Social media marketing is more than just updating your Facebook status and uploading your selfie on Instagram. It is a robust platform for interaction between several brands, the brands, and their customers. Enterprises can effectively use social media platforms for gaining a distinct advantage in their competitive business strategies. Here are a few stats that show the reasons to leverage your social media strategy today:
Social media is an intense game of statistics, strategies and marketing campaigns that can bring a brand recognition, dedicated customers, profits, valuable customer feedback and volumes of customer data. The most significant advantage of having a social media strategy is the amount of actionable data it generates. Companies often use CRM or Customer Relationship Management platforms to collect and organize this valuable data in the form of databases.
Data management is often daunting for new businesses since it requires expertise and experience. Often companies need the help of DBAs to manage their customer databases. Although in-house DBAs cost a bomb, their presence makes all the difference. Remote DBAs are often not as costly, but even their services require money.
Multiple SMEs and start-ups step back from database management services for fear of escalating costs and suffer more significant losses in terms of customer service and customer retention. In such cases, it is a smarter option for these companies to opt for consolidation loans and small business loans at amicable APRs and interest rates.
Here are the ways you can leverage your social media presence for the advantage of your brand as well:
Advertising strategies and marketing strategies can never replace a social strategy. A social media component in the list of other marketing and promotional strategies can provide critical information and data. The Social media practice is about engagement and communication across a platform. It is no longer just about posting and sharing, and not engaging with the followers.
According to experts, social media is communications, advertising, promotions, marketing and selling, all in one package. You need to get your own social media strategy for improving sales, increasing conversion rates, improving SERPs and improving customer experience. The best place to start is a social platform you are already comfortable with. Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter provide rewarding customer interaction experiences for all brands across the globe.
You need to target your messages towards the readers. To engage your followers, en masse, you need to craft messages that are motivational, inspirational, informational or educational. For example – you can create a post about your new product. When you do so, include the details of the product in a smart and exciting infographic form. It will help you garner the attention of real followers.
Each social media platform comes with their own set of social media influencers. These are the social celebrity accounts that have thousands and sometimes millions of followers. Social media influencers often endorse a brand or a particular kind of lifestyle. For example – one person with 100,000 followers may be vegan, a yoga lover, a meditation freak and a representative of cruelty-free, healthy living. Organic food labels or cruelty-free cosmetics labels can efficiently utilize their fame and followership to promote their products.
Your brand must always find an influencer that thinks alike to leverage the power of these influencers. Picking a social celebrity with followership that does not align with your target group can be problematic for your brand and your products. 92% of the customers trust the influencers more than the advertisements and promotions. 2018 is going to be a huge for all kinds of influencer marketing, and it is time you made a move towards finding your own brand influencer before your competitors hogged them all.
While marketing on social media you need to understand that like all other human beings your social media followers would like to get some sweet attention. If you have noticed the latest trends on Facebook or Instagram, you must have realized that there is no better way to pay attention than to your followers and potential customers than to introduce competitions and a rewarding system. People between the ages of 55 and 64 are two times as likely to engage with your brand online.
Being responsive humanizes a brand and brings the users closer to the brand. It will help you galvanize your potential customers and push them further into your sales funnel. In fact creating a strong social media promotion campaign with proper content-rich posts, link building strategies and regular rewarding system for followers who participate in these competitions promote conversion rates. The easiest way to measure your ROI and increase in conversion rate is to couple a reliable conversion rate measurement tool with your social media strategies.
The 80-20 balance is a simple dogma for all marketers old and new. Stick to non-promotional, educational and informational posts for 80% of your social media content. Engage people with interesting original content that brings the users close to your brand. Promote your brand and your products in only about 20% of your posts. The latter 20% of the posts should contain promotional links and CTAs to mobilize your target audience. Do not try to sell something to your followers with every post. It can become annoying and predictable for all your users.
Most importantly, if you want your social media strategies to work, focus on your mobile users. Mobile users have overtaken the number of desktop users back in 2017, and not paying attention to the mobile social media users is a huge mistake since 81% of all SMEs use social media for marketing and promotions. However, only about 20 of the Fortune 500 companies present on Facebook and Twitter engage with their customers. Social media is gradually replacing email and calls in the customer service domains with their prompt response times. Most SMEs and Start-ups are using Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn as their standard platforms for customer engagement.
