All posts in Social Media Marketing

While social media continues to play a huge role in Americans’ lives in both a personal and professional sense, there’s also a growing wariness that marketers need to be aware of. For example, a 2018 Pew Research Center study found that social media overtook print newspapers as a more popular news source, yet a 2019 Pew study revealed that 62 percent of U.S. adults think social media companies have too much control over the news that users see.

Leading into 2020, social networks appear primed for both active engagement and active scrutiny, and social media companies may quickly change how they operate as a result. For example, Twitter recently announced they would stop allowing political advertising, and networks like Instagram are experimenting with hiding the number of likes on posts in an effort to reverse the negative mental health effects associated with social media comparisons, as CNET reports.

For marketers, even if these changes do not seem to apply directly to your brand, they underscore the point that social media marketers tend to operate on rented land. The major social media networks are publicly traded companies that exist to grow their own businesses, not yours. They are the ones in control of how their platforms work, and your efforts to be successful through their mediums, such as building up your followers to reach an organic audience, can essentially be made irrelevant overnight.

Read more: 5 Ways to Dominate Social Media Marketing in 2020

 

Social media marketing is a form of internet marketing that relies on the process of gaining traffic or attention through social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. By utilizing these platforms to connect with potential customers, you can build your brand and increase sales.

Each platform has different resources and goals that can benefit your business in different ways. According to Statista, 70 percent of the U.S. population has at least one social media profile. By 2021, the number of worldwide social media users is expected to be roughly 3.1 billion people. So many consumers using social media every day creates a valuable opportunity for businesses who want to reach their audience through platforms they’re already spending time on. Users are active on social media platforms because these channels offer a fun and easy way to network, keep in touch with friends and family and stay connected with what’s going on in the world.

I’m going to touch on the three major social media marketing platforms that can help your business truly take advantage of all that the online marketing world has to offer.

Social Media Marketing With Facebook

Facebook takes the lead as the most widely used social media marketing platform by adults, meaning there is a never ending opportunity to expand your audience and drive traffic to your website.

Getting started on Facebook can seem overwhelming; if you’re ready to begin, check out these tips and tricks from Sprout Social to get the most out of the ever-powerful social media platform.

Read more: How To Use Social Media Marketing For Your Business

It’s time to amp up and adjust our marketing strategies for the holidays – and if you want to get ahead of the marketing game and stand out from the crowd, check out these key tips and pointers from some of the top social media marketing experts.

Included here are insights from Mari Smith, Neil Patel, Virginia Nussey, Dennis Yu, Lilach Bullock, Lisa Dougherty, Marsha Collier, Sujan Patel and Kristel Cuenta-Cortez.

So let’s jump right in – and I’ll kick things off with my own number one holiday marketing tip.

1. 1. Run Facebook Messenger Ads | Larry Kim, CEO of MobileMonkey

Ad prices get crazy competitive around the holidays.

Since most of your sales are going to come from customers with pre-existing brand affinity, you should focus the majority of your social ads budget using remarketing as the targeting option, as opposed to trying out new, unproven audiences at this critical time.

People’s inboxes will be full of offers, so try reaching your audience using new higher-engagement marketing channels like Facebook Messenger ads in Facebook and Instagram to ensure that your audience actually sees your important marketing messages

2. Go Live on Facebook | Mari Smith, Facebook Marketing Expert

Use holiday-themed Facebook Live videos to really engage with your audience this holiday season.

Facebook continues to favor content that generates meaningful social interaction, specifically conversations between people within the comments on Page posts.

Live video typically leads to discussion among viewers on Facebook, which helps get the attention of its algorithm, meaning you should see even more reach on your posts.

In fact, Facebook states that live videos, on average, get six times as many interactions as regular videos.

Strive to stand out in the News Feed and create “thumb-stopping” live video content that draws your audience in.

Read more: 10 Experts Share Their Social Media Marketing Tips for the Holidays

Businesses and brands are constantly competing for attention on social media, and with all the noise and incessant messaging, how can you make your voice heard?

You have to find ways to cut through the noise and stand out like a unicorn in a sea of donkeys.

But how?

Here, I’m revealing a few of my favorite social media marketing tactics that have helped me grow my businesses and stand out on social.

1. Plan a content strategy and create an editorial calendar for your social channels.
Marketers are sometimes at a loss at what to post on social media.

Successful social media marketing doesn’t happen on accident — there’s a strategy in place, just as there is with a blog.

Look at the big picture and come up with social content that will resonate with your audience.

Map out seasonal content, as well as content related to events or launches your company is planning.

Work closely with your editorial and marketing teams to know what’s coming down the pipeline and strategize the best ways to promote it.

2. Invest in the right social channels.
It’s not just about what social content you share — it’s also about where you share it.

Not all social platforms are created equally, and where one business gets amazing engagement, another might fall flat.

B2Bs, for example, might do very well on LinkedIn, but not so hot on Instagram.

Meanwhile, B2Cs usually thrive on Instagram.

Find the platform that aligns with your audience.

3. Dive into new social platforms headfirst.
Another unicorn social tactic?

Find the latest and greatest platform, and dive in — before your competition.

One prime example?

Facebook Messenger.

The open rates on this thing are sky high (80% on average).

There are 300 million active monthly Messenger users, and you can communicate with them straight through Messenger in an engaging format that they prefer!

Whether you want to create customer service bots, bots that can schedule appointments, or bots to deliver key content, you can do it all on Facebook Messenger.

Read more: 8 Ways Your Business Can Stand Out on Social Media in 2019

With social platform functionality advancing, and algorithms further limiting organic reach, influencer marketing has continued to become a more viable, valuable digital outreach consideration, which an expanding range of brands are now looking into.

But it’s not as simple as just reaching out to an influential user and asking them to post on behalf of your brand. You need to research the right influencers who have connection to those consumers that you want to reach, you need to establish goals and a strategy to maximize your effort, and you then need to utilize your influencer-created content for optimal results.

There’s a lot to take into account – which is where this new infographic from the team at Pan Communications comes in.

Here is an overview of some of the key considerations you need to keep in mind when mapping out an influencer marketing approach. Using these notes as a guide, you’ll be well on your way to building an effective, beneficial influencer marketing program.

Read more: 5 Key Components of a Successful Influencer Marketing Strategy [Infographic]

Over the years, I have worked with companies who block access to all social media platforms within their network.

This move was probably intended to keep employees focused on their work.

However, the marketing, HR, and sales teams really needed access to these networks!

No, I’m not talking about encouraging everyone to go waste their days on YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, etc. I’m also not counting the necessary marketing tasks of running advertising and content campaigns.

I’m referring to those of us in marketing and search roles who don’t have a perceived good reason to be on social media daily – as well as those managers or decision-makers who direct the time and activities of their teams.

Social media has matured into a major digital marketing channel. It shows up in attribution models and customer journey maps in nearly all industries.

While arguments can be made about niche and old school industries, it is hard to ignore.

Using social media at work is a positive thing for marketing and SEO professionals.

We should be encouraging social media use in our companies.

When given direction and focusing on the seven reasons marketers and SEO pros should be using social media, we can leverage its power and accomplish things that wouldn’t be possible from the brand’s profile and perspective alone.

1. Company Branding
The more content employees share about their work, role in the industry, involvement in their company, and engagement in their community, the more a brand can benefit.

As long as guidance is given on how to ensure profiles are tied to the company and the content is tasteful, employees can serve as brand ambassadors on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and more.

We have all been to the stale and sterile profile of a brand that doesn’t showcase what employees are doing and isn’t connected with the people that make up that company.

If your employees are doing awesome things in their circles, make sure they are encouraged and empowered to talk about it on social media.

2. Personal Branding
Years ago, I had a client’s HR department worry that marketing’s encouragement of employees and sales team members to be on LinkedIn and engaging in their industry would make them ripe for recruitment by competitors.

This was backward thinking and thankfully, they learned to embrace the power of what their employees’ personal brands could do.

By building personal brands through sharing content, building larger networks, and engaging others, they found that individual employees were able to establish their own thought leadership and personas in the industry. This could mutually work for the employee’s career benefit as well as the company’s overall profile.

Read more: 7 Reasons Marketers & SEO Pros Should Use Social Media at Work

Q: When it comes to customer acquisition, how important is paid social media compared with other digital channels? — John L., Houston

Social media has created a beautiful opportunity for entrepreneurs: It’s never been easier to get your message in front of hundreds, thousands, or even millions of people. But if you want to reach all those people, it’s going to cost a lot.

It’s a simple case of supply and demand, and social media platforms are limiting the supply. Organic reach — that is, your ability to speak directly to the audience that chooses to follow and interact with your business — has dwindled to almost nothing. On Facebook, for example, organic reach touches less than 5 percent of your audience on average. Facebook simply doesn’t show your posts to most of your followers … unless you pay for the privilege. That’s one of the reasons why advertising inside social media has become increasingly expensive, as brands outbid each other in a competition for users’ attention.

Suddenly, social media isn’t such a great deal. If you’re on a budget, all of this can brutally limit your growth and acquisition opportunities.

That’s not to say you should stop using digital platforms altogether. Paid social is a hotbed of marketing insight. With just a small amount of cash, you can easily test headlines, imagery, and offers on different audiences. That’s valuable research. However, if your entire acquisition strategy depends on paid media, you could pay your way right out of business.

But there is another way! You just need to diversify. In the digital world, there are many ways to acquire customers: paid social, paid search, email acquisition, organic social, organic search (earning traffic through content), public relations, influencer marketing, and earned media. Start by identifying a few channels where you want to focus most of your efforts. (Ideally, at least some of those channels will not require the spend of ad dollars.) This way, you can test what’s working while building an omnichannel approach that will pay off down the road.

Read more: How Much Should You Spend on Social Media Marketing?

 

When it comes to social media marketing, there’s a lot of misinformation, and a ton of unrealistic expectations set as a result. Luckily, marketers are blessed with a massive amount of data from social media activity, so we can course correct misnomers which may lead to disappointed bosses and upset clients.

A recent study conducted by Sprout Social surveyed both marketers and consumers, in order to help identify key challenges, and offer insights on what users expect when it comes to social media marketing. After all, if your strategy isn’t meeting their needs, it will fall flat.

Here are eight key stats of note from the data, which may help inform your strategic approach.

1. “47% of social media marketers say that developing strategies which support business goals is their top challenge”

First off, I want to be direct in an observation on this point. If you’re not strategizing against what matters the most for your business, and working towards achieving that outcome, you’re not marketing. You’re just “doing the things”.

Read more: 8 Social Media Marketing Stats You Shouldn’t Ignore