More and more people are using social media channels regularly, it’s no wonder social media is the fastest growing industry and it’s only getting bigger each year.
Should you care about social media? Should your business take full advantage of it? We suggest you should!
Not because it’s the IN thing but because your target audience are active users who spend a lot of time using them. Integrating social media in your marketing strategy is one of the best ways to get your Brand OUT there.
Social media helps to market your products, services and boost your Brand name, also giving you the opportunity to connect with your fans, customers, and audience on a more personal level.
Content has evolved over the years, it’s no longer just text but also visual, audio and interactive content. Social media is by far the most versatile and effective platform to promote your content.
Fun Fact:
Each social mention moves your website higher up the listings of search engine results.
Let’s discuss some of these popular social media channels for your business:
Currently has over 2 billion monthly active users (MAU), Facebook being one of the most popular platforms, is not only for your personal use but your business as well.
Facebook pages allow you to share photos, updates, and interactive content with your fans and followers. The aim of Facebook pages is for your Brand to build content, interaction, recognition, loyalty and making your Brand more accessible to your audience.
While Facebook pages are an excellent way to market your Brand, the organic reach continue to decrease on Facebook due to competitive News Feed space, and the change to Facebook’s News Feed algorithm to further prioritise content from friends and family over Pages. It is therefore more imperative than ever for Brands to experiment with different ways to get their posts and content in front of as many eyeballs as possible.
Instagram has just reached over 1 billion monthly active users (MAU) and it’s the most popular social media among Millennials. Instagram, as a social network is focused on picture content. By creating a business profile, companies of all sizes will be recognised as a business, get insights about followers and posts. Users will also get to see your business profile, such as address and contact details.
Averaged at over 300 million monthly active users (MAU), Twitter allows you to share pieces of short content that include links, texts and photos of 280-character limit (up from 140). Make sure to research hashtags, come up with creative campaigns, and engage with well-known people in your field.
Social Media Strategies
Besides merely creating and pushing content on social media, there are strategies you can take control of to fully utilise social media marketing for your Brand.
Here are the TWELVE key social media strategies:
1. Define objectives
First, by outlining goals and objectives, you can then have a direction to target them and measure effectiveness on your social media efforts.
Some common objectives for you to consider:
– Increase brand awareness
– Drive traffic
– Improve search engine rankings
– Increase conversion rates
– Improve brand loyalty
– Generate new leads
– Increase engagement
– Educate the audience
– Increase fans and followers
– Outwin competitors
2. Consistency is key
Your content and tone of voice should reflect your Brand and the message you want to send to your audience.
Things to consider:
– Theme
– Layout
– Quality of visuals
– Tone of Voice
– Relevancy
– Frequency
3. Platforms
Not all social media platforms cater to the same audience, so it is important that you find the platforms that are a good fit for your Brand and the audience that you want to target and be consistent and active on using those platforms. Facebook focuses on building Brand awareness whereas Instagram uses videos and images and has a strong appeal to the 18-29 age group. Twitter’s strength lies in posting short content and links in real-time.
4. Be innovative
Social media marketing is inexpensive and gives your Brand instant reach to massive users. Engagement can be in the form of contest, deals and promo codes or creative visual content. The quality of your post is often more important than the quantity.
5. Be authentic
It is more about Brand authenticity than gaining fans and followers. At the end of the day, users prefer genuine content that are interesting and engaging otherwise you may end up losing your audience.
6. Hashtag (#)
Twitter first started the hashtag trend in 2009, and now most social media platforms have followed suit. It has become a tool for increasing social media views and engagements, users may even search topics and follow conversations. Note that some hashtags may be more popular in singular, plural or abbreviations.
7. Influencer marketing
Consumers now look to fellow consumers and their favourite personalities for making their purchase decisions, especially on Instagram. This has opened up a new channel for businesses to promote their brand through influential individuals. An influencer can be anyone who attracts fans and followers on social media platforms where they are able to engage and influence. Partnering the right influencer with relevant followers will help you gain access to the right audience you need, to promote your brand.
8. Chatbots
The use of Chatbots is a new way of engaging with the audience that improves the customer experience. Chatbots are really instant messaging between humans and bots, by using artificial intelligence (AI) and computer scripts with the ability to answer questions and interact just like another human being. Chatbots operate 24/7 with immediate and personalised one-on-one interactions with a limitless audience, addressing to the needs of demanding and impatient users.
9. Competitor analysis
Monitor what your competitors are doing on social media and assess their strengths & weaknesses. Think about some of the top content you saw that blew you away, are you able to adapt their successful strategies on your own social channels? By doing comparisons, you would be able to know exactly where your social media strategy stands, compared to your competitors. Marketing Intelligence helps to further analyse valuable information and in-depth metrics on your competitors’ posts.
10. Budget
Once you have outlined plans for your social media campaign, it’s important to allocate an appropriate budget. You may want to put more budget towards platforms with higher-volume audiences to increase eyeball reach. Keeping a tab on where your budget is being allocated helps you analyse your paid advertising efforts.
11. Create a content plan & calendar
Once you have set your social media objectives and goals, plan and vary your content type with different call-to-actions (CTA) and schedule your content ahead of time.
12. Monitor and Track
Lastly, we recommend you to monitor and analyse your social media marketing efforts by tracking interests and engagements so as to track the impact of your Brand Communication and make any adjustments in your future posts.
Ways of Sharing on Different Social Channels
Image: An example of Page Post Engagement on Facebook
Image: An example of Image Carousel on Facebook. Courtesy of TechCrunch.
Image: An example of Video Carousel on Facebook. Courtesy of MavSocial.
Image: Facebook 360
Image: Facebook Stories.Resorts World Sentosa Facebook Page.
Image: Instagram Photo / Video Ads
Image: An example of Image / Video Carousel on Instagram
Image: Instagram Stories
Image: Shopping on Instagram
Image: An example of Influencer Marketing on Instagram
Image: An example of Chatbot on Facebook messenger
Examples of companies from different industries using Twitter to gain followers, Brand awareness and drive leads:
Closing Thoughts
Using social media to promote your content is a long-term and effective strategy to increase your Brand’s visibility and loyalty. We see how Brands are able to interact and engage with a broad audience to push content and attract genuine fans and followers, when users start liking, commenting and sharing your social posts, your content will be exposed to a whole new audience ie. their friends and followers. Social media channels are increasingly becoming indispensable as touchpoints for companies and Brands to communicate with their customers.
