Ture or false? No matter how well your social media marketing campaign is going, there is always room for improvement.
We can all do with some more shares, comments and likes when it comes to our social media accounts. Using one, two, 10 or all of these posts will guarantee you get more like, more comments and more shares on your content on social media.
- Appeal to the emotions of your audience: Without an emotional response of some kind, content will not be shared. That’s a simple fact. Emotionally touching content will be widely shared on Facebook – whether it is happy, funny, sad, or embarrassing.
- Structure your content: And always structure your content so that it is easy to read, and always, always proofread your content for spelling, grammar, and punctuation before you publish it.
- Are you supporting your fans? According to a survey by J.D. Power (Source: groovehq.com), almost 70 per cent of consumers look to a brand’s social media profiles for customer support. What can you do to support your fans and connections on social media more than you already do right now? Gather your team and brainstorm.
- Run a quiz: Create your own quizzes and polls. Instagram stories is great for them. Create a poll story on IG and then download the story and share it to your other social media platforms asking the same questions.
- Have clear and concise messaging: For the benefit of your audience, be very clear and concise about the value you can offer them.
Don’t try to be a “jack of all trades” or put yourself across as an expert in an area that you do not have real, tangible, legitimate expertise (and if you do think you’re an expert in an area, make sure this is truly the case before you start broadcasting it).
- Give, give, give: Always remember to give without expecting anything in return. Even just doing this small thing and sharing information as a token of your appreciation for your followers, you will see more interaction and engagement.
- Share and share alike: Customer and client testimonials and reviews are very powerful for businesses. Are you reviewing your customers positively? Are you asking them to do the same for you?
- Understand your audience: What kind of content will they appreciate? Then create that type of content. Instant shares, comments and likes.
- Talk to them directly: Ask your followers to share, comment and like your content. Simple as that.
- Are you sharing content too? Are you engaging on social media and liking, commenting and sharing other people’s content? Remember the law of attraction! This whole social media engagement thing works both ways remember!
- Images are pivotal: Pictures will get the most the shares and comments – well, the most engagement overall really. According to psychologists, the vast majority of human communication is non-verbal, and “a picture tells a thousand words”. Use them to your advantage.
- Make your posts short and sweet: Dot point out your post and make it snappy. People online are impatient and they move quickly.
- Try a long-form post: In complete contradiction to the post above try a long-form post.
- Share a story: One of the most engaging things you can possibly add to your social media strategies are stories. People love stories. We put ourselves in stories, so share them like there’s no tomorrow.
- Ask a question: People love to give their opinion – and will often share with or tag a friend in these types of posts. Ever notice when you randomly ask a personal question on your Facebook account you get a bazillion more comments? Try it for your business accounts too.
- Stick to what you know: You will please more consumers, generate more genuine followers, maintain fan and customer loyalty, and provide much more value if your social media content marketing strategy remains focused in your area of expertise.
- Ask them to tag someone in their share: Open yourself up to more potential clients and a wider audience. Ask your followers to share the posts and tag a friend in them while they are at it.
- Run a competition: This is bound to get you more likes, comments and shares, especially if it’s part of the entry condition! Just make sure you are giving something of substance and value away as the major prize.
If not competitions, then try contests and giveaways. These offer great power for creating engagement. People love to have a chance to win, and getting “something for nothing” is extremely appealing.
Ask followers to complete a basic entry form (always request email addresses as these can be used for email marketing), like your page, tag a friend, and offer them something in return. Make the contest time sensitive. Announce the winner in a transparent fashion.
- Try games: If you go to a networking event, you might play some networking games, or if you are at a business expo the stallholders might use games to engage you. Why not try it online too?
You can also have your audience participate in games on your profile page – simply ask an exciting question and invite audiences to respond.
- Offer fun facts and trivia: Anything that interests, fascinates, or informs will be welcomed.
- Promote your offerings: Keep posts directly relating to promoting your products or services to no more than 30 per cent of your overall content. Ask your followers if they need to know something about what you specialise in? Then launch into the details.
- Inspirational quotes: Yes, they are cliché. But there are entire Facebook pages, Instagram pages, Twitter pages and even websites devoted entirely to these – so they must be popular. Inspirational quotes don’t just inspire; they motivate, empower, and are very highly shareable.
- Mix it up: Don’t always post the exact same kind of content – people like to know generally what to expect from you, but a surprise here and there is a good thing.
- Respond and reply: You need to be available to your audience by participating in conversations on your social page, responding to queries and complaints, and otherwise being there.
- Link to your blogs: Share your blog content and links back to your website. People love blog content.
- Make your own gifs and memes: Memes have been popular for years … but gifs are taking over as people’s commenting choice. You know you can make personal gifs using Instagram Stories or an app called Momento? So cool.
- It’s not all about you! Curate cool content and ask people to share that too. It might be that of your clients or friends. It could be for a good cause. Always cite your source and give credit where it is due.
- Be patient: Social media marketing is a marathon, not a sprint. Results may not be instantaneous, and an ongoing strategy for your branded social media efforts is essential. Just keep going forward.
- Check yourself: You need to constantly be assessing and analysing your approach and your results, making changes where necessary and continuing parts of the strategy that work.
- Leverage, leverage, leverage: Remember to fully leverage your contacts on all the social platforms as best you can. LinkedIn is easier than most of the others. But they all have direct message capabilities.
- Are you using videos? One of the biggest current trends in social media marketing today is video. Marketers are engaging audiences with video content more all of the time, and it is estimated that by 2019, video content will be part of the driving force behind more than 80 per cent of search engine traffic in the United States alone.
A highly engaging form of content, try sending a video out to your social media followers and check the insights on that particular post, it will get a higher reach than most or all of your other posts.
- Take advantage of free monitoring tools: You need to know what people are saying about your business and your brand – reputation is everything. There are social media tools that monitor your social media activity and the reactions it elicits. These include Google Alerts, Brand24, Topsy, TweetDeck/Hootsuite, Icerocket, and Social Mention, which all have versions to use for free.
- Know your insights: See post above. Keep a check on your numbers on social media so you know what is working and what’s not. When you know what’s working, you can do more of it.
I hope you’ve enjoyed these social media marketing tips. Whether you are a large business, a small business, or a sole trader, these ideas can be tweaked to suit your own brand and they can work really well for your own individual campaign.
One thing is for sure though, to succeed in the ever more competitive marketplace on social media, a new and expanded approach must be taken, and the way in which you communicate with your consumers has to be more conversation-based.
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