Introduction
Either you are a startup or a big brand, there’s no chance that you aren’t on social media in any course of action.
But, are you making the most out of social media for your brand?
If not, keep reading!
According to Statista, more than 3.5 billion people are using social media worldwide, and it’s expected to rise in the coming years.
Most successful marketers adopt strategies that create brand awareness, drive leads, and boost the conversion rate via social media.
Let’s look at the top 10 ways through which you can improve your social media presence.
Build Up Multi-Channel Approach
There are a plethora of social media platforms, and choosing the best one for your brand can be a bit difficult.
Usually, people prefer to select only one social platform, but no one can predict which will surpass the other in the future.
Focusing on one social media network can be dangerous; instead, marketers should strategize in such a manner that they can use different platforms for distinct purposes.
From the industry experts, you’ll receive advice to sign up your brand on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter (and no other).
In case you are a graphic designer, then Behance is one of the best platforms to showcase your work.
Therefore, you’ve to pick your platform as per your profession, products, and services.
Tip: If you want to generate leads for your business, I suggest opting for Facebook and LinkedIn advertising.
For instance, Mailchimp (an email marketing platform) posts case studies on how their customers generated high ROI with email marketing.
Source: Mailchimp
Both marketers and business owners use Facebook daily, and Mailchimp knows brands need email marketing to reach their audience.
From the above example, we can conclude that the objective of marketing plays a crucial role in choosing the social media channel.
Establish A Unique Brand Identity
With millions of businesses active on social media, you need to create a unique and compelling brand identity.
Mostly, people reevaluate the brands’ Facebook cover photo, content, and activities on their feeds.
And, if your activities appear like another brand, you’ll experience negative marketing among your followers.
I suggest prioritizing things, such as color theme, content, and bio for your brand’s social media page via prioritization tools.
For example, JetBlue, an airline company, shares several flying photos on its Instagram handle.
You might be wondering, “What’s unique in that?”
Well, they’ve created a hashtag #WingCrushWednesday, where they share user-generated content that includes a part of JetBlue’s airplane wing in the post.
It inspires the customers to post the same as their photos may get shared on JetBlue’s official page.
Source: Instagram
Like any other aspect of a business, you first need market research to create an exceptional brand identity.
Engage with Your Audience Constantly
Building an excellent reputation on social media is a bit of a challenging task. And to establish it, you need to increase engagement with your audience regularly.
It will not only forge a trustful relationship between you and your audience but also increase your organic reach.
To engage with your followers, you can follow the methods below:
- Reply to comments on your post.
- Share user-generated content.
- Acknowledge followers for participating in contests.
- Providing value-addition information.
- Clarify the queries of your audience.
- Respond to DMs quickly.
For example, Burt’s Bees interacts on Twitter by replying to their customers’ compliments – just to make them feel special.
By doing so, your followers don’t see you only as a business, but they’ll also respect your brand as you care for their feedback.
Source: Webfx
Pro Tip: To grow on social media exponentially – connect, increase engagement by posting at the right time, and build relationships with your audience regularly.
Leverage Lookalike Audience Through Paid Ads
Organic reach on social media is declining day-by-day. On Facebook, the average organic reach to page likes is 5.20% only.
Therefore, if you want to create brand awareness, you have to benefit from the lookalike audience strategy.
Social media platforms let you create lookalike audiences that connect you with people who have similar interests to your ideal customer.
For instance, upload a .csv file consisting of name, email addresses, or other personal information to Facebook.
Afterward, Facebook will automatically identify the audience based on similar interests, behaviors, and demographics.
Now, you can run ads to drive the audience to your Facebook business page or website.
Several platforms, including LinkedIn, Twitter, Snapchat, etc., allows lookalike audience targeting to reach your ideal customer.
Use Relevant Hashtags
Hashtags are essential aspects that can make or break your social media presence, depending on how effectively you use them.
The most difficult task is to create a set of the most relevant and compelling hashtags for your brand.
If you don’t use hashtags relevant to your targeted audience, you’ll experience a lesser brand visibility and engagement rate.
Best practice to use hashtags?
You have to include the hashtags in your post mentioned below:
- Extremely popular hashtags
- Moderately popular hashtags
- Industry-specific hashtags
- Branded hashtags
- Location-based hashtags
Many people follow hashtags using keyword based approaches to find their ideal audience.
For example, Britjaye, a wedding photographer, added several hashtags concerning the image and the target audience.
Source: Instagram
In the above image, you can see she uses content, branded, and niche-based hashtags to reach the ideal audience.
Pro Tip: Use different sets of hashtags in the early days to figure out which hashtags work for you.
Run Contests and Giveaways
Running contests is the best way to engage with the audience on social media and give you immediate success.
Every brand has its own reasons to run contests, such as increasing followers, generating leads, building email lists, etc.
Some of the social media contest types are:
- Photo Contest: In a photo contest, selected users submit their photos based on the concept you specify, and the audience votes for the best one.
- Comment to Win: In this contest, random people comment on one of your posts, and the best one wins accordingly.
- Trivia Contest: Ask your audience some questions regarding your industry or product and whoever gives the correct answer, reward them.
- Repost Giveaways: Ask your customers to repost their photo with your product or service. And, request them to use a specific hashtag so that you can track entries easily.
For example, Zappos, a shoe brand, held a social media contest with the hashtag #ImNotABox.
In this contest, they encouraged the followers and customers to share how to use empty cardboard shoe boxes.
Source: Tintup
Does the campaign go viral?
Definitely, Yes! Customers loved the campaign, and a high number of people took part in it. The prize money was a $500 gift card.
As the third step is to follow the brand on Instagram, so they gain followers as well.
Deep Dive Into Social Media Analytics
Last but not least, you should monitor your analytics at regular intervals to determine whether you’re achieving ROI as expected.
It’s also beneficial to understand if there’s a need to make changes in your campaigns.
With appropriate analytics, you can check various things such as:
- What type of content your followers are most engaged in?
- Which category is following you the most?
- Are your followers real or fake?
- Is there an increase in engagement rate after a certain period?
And more.
Several social media analytics tools let you track your activity across all the platforms.
For example, Hubspot’s analytics tools let you monitor social media performance in the form of graphs, including the audience, interactions, clicks, and more.
Source: Hubspot
Wrapping Up
The social media algorithm concerning the platform and the marketing strategy changes continuously, but the tactics discussed above will remain the same.
The secret to boosting your social media is to optimize your profile, provide a great user experience and high-quality content.
Once you set up your social media correctly, you’ll be capable of driving a huge number of leads for your business.
Do you want to add any other social media strategy that works for you? Tell us in the comment section below.
Gaurav Roy
11 January 2021
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