“Your social media presence doesn’t mean that you are doing well, presence and effectiveness are two different things.”
To guide you with, here are the fifteen social media strategies from the pro that you can use for you to stand out, and ensure remarkable results.
There are billions of social media users right now and being noticed or being engaged with your audience becomes one of the challenges. You are probably present on these platforms, but the real question is, does it bring significance to your primary goal? Is it sufficient enough for you to be noticed and help grow your business?
1. Start On One Platform and Build From There
As a beginner, the first thing you need to focus on is to create a single platform and build strong. Choose a platform where you will initially start. Know the rules on how you’ll create content, the frequency of posting, and how you’ll engage effectively may it be through organic reach or a paid one. Don’t build and then leave it hanging. The key is to be consistent until you get noticed.
And for you to become consistent, always remember the reason or the goal why you are doing it. The initial step will lead you to success if you work on it steadily.
2. Create a Unified Presence
Once you already mastered your first platform, it’s now time to duplicate. You may now create additional media like Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Youtube or a website and replicate what you’ve done to your initial. Though there are differences in these platforms on how you will interact, you need to make sure that yours is consistent and correlated with each other.
Your audience shall easily recognize your brand wherever they are. The theme, the personality, the content, the tone, and everything shall be well coordinated.
3. Put Yourself in Your Audience’s Shoes
The next thing you need to know is your audience. All of your content, post frequency, and other factors will all be dependent on the audience.
The best thing to do in this part is to create a customer avatar. A customer avatar is an exact blueprint of your audience. On this part, you need to generate a profile of that specific persona, demographic, wants, problems or pain points, and other necessary details. This will be your utmost priority so you will be guided and never get lost on the features or content that you wanted to convey.
Also, you should put yourself in the customer’s shoe so you can easily find out what they want. Act as if you are also the audience, the customer. In such away, you can quickly check and balance your style and how will they feel about it.
4. Use the RITE Formula
RITE stands for Relevant, Interesting, Timely, and Entertaining. This only means that every content shall be:
- Relevant. It means that it is always connected, parallel, linked or affiliated with the topic. So when you are into personal development niche, then all your posts are related to it. When you are into selling, then your content shall be within the product, or the stories behind.
- Interesting. Your content shall catch the attention of the audience. Feed them with content that you think they will learn, something new and helpful.
- Timely. Timely content can be planned out ahead of time. You can identify the upcoming holidays, season, or events, create a calendar and material out of this. Remember that timely content can boost engagement and increase SEO.
- Entertaining. Let’s admit that there are days that we want to see a very cute baby on the internet or an adorable dog or cat, memes or whatever just because it is fun. And at some point, your content shall be entertaining. According to Hubspot, content that entertains has the potential to blow up the internet, keeps visitors on your site, humanizes your brand and make you lovable.
5. Promote Reviews
According to Brightlocal, 88% of people read reviews to determine the quality of a local business, and 72% of consumers say that positive reviews make them trust more and will take action after reading it.
Let your audience be heard through their own words and real experience with your brand or product. Reading good reviews build trust and credibility so make sure to have a good product. When you have a good product, it is easy to encourage your satisfied customers to create a good review. It will become automatic.
6. Aggregate Content from Your Audience
Relative to review promotion, content aggregation is also useful. Aggregation means “to collect” or to use content that was already published and put into a single presentation.
Why not share your customers post online or quote the owner. A simple sharing of their positive posts easily builds trust and confidence in you and your audience as well.
7. Humanize Your Business with Behind the Scenes Media
Being transparent and telling a story is one of the most powerful content. People love listening to a story because it connects and portrays real emotion while being transparent build trust or a long-lasting relationship.
If you are into selling, try posting behind the scenes; like how the product is being done, who creates the product and how they are influenced by it. Find stories within the company that makes you happy or sad and put a little twist.
Just make it real. Be genuine enough that people can relate and can trust you even more.
8. Host a Contest or Challenge
Have you ever experienced joining a contest online? Because I am! I can still remember when I join a travel writing contest. Articles were published on their website, and the entry that will be having the highest shares and likes on Facebook will win a Bali, Indonesia trip.
Of course, as an audience or follower, I am excited seeing my article, so I post it online and let my friends like and share it. But on the creator’s side, its primary purpose is to have higher engagement. So it’s a win-win situation wherein the creator will be noticed, and the audience will be happy. Even those who did not win including me are also happy because they saw their work online.
Try to host or create a contest once in a while. If you have a product, you can use it as a prize so you can have higher engagement, your audience will be delighted, and at the same time, your product will be promoted. When your audience saw it, they will tell it to friends, and your reach will increase automatically.
9. Monitor Conversations from Your Target Customers
Aside from customer feedback, “social listening” is one of the most significant strategies. It has the same value as the content. According to TrackMaven, social listening is the process of monitoring digital conversations to understand what customers are saying about a brand and industry online.
You need to listen and put attention to the sentiments associated with your brand. Once you’ve done this, you can easily integrate your current strategy to your plan whether there’s a need to improve on the product, on the company’s customer service and other areas that they wanted to experience better.
10. Ask Questions
As simple as “ask a question”. Ever wondering what will be your next move or next product with your brand? Or you just wanted to know whether they are happy with their experience? Why not try to ask? Just ask and ask openly. Create a poll, on FB stories or Instagram where they can easily respond. Asking the question is one of the real ways to know your customer opinion or want.
Remember that a real customer will always provide a sincere and honest answer.
11. Stick to Your Own Voice
Just like you and your company, your social media shall also possess consistency in speaking to your audience. And for you to achieve it, always consider the following:
- Personality. Choose the character that you will be showing. Is it friendly, playful, warm, authoritative, inspiring, or professional?
- Tone. How will you talk to your audience? Is it personal, humble, direct, clinical, or scientific? Make sure to speak with full honesty and be a human. Speak just like both of you are customers to avoid the gap.
- Language. What terms will you use? Will it be serious, simple, savvy, or fun?
- Purpose. Why are you on social media in the first place? Is it to educate, to sell, or to entertain?
You better know your voice so you can easily use it and portray it across all your channels.
12. Don’t ONLY Automate
Social media is time-consuming, and automation becomes one of the greatest tools. Scheduling ahead of time for a consistent content is beneficial; however, your presence does not depend on it alone. Keep your eye on the audience.
Make time to converse with them and build a relationship. Respond to their questions, comments and let them feel that a real human manages your social media platform.
13. Host Regular Live Sessions
When Facebook Live was introduced in 2016, the audience was shifting from photos to videos. Creating live sessions gives the chance to communicate with your audience in a much more personal way. It gets real-time engagements, more genuine because it’s in the moment, it’s uncut, what’s happening is happening, and it’s real.
Also, live streaming provides a sense of excitement to your audience and the broadcast can be recorded after a while and can be used to other platforms. It also allows you to inter-promote your platforms. You can tell face to face to follow you on Instagram, Twitter or the other way around.
14. Host a Flash Sale
If you are into selling, this one is applicable. A flash sale or “deal of the day” is a discount promotion offered by an online store for a short period of time, usually for 24 hours only. People love flash sales, and they can even spend money compared to regular days or normal price; thus, it is one of the right ways for cash to quickly comes in.
Hosting a flash sale is an excellent opportunity for brand awareness. It encourages a new customer to become a regular buyer. It can help in selling excess inventory, those that are out of season already or those that have been sitting in catalogs for quite some time.
15. Monitor Your Mentions and Respond
Of course, if you wanted to stay longer and consistent with your brand, you need to consider the audience’s conversation. Monitor your social media, your mentions, and interact with them.
According to Twitter, when a customer receives a response from a brand, they’re also much more likely to share that experience with their network, recommend the brand and be more generous with their scores on customer satisfaction surveys. It also increases how much they’re willing to spend, from anywhere between three to twenty percent.
If your brand is already growing, you may consider having a Customer Support or Social Media Manager who will be taking care of all this stuff. They are the ones to ensure that all platforms are maintained in every aspect.
Conclusion
Whatever strategy you will be applying, consistency is the key. Ensure to be consistent and see great results over time. Hope that these social media marketing strategies help you on your way to the top!
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