You’d probably be hard-pressed to find someone who isn’t on social media, or worse, someone who doesn’t know social media at all. People are constantly glued to their phones, mindlessly scrolling through perfectly curated lifestyles of the influencers they follow or to learn from experts (and non-experts) who freely share knowledge on the internet. Social media has seen so much growth in the last decade, perhaps even boosted by the pandemic that rendered so many stuck at home with no other way to communicate to loved ones. It’s so prevalent that now more than half of the world’s population is on one or more of the many social media networks available.

Losing out on the opportunity to reach millions of people gathered in one platform could mean losing out on conversions and, in turn, profit. Hence, brands are flocking to social media to establish and nurture relationships with their customers on a more “intimate” level. 

But, what exactly makes social media work?

The truth is, many brands and businesses out there believe that social media doesn’t work. That’s because of the strategy they’re using. It’s known as the spaghetti strategy, where you just throw anything and everything at the wall and “see what sticks”.

When you do that, you’re already at a disadvantage. You need to be calculated and targeted with your social media presence.

There are plenty of reasons businesses and brands want to be relevant on social media. First, connectivity is huge. It’s never been easier to contact people or learn more about a topic or some story. Information is, quite literally, at the tip of your fingers. And because we are more connected than ever before, we are given the opportunity to have communities we can interact with on a more intimate level. These niche communities makes it easier to brand to target audience that are already likely to be interested in their products. For example, a reptiles-focused YouTube channel would be a great place to advertise products for taking care of reptiles. Or a Facebook page with the same interests. Lastly, the amount of customer data social media platforms has on their users is very valuable. Not only do they know basic demographic information, but have also learned more information about the customers through their activities on the platform. 

On the downside, the competition is fierce. The space is very saturated and finding a niche to set yourself apart from the rest can be very difficult. Not to mention, having a specific brand or product, and a target audience to keep in mind. Standing out, amidst strong competition and other considerations needs careful planning and a good social media strategy. 

Here are 18 social media marketing tips to elevate your presence on any platform.

SET GOALS AND OBJECTIVES

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again, it’s always important to have specific goals in mind. Setting these goals and objectives will help you in making sure that you stay on course. It also ensures that you have something you can look to if, at any stage in the journey, you feel lost and don’t know what to do. Your goals and objectives will also help you in determining which key performance indicators to keep your eyes on. 

KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE

As with most marketing strategies, knowing your audience is vital. It’s perhaps even more important in social media marketing as one of its key benefits is to have a more “intimate” relationship with your audience. What do they like? Why are they here? What problems do they have? These questions can also be very easily answered through making a customer avatar. Knowing your audience will make it much easier to cater your products or services to them, and therefore grow your customer base.

CHOOSE YOUR PLATFORM

Wouldn’t it be better to use all platforms for maximum reach? Not exactly. Each platform can have unique benefits and subtle differences between audiences. You don’t want to stretch yourself too thin and risk having mediocre results from all platforms. Instead, choose one or two platforms to focus on, at least in the beginning. Figure out how they work with your brand and how efficient they are in enabling you to interact with your audience. You can always try each platform for some time and see which works best.

PROVIDE VALUABLE CONTENT

The first time a person comes across your content is important. That’s why you want to make sure that whatever you put out, your messaging is focused and you’re not just posting for the sake of posting. Provide value and consumers will be more likely to come back. Remember to segment your content, depending on the platform you’re posting it on. While you may repost content from YouTube to IG Reels, you might want to tweak it a bit to suit the platform better. 

What does “valuable content” really mean? It means posting things that your target audience wants to see and hear, or posting content that they feel compelled to share. There’s no “right” or “wrong” answer here as it’s often subjective, but try to keep that in mind when planning your content production.

CONSISTENCY IS KEY

This must be a phrase social media marketers and social media influencers hear a lot. But you hear it because it’s true. Consistency is key. Especially with the way short-form video platforms work, it’s beginning to look like quantity sometimes wins over quality. Of course, you’re not just posting whatever, but having a consistent schedule and always showing up is a very good indicator of the success social media profile. After all, your goal is to have eyeballs on your content, so the more content you put out, the more of a reach you can have.

Quick tip – Try to automate posting. There are tools out there that could help you automate and schedule posting and not just for one platform, but for all your platforms combined! You can work on your posts weeks in advance, line them up in your tool of your choice, and it does your job for you! They even provide analytics. 

INTERACT WITH YOUR AUDIENCE

If you’re on social media to take advantage of it’s reach, maximize it! Use this opportunity to reach out to your audience and interact with them. One of the many advantages of using social media marketing is its unique ability to humanize the brand. You have to show that there is a “human” behind the visually appealing posts and cleverly written copies. You can comment on posts your brand may be tagged on or maybe even shout out some of your most loyal customers.

HOST GIVEAWAYS OR CONTESTS TO BOOST FOLLOWING

Who doesn’t like winning? Contests, giveaways, or sweepstakes are guaranteed ways to catch people’s attention. Host something fun that could also double as a way to have more user-generated content. Video challenges on TikTok and other short-form video platforms are very popular. Make sure the prizes are enticing enough to encourage people to join. Make it big! 

CONNECT WITH RELEVANT INFLUENCERS

Let’s face it, influencers dominate the space. Whatever you may want to call them; influencer celebrity, YouTuber, TikToker, etc., one thing is for sure: they have a following. A following that you could also reach! However, choosing who to work with might be difficult. 

Here are some things you can look into when choosing an influencer for your brand:

• engagement rate
• alignment of content to your brand
• are they someone your audience would want to be?
• check their reputation
• consider their following

*As much as possible choose influencers who have already mentioned your brand! Many influencers are consistently showing their “favorites” to their followers, and you can hop on that! It would be much more authentic and would seem less “salesy” when they talk about your product. 

UTILIZE STORYTELLING

Storytelling draws people in. Human beings have done it for thousands of years, long before we’ve developed sophisticated technology to broadcast our stories to the wider world. Given that your storyline is well-written and intriguing, it would give your followers something to look forward to and recognize you. 

MINIMIZE THE HASHTAGS

This one might seem a little counterintuitive. Don’t we use hashtags to find related content easier? Yes. However, too many hashtags can annoy your followers. Instead, cut it back to one or two more focused and specific hashtags. 

DON’T BE TOO SALESY

It’s a social media platform. While making profit or increasing conversion rates are ideal, the main point of social media marketing is to connect with your audience, building that relationship, and increasing brand awareness. You can be salesy all you want on your ads,  but make it a point to be more relaxed and not be too pushy on your social media posts. 

LEVERAGE SOCIAL MEDIA EXPERTS

Especially if you’re just beginning, it can seem overwhelming. Luckily, you can hire social media experts to help you make sense of social media and help develop a strategy suitable for your objectives. Leveraging expertise will give you a better chance of garnering positive results and less trial-and-error. 

USE HIGH-IMPACT VISUALS

You have very little time to catch the attention of your audience. They’re very likely to scroll right past your posts in favor of more entertaining or even more personal content from friends and family. Style and design can be extremely subjective but here are some ideas you might want to consider:

• Use colors and be consistent with them.
• Show your brand voice and personality
• Try animations 
• Typography matters!

INVEST IN VIDEO CONTENT

Video content have been steadily growing in popularity over the years and especially on various social media platforms. The majority of consumers are also more likely to watch videos rather than reading written posts. If the idea of putting out videos seem intimidating, we got your back! YouTube is one of the most popular video-sharing platforms out there. If you’re looking to run ads on the platform, you’re in luck! We have a 3-step process for creating YouTube Ads available here: three-step guide on YouTube marketing!

STAY UP TO DATE ON TRENDS

While putting out timeless and classic content is all well and good, social media platforms are practically breeding (and thriving) grounds for trends.  Trends do come and go, but they are effective in getting the attention of the audience and would be worth pursuing. If they’re trending, then it must follow that a lot of eyeballs is trained on it. So if you see something that works on your own FYP, try it out for yourself!

EXPERIMENT WHENEVER POSSIBLE

Because no one strategy is the answer for all brands and all campaigns, it’s important to experiment to see which works best for you. A/B testing is a popular method that allows you to experiment between two different versions of a post, and see which works better. It doesn’t even have to be the same post (you don’t want to post the same content twice) but it can be a comparison between two different types of format or even design. 

STUDY YOUR ANALYTICS

Onto the more technical part of this journey, you should deep dive into the analytics of each platform. There will be subtle differences between each platform but it’s important that you are familiar with them in order to gauge whether a particular post or strategy is effective or not. 

Some of the key performance indicators you should look into are:

• Engagement (Likes, Comments, Shares) 
• Reach (Impressions, Traffic, # of Followers)
• Lead generation
• Conversion rate

Social media is just one avenue for advertising your brand, but it does provide you with the unique advantage of having more personal communication with your followers. It allows you to build authentic relationships more effectively, which is particularly important if you’re in for the long haul. It might be a lot of work from the get go, but the the long term effects and benefits you reap from a more authentic relationship with your customers will be worth it.

For more resources on all things digital marketing, visit our blog or contact us for a free strategy session!