The rise of social media has brought marketers a whole new set of tools and techniques. On the one hand, the possibilities are endless. On the other hand, if you don’t know how to maximize those tools and techniques, your marketing budget will be wasted.
Before you start to market on social media, plan out your strategies. If you set out on a well-thought-out plan and follow through, you’ll see the types of positive results that casino players get when they win Thunderbolt casino bonuses,which is just one example of a company leveraging the power of social media marketing.
Challenges of Social Media Campaigns
One of the hardest parts of managing your social media campaigns involves coming up with new marketing ideas. Marketers are hard-pressed to come up with fresh social media content on a regular basis. Your audience looks to your brand to provide quality content, but it can certainly be challenging to come up with new and engaging social media content on a regular basis.
First of all, you have to decide how you want to use your social media platform. Do you want to provide customer service? Offer inside looks at your company? Promote your product? Advertise? Send out PR material? Something else?
If you’re going to optimize your social media, you need to define your goals. Don’t forget….those goals may be different for different platforms – perhaps you are using Instagram for promotion of products, Facebook for customer service and Twitter for soliciting reviews. That’s fine, but you need to be clear in your own mind about what you’re doing before you start working.
Some of social media marketers’ biggest frustrations involve:
- How to convert followers into customers
- How to attract more followers/attention
- How to convert traffic from your social media platform to visitors to your website
- How to integrate the various social media platforms into a smooth-performing network
- How to set up a blog and keep the blog running
- How to manage PR on social media
- How to create content
- How to find social media resources and training
- How to keep social media marketing campaigns fresh
Ideas
Some of the best ideas to help you boost sales and increase engagement include:
Sharing
Share user-generated content from your followers, fans and friends. Sharing user-generated content is a great way to help you build relationships with your social media contacts while, at the same time, giving them a fresh perspective on your brand.
One way to do this is to build your reviews. According to AdWeek, research shows that, overwhelmingly, consumers trust other consumer recommendations.
Share your customer reviews – you can screenshot reviews from one platform and share them on your other platforms to maximize each positive review about your product.
Images
Images are powerful in a social media campaign. That doesn’t mean that you should focus on posting pictures of your product or service. Be inventive. Post pictures of your staff during a coffee break, some behind-the-scenes photos of the company, interesting ways that customers are using your product, your dog sitting at your feet while you work at your desk, etc.
You’d be surprised how such intimate, non-posed images can help you build stronger relationships with existing and potential customers.
How-To Videos
How-to videos are big draws. How-to videos not only allow your customers to get to know you, but they help you establish yourself as an expert in the field. How-to videos are especially eye-catching and engaging pieces of content and are a perfect fit for social platforms. A how-to video should break things down into actionable steps so your viewer has visual guidance while they’re learning more about your product.
These videos are also great for sharing. That means that your brand will get shared over and over again, not only among your existing audience but to new people as well.
Polls
One of the reasons that social media is so popular is that it’s interactive. People can be actively engaged while they scroll, read and respond. You can take advantage of this type of interactive platform to draw your audience into your world.
One of the best ways to do this is with a poll. A poll doesn’t require anyone to do much of anything, but it does offer a quick and easy way for you to connect with them and for them to connect with you.
Ask your audience for their opinion on something – what you should call your new product, what color you should use as your background on a new web page, what additional products or service they would like to see your company provide, etc.
Story Campaign
People love to talk about themselves. You can use that to your advantage by promoting a story campaign. Throw out a question (“share your favorite memory from childhood,” “what’s your favorite quote?,” “summarize your outlook on life”) and let your audience submit their videos and text messages.
Encourage them to share the campaign…..that’s the way that you get more engagement from new people.
You can also do your own story campaign by video-taping yourself in some kind of unique situation or as you share something about yourself. You might consider doing a question and answer session about your product to position yourself as an expert in your field.
Partner
Spread your message by partnering with another brand. Choose a company that offers a parallel product or service, but not the same one as you. For instance, if you are a wedding planner, you could partner with an events hall or with a caterer. You could even create several partnerships.
Then, when you post something, ask your partners do share your post. You will do the same for them. You’ll reach their audiences and they’ll reach yours, so everyone wins.
Trends
Stay relevant. If you see something trending that is connected to your product, service or brand, you should relate to it in your posts. You can take advantage of the trend to increase your exposure by adding to the conversation.
Don’t get sucked into arguments or controversy. It’s amazing how quickly an innocuous statement can get turned around and get people riled. If that happens, just bow out gracefully. No one every got into trouble by ignoring incitement on social media.
Tips
People are always looking for tips. If you have tips to share, customers, both existing and potential, will feel that you’re helping them better understand their challenges. When you share advice and tips you gain adherents by helping people navigate through problems and issues.
Once again, sharing tips is a great way to demonstrate your knowledge and expertise regarding your product.
Testimonials
Like reviews, testimonials are a powerful way to get across your message about your product’s superiority. Video testimonials are a good way to show potential customers how others have found success with your product.
In addition to recorded testimonials, you might try adding a live element by interviewing customers and then making the content available on your platform.
