions, brand announcements, promo codes, sales, blog content, visuals, teasers for new products, and more.
• LinkedIn – This is a professional platform that is great for business connections. Your post will benefit more if it is relevant and useful for businesses in the same industry. You can also maximize LinkedIn Pulse, where you can share posts, stories, and insights with your target audience. These will be searchable in search engines and visible on your LinkedIn profile.

Knowing what to post on these social media platforms correspondingly, you can build on what the platform is great for and create effective marketing campaigns.

Use captivating images

You don’t have to be a graphic artist to create captivating images. You can utilize free online tools to create appealing images and use them for your marketing posts. Another option is to outsource.

You have a lot of use for images such as the following:

• Cover photos
• Profile pictures
• Images for each post you make
• Infographics

Use this avenue to be fun and creative if this fits your business profile. Think about how you can also retain your brand’s identity using images for your audience. Images with consistent themes or colours are easily recognized by the audience; therefore, it helps increase brand awareness.

Strategize with video content

Video content has become a compelling strategy in marketing, most especially in social media. Because of this, many marketers are creating video content regularly.

Your videos don’t have to be professionally made. This could be quite expensive for small businesses or new social media marketers. You can use free or paid video maker or video editor applications to create your video content.

And it doesn’t have to be a long video. You can make short videos that can create more impact on your audience. Aside from recorded videos, you can also utilize Facebook Live, Instagram Live, or YouTube Live. These live videos are good ways to connect with your customers and directly answer their questions about your products or services.

Aim for more audience engagement

Focus more on audience engagement instead of gaining more followers or subscribers. Having tons of followers may not be as impressive compared to a smaller number of followers but an actively engaged audience. If you have a better audience engagement, there is a high chance of acquiring potential customers and converting them.

To do this, you should take the initiative to connect and get engaged with your audience. Respond to the comments promptly until there are no more to respond to. Even when there are no more questions to answer, comment with a message thanking them for checking your post. You can also use this chance to direct them to your website or another relevant post that will be valuable.

Optimize your business page

Your business page is a customer-facing gateway representing your brand which is why it is also necessary to optimize it accordingly. It would help if you aimed to create an online experience that will positively impact your audience.

Try using appealing videos instead of still images. Give each of your products or services the spotlight they deserve on your posts instead of using a standard product catalogue. Create a cover showing the solutions your products can provide. Exploit the available features when creating your business page to optimize it fully.

Keep on promoting

Marketing in social media is a continuing process which means you need to keep on promoting. Social media platforms house a massive audience population. This opportunity alone can’t be taken for granted. Aside from using tools to do promotions, you can also cross-promote between your social media accounts.

You can also run contests to encourage your audience to participate. If you have an email list, invite your subscribers to follow you on your social media accounts. And if you have your website, ensure that your visitors can easily spot your social media links.

Always be on the lookout for what’s the latest and trending

Since social media keeps changing, it is also important to be on the lookout for the latest and trending trends in marketing. Check Reviews that offer social media in their business. This also includes checking on the statistics of the social media platforms that you use. The following are examples of the current trends in social media marketing:

• Live Video content continues to grow
• Instagram stories popular in businesses
• Messaging apps continue to be a communication tool between consumers and businesses.
• Virtual marketing popular in business marketing

It is crucial to stay on top of these trends to be more effective in social media marketing. Bear in mind that what’s trending before may not be the same trends today. Immediately incorporating these trends into your marketing allows you to be competitive if not ahead of your competitors.

Social media marketing should be taken seriously with a strong determination to keep going and keep on improving. Otherwise, you may get online visibility, potential customers, and eventually, sales. Hopefully, with our tips, you can fine-tune your strategies and get better conversions. Application of these tips can be a daunting task, but the outcome can be great and rewarding.

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