In 2023, according to Demandsgarage’s study, there are 4.9 billion people on social media. With millennials and Gen Z, being the most frequent users.

In order to properly use social media marketing to draw in more website traffic and followers, it is crucial to follow some simple rules while also avoiding several things.

The Importance of a Strong Social Presence

So why is social media marketing important?

Depending on your website’s nature, social media can be one of the most important ways of promoting it. Not only can you run paid ads on platforms like Facebook or Instagram, but you can also pay an influencer to popularize your website or amass a social media following yourself.

Websites have the chance to expand their readership and boost their visibility through social media in various ways. Websites that share their content on social media sites might get new readers and fans who otherwise might not have found them.

What Are the Best Practices for Building Your Brand and Engaging Your Audience?

Social media is increasingly important. But if you do it wrong, it can have the opposite effect of what you want to achieve. Let’s go over an example. What’s better – to have a Facebook page filled with 1-star reviews, or to have no social media at all? Well, in this case, obviously it’s much better to have no social media at all.

But if you decide to start, how should you plan to do it?

Step 1 – Start by identifying a target market:

Regardless of what platform you are planning to post, you should aim to create material that appeals to your target audience, and not to the general public. You can adapt your material more effectively if you are aware of your audience’s preferences. Do some research.

You already have a website, check your analytics before you start. If a large percentage of your user base resides in a certain area, you can employ a hyperlocal social media marketing strategy.

Step 2 – Use more than one social media platform: Use several social media sites to connect with more people. Find out which platforms, including Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok, and YouTube, perform best for your niche by experimenting with them all. You can even try Reddit.

Step 3 – Post frequently: When it comes to social media marketing, consistency is crucial. Create a content schedule and follow it religiously to let your audience know when to anticipate new posts.

Step 4 – Get your audience involved:

Reply to messages and comments, and express gratitude for your supporters. Your blog has to have a strong community to develop and succeed.

Step 5 – Work with other bloggers and influencers: By working together, you may expand your audience and enhance your reputation in your industry.

What Are the Most Common Mistakes to Avoid?

1. Don’t buy followers: Although it might be tempting to grab these 20,000 followers for the price of 50 bucks, the purchase of followers or engagement should be avoided since it might damage your reputation and lead to poor engagement rates. The most efficient and long-lasting method of gaining a devoted following is organic development.

2. Don’t Blend in:  Avoid employing trendy hashtags that have no relation to your content and make sure to steer clear of trending or irrelevant hashtags. These can draw the wrong crowd and damage your credibility, and engagement rates, and spoil the community you are trying to build.

3. Don’t share low-quality content: Providing quality content should be your top priority. Resharing a funny video of a dog or cat is a low effort. Don’t do it. Just don’t.  You might lose followers and damage your reputation by sharing low-quality material.

Should You Use Paid Promotion From Time to Time?

Depending on what you want to achieve, paid promotions can be a great idea to either grow your audience on the platform you are using as social media or to promote a product, service, or website. Have a clear goal in mind. Are you using a paid promotion to gain followers, or to funnel them directly into your blog?

Use it wisely, with a greater audience comes great responsibility.

Making Your Social Channels Work for You

What’s better than amassing a huge audience that’s super loyal and loves to read your content every single day? Well, an even bigger loyal audience that’s also subscribed to your blog and purchases your merchandise.

Creating several cash flows from your website is of utmost importance when it comes to monetizing. Check Publir’s solutions, which vary widely, but are focused on one thing – helping you monetize your blog.

The post What Are the Dos and Don’ts of 2023 Social Media Marketing first appeared on Publir.

Social media testing in simple terms is when campaigns are tested on target audiences, to see which one works best. A social media test is indispensable if you want to meet your marketing goals. Also called social media testing, ‘social testing’ shows you your content’s performance. Different forms of the same post may be tested simultaneously, measured against some predetermined parameters. The goal could also change over time. For example, during a particular season, you might aim for more engagement. Another time you might be interested in generating new leads. Or, you might want to see whether it is worth investing in a Facebook video campaign. In such a case, you need to create a post to measure ad impressions with or without videos. Post the campaign, data will show whether producing a video would make sense for your brand, or not. 

In short, whatever your goals may be, social media testing can help you arrive at great touchpoints to help you move forward. 

 Why Is Social Testing Important? 

• Get data-driven information about your social media activities. 

• Analyze multiple variables simultaneously, like photo and video performance when attached to a post. 

• Get data about how audience behavior impacts campaign structure. 

• Get a bird’s eye view of what works specifically for your brand, instead of getting lost researching other industry benchmarks. 

• There are a variety of social media tests, to give you a wide range of information, so your marketing strategy can really be information-driven, without depending on 3rd party data or outside surveys.

What Are The Kinds of Social Media Tests? 

The kind of test you want to run will depend on the kind of information you want. For example, if you want to find out how picture quality affects your Instagram audience, or you want to see whether your homepage performs better when you change the copy. Or, you might also want to test a new tone of voice on your YouTube channel? All these situations warrant social media testing. Any problem can be solved with data that gives you audience insights when they interact with your brand on various social media channels. Once you have finalized your objective, you can choose the type of test. 

Broadly, these could be divided into – 

A/B Testing

Tried and tested, this method depends on a simple principle. It considers 2 types of content, chooses a variable between them, and provides results based on an outlined goal. An A/B test is great if you want to make quick, small changes to campaigns to see how audience behavior might change. A simple example could be trying out different CTA buttons on ads. Or, it could be playing with captions. To put it simply, an A/B test depends on a single variable.

Split Testing 

A broader test that throws up more generic results, a split test measures larger changes. Also, the two pieces of content considered are completely different. It tests two kinds of content, against one goal. A split test would be great to tell you if your LinkedIn page layout needs a revamp. A split test can also be a prelude to an A/B test. A split test can help you choose an ad video for a particular post. An A/B test can then help you test different sections of the video out. 

Multivariate Test 

The final type of social testing, this method works with multiple variables. You can see the results of more than two or more elements. For example, if you have a single Facebook ad, you can have 3 versions of it, with small changes to image, copy, and overall design. A multivariate test can help you choose which one works best. 

Things to keep in Mind  while Social Testing

Social media is a vast ocean, and testing can help you get correct data if you execute it correctly. Else, you could be wildly off the mark, a waste of time and resources. Social media tests are not difficult to run. They need to be carried out will your preparation on point, because if that doesn’t happen, your results will be useless. Here are certain points to keep in mind, while designing a social media test – 

Choose Your Goal and Stick To It 

Do not deviate, because that throws everything out of place. Variables, units of measurement, and time frames work only if your goal is identifiable and constant. For example, if you want to increase your Instagram audience engagement. You can create variables, run an A/B test to check different copy versions, and attract the most impressions. Since your goal is clear, you know what to look for during analysis, in this case, impressions. Finding out which copy gets the most impressions can help you choose the best ad. 

Map Your Audience

Social testing is a great way to find out what your audience wants. Your target market’s behavior, and their interaction with your brand’s message, will be the data you get. Imagine if you are launching a new product aimed at runners, for instance, compression socks. You need to know how your audience would react to your new ad. If you are in the dark regarding your audience, you would never know how your social media test results are relevant across consumer segments. 

Measure Performance Before and After 

It is easy to get busy testing without considering where you started. If that happens, you won’t know how much you have improved or need to work. You need to know the situation of your ongoing marketing campaigns or have old results at hand. You need context and background information, only then can a comparison help you make informed decisions. The objectives of the older campaigns might be different, but they may still be a useful reference point. For instance, testing for conversions and retargeting may be different but having an idea of what your audience wants helps anyways. 

Keep Monitoring 

If you are running a social media test for a big chunk of time, keep using social test software or social media tools to check stats and reports. Check progress periodically, for your first priority. Also, take note of the other metrics. Improve performance by minor tweaks. Once the test ends, you will have a well-rounded report with data taken at different time intervals. 

Pick A Duration 

There’s no ideal duration for a social media test. However,  run it for at least a week, to get a useful chunk of data. It is a good starting point to assess your performance and see whether your goal has been met. If not, run the test for a little while more. But, never leave anything open-ended or run something indefinitely. That is firstly a waste, and tests that over-run their period churn out data that you won’t need.

Final Thoughts

In conclusion, when performing social testing, pick a suitable time period, and then figure out your budgeting and planning processes. Then, you can put your test into action to get results. Social media is a dynamic world, where trends change quickly. Read our blog about performing competitive analysis on social media, and this one on using social media to build a brand story outside advertising. That way, you can use social media effectively to build your brand presence, increase audience engagement and keep an eye on your competition!

The post What Is Social Testing And Why Is It Needed? first appeared on Publir.

According to another research, Twitter has less than 20% organic reach on their posts, contradicting popular perception. Recognizing what enhances your social media organic reach will assist you in increasing your statistics. And in this article, we will help you with some amazing tips to increase your Social Media organic reach.

Ways to increase the reach of an Organic Post

Organic posts, unlike paid content, aren’t usually given to particular target groups. Each social media site has its own algorithm that determines how organic posts are dispersed around the platform, i.e., who sees your content. Although you do not need to be an expert on social media, having a fundamental understanding of how it works will help you create future posts and grow your social media reach.

1. Optimize your social media profiles

For improved exposure and optimization, you may adjust every component of your social network presence. Many of the strategies you’ve used will apply here as well including having a username that is simple to remember, having a photo/logo that is easily identifiable, having descriptions that are keyword-rich, and adding a link to your website. Use the same criteria to select which pictures to use, which keywords to add, and how to frame your call-to-action when publishing. This is true for any and all social networking sites.

2. Evergreen content posts

A typical social media post, particularly on platforms like Twitter or Facebook, can have a broad range of lifespans. As a result, avoid publishing material that has an expiration date. Consider resolving some of your industry’s most prevalent and chronic issues. Even better, strive to make a post that is both instructive and entertaining. Evergreen material may appeal to a wide range of emotions, including humor, horror, and awe.

3. Make content strategy

You must think about organic material if you want it to perform effectively on social media. Why would a stranger spend time on your material if you don’t invest time in your social media content strategy? To begin, find out who your target audience is and what are their passions. Make a note of the demographics of your target market and what are the differences between platforms. Most social media networks provide access to this information through their native analytics tools for business accounts.

4. Organic post targeting

This strategy varies per platform, but adjusting the parameters of your posts to target certain segments of your audience might help you increase your organic reach. You may use organic post targeting to control who sees your content. Take advantage of every chance to better target your audience and ensure that the correct individuals see your content. Gender, relationship, status, education level, age, location, language, interests, or post-end date are all possible targets.

5. Post consistently

To create and sustain a presence, post on a regular basis. But keep in mind that when it comes to organic social media, quality always takes precedence over quantity. This is why it’s critical to have a solid content strategy and a social media content plan. Planning ahead ensures that the habit is sustainable and that burnout is avoided. Consider the long term. Create repeating content topics, episodes, or a recurrent series.

6. Promote your social media profiles

Social media platforms should be prominently displayed anywhere your company has a presence. Website, shop, business cards, and email signatures are all good places to put your information. Add follow buttons to your website so people can quickly “like” or “follow” your page without having to leave your company’s blog or website. Facebook likes may be converted to Twitter followers and vice versa, allowing you to cross-promote your social media platforms. This will increase your organic reach tremendously in the end.

7. Engage your audience

If your organic postings aren’t getting the attention they deserve, just try calling your audience for an answer. Asking questions may be a fantastic way to get started. If you’re curious about anything, ask your followers. Learn more about your audience by using this as a chance to do so. Generally speaking, polls are excellent feedback and engagement tools. Stickers are also available in Stories that can help in engaging your target audience with your brand.

8. Balance between useful/promotional content

The 80/20 rule is the key to success here. Most of your material should be valuable and informative; the remaining 20% should advertise your business or items. Once the 80% has been achieved, you’ll get new followers as well as trust, which will lead to them seeing the 20% and purchasing what you’re offering. Don’t forget to add videos, pictures, GIFs, and other interesting content types to your mix.

9. Respond often

Everyone wants to know that they can count on you to respond, so they are more inclined to participate. Your reputation will grow if you effectively communicate with people and respond to their remarks. As a result of their real interest in what you’re doing, people will seek your updates. A strong relationship with your customers is essential for all parts of your business, and it may have a viral impact on your organic reach.

10. Knowing algorithms is vital

In their timelines and newsfeeds, social media algorithms utilize ranking signals to sort organic material. Relevance, timeliness, and a person’s relationship with the account are some of the most important considerations. Algorithms prioritize posts that are likely to generate a lot of interest. Oftentimes, early participation is viewed as a favorable sign. A lot of people like posts that have a lot of rich material like movies, pictures, and animated GIFs. In terms of social media content, video is still the king.

How to improve your Social Reach?

1. Usage of impactful words

It’s all about words when it comes to content. Words that have a lasting impression on the audience. They should have the ability to deliver the post’s message. It’s possible that you’ll lose your audience’s interest if all of your social media postings are too promotional and invite them to buy your items. Converse with your audience in a conversational tone instead, and you’ll be on your road to success.

2. Timing is crucial

It is important for marketers to post their material on social media when it will have the maximum impact on consumers. If you post while everyone is online, your material will be lost in the sea of postings that others are seeing. If you publish at non-peak hours, you’ll be less likely to get drowned out by all the noise on social media.

3. Customize content for each platform

A single message is not enough for all social media platforms. Each platform’s content must be customized. According to research conducted by Socialbakers, some forms of content may significantly increase your organic reach. Videos had the largest organic reach on Facebook by a margin of over 3%, which is enormous given that the average organic reach has plummeted to 1% or less, according to the research.

4. Create visual content

The average Facebook post receives 120% less interaction than those that feature a picture, according to Wishpond. As a result, if you want to boost social media engagement, you should publish more photos. Photos, jokes, GIFs, and even creative artwork might be used. Visuals for social media may be created in an infinite number of ways.

5. Usage of good color and fonts

According to studies, colors account for 85% of why customers purchase a product. Colors and attractive fonts have a strong impact on people. Make use of pleasing fonts and colors in your material to elicit an emotional reaction. People will feel motivated to share your material after the emotional quotient has been established.

6. Use trending hashtags

As a social media tool, hashtags have the ability to turn uninteresting messages into viral ones. They’re more likely to be shared and read since they’re shorter. However, even if your postings are already being seen by your followers, hashtags allow you to reach new users. By using relevant and popular hashtags in your Twitter and Instagram posts, you increase the likelihood that users will locate your content.

7. Engage audience by going live

Brands now have additional ways to enhance social media engagement with the advent of Instagram Live and Facebook Live. You may make use of these possibilities to interact with fans in real-time. Consider live streaming your product launch, a milestone celebration, or a trade show. You may also go live once a week to keep your social media fans up to date and entertained.

8. Promoting offers

Providing your audience with appealing incentives is one approach to engage them you can give promotional offers to your audience including:

• Coupons for instant savings
• Shipping/delivery free.
• Free samples
• Affordably priced membership
• Cashback

Such promotions can help you boost social media engagement and revenue. You must, however, ensure that the deals you generally do not eat into your profit margins.

Best Social Media Platforms for Organic Reach

Below are some of the social media platforms along with their social media organic reach statistics. This will help in knowing which social media is best for organic reach.

Facebook

Facebook remains the social media king, with over 2.74 billion monthly active users (MAUs). According to a survey, 18.3% of social media users in the United States made a purchase through Facebook.

Twitter

Studies showed that Twitter is used by 85% of small and medium-sized enterprises to conduct customer support. When their tweet is replied to, 77% of Twitter users feel better about a company.

Instagram

Instagram reels and stories are the greatest chance for businesses trying to increase interaction on the site. Study shows Instagram engagement with brands is ten times that of Facebook, 54 times that of Pinterest, and 84 times that of Twitter.

Google+

Expand your Google+ circles by getting involved in your brand’s community as well as other communities. You will have to keep a regular posting schedule to boost your organic reach on this network.

Pinterest

According to Statista, Pinterest is used by 28% of global social media marketers to advertise their businesses. More than half of Pinners are expressly seeking items, which is more than four times the number on other platforms.

Best Practises to Increase your Organic Reach

1. Curating user-generated content

User-generated content is a fantastic choice since it keeps people interested in the article while also reducing the brand’s workload. Users can generate innovative ideas, which are later shown on the product’s page. You’ll acquire a lifelong admirer if you feature a customer or his services on your website. Here, you’re demonstrating to your followers that your current consumers adore your items. By making the fans whose posts you share feel appreciated, you’re also gaining their allegiance.

2. Find relevant posting time

Social media users are not always online. If you post anything while the majority of your followers are idle, you may miss out on engagement possibilities. Determine when your followers are most likely to be online and then plan your updates appropriately. The ideal times to publish might vary depending on a variety of criteria, including time zone and target demography.

3. Post GIFs

Static images have been replaced with dynamic graphics in today’s fast-paced environment. There are thousands of GIFs on Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, Reddit, and BuzzFeed alone. Every marketer should get on board the GIF wagon. Unlike static images, these GIFs are able to convey the benefits of the products or services in a way that a static image cannot.

4. Post consistently

More posting isn’t the answer, but regular posting is. We must concentrate on publishing high-quality, relevant material. Posting less frequently and of higher quality can boost organic reach more than spamming your page with whatever you can get your hands on. According to one research, major businesses post on Instagram 1.5 times each day on average. There is no reduction in engagement when you publish more, as long as you keep up the posting rate.

5. Customize content for Instagram

Instagram, being a visual medium, places a larger emphasis on the photo or video itself rather than the words. As a result, a post that does well on Instagram is likely to differ from one that performs well on Twitter or Facebook. Hence, customize content specifically for Instagram that will inspire you to be more creative with your social media postings while also assisting you in driving a greater organic reach.

Conclusion

Increasing your organic reach on social media requires some planning, as well as consistent work and commitment. However, it mostly focuses on generating outstanding content that your users will want to share. You and your content creator may work together to enhance your posts and boost interaction with your current followers, resulting in higher ratings and a larger social media reach. The trick here is to work smarter rather than harder. You should concentrate on improving your content and social media approach. The outcomes will follow. Don’t lose hope if you don’t instantly see an increase in your organic social media reach. It’s a long-term process that demands you to maintain your focus.

The post Tips to Improve your Organic Reach on Social Media first appeared on Publir.

What Is Social Media Competitive Analysis?

A study of your competitors, to find out their strengths and weaknesses and compare those against your own, social media competitive analysis is a great way of measuring your own results pitted against that of others. Find out where you lack, how your company can grow, and whether you need to replace some strategies. Identify your competition, and see the social media platforms they use. Find out how they use those platforms, and dive into their social media strategy. Stack up your own social media metrics against that of the competition. Find gaps in your social media strategy and work on them. 

Why Is A Social Media Competitor Analysis Needed?

Why go through all the trouble of doing this in the first place? Well, everyone’s audience today overlaps, so you can gain some valuable insights from your competitor’s strategy. Here’s why the data it throws up can be useful.

• Performance Benchmarks – Learn about average followers, a company’s engagement rate, and other data. 

• Get ideas as to the best time slots to post on social media for your industry. 

• Try to find out what customer problems your competitors are solving. 

• Try and come up with new and better content ideas that your audience can identify with. 

• Learn how to communicate with your audience across different platforms. 

• Find ways to make your brand stand out. 

Your social media competitive analysis can be done either as a one-off or periodically to keep a track of your rivals. A quarterly or monthly report in this regard may help. 

How Do You Carry Out Social Media Competitive Analysis?

A social media competition analysis can be done in 4 easy steps. 

Step 1 – Find Out Who Your Rivals Are

Try to find the most competitive keywords –  You already should be having a repository of relevant keywords. For example, if you are a New York-based marketing manager for a car showroom company, you’re more likely to focus on keywords like “car showrooms in NYC”, or “best places to buy a car in New York”. But then, look carefully and dive deeper. Are you selling family sedans or luxury vehicles that cost upwards of $100,000 each? Have a good understanding of your keyword stock so you can understand who you’re really competing against online. Use the Google Adwords Keyword Planner to seek keywords most relevant to your company. Use the tool to analyze your website, get a list of relevant keywords and the related average monthly searches and competition levels. 

Check which firm is ranking for those keywords on Google – After choosing around 5 or 10 keywords closest to your business, put them into Google, and get a fair idea of your main competitors. Brands that are shelling out cash for Google ads to get their name ranked above organic search results when they have poor organic rankings, should catch your attention. Check out the websites of your competitors, and explore their social profiles, saving their links in your spreadsheet.

Find out who is popular on social media searches – The world of search on social media is quite different from Google. The brands that do well on the search engine, may not rank that well on Facebook or Instagram. For Facebook, enter the keyword in the search box, and click on ‘Pages’ to see any official handles and access their content. 

Find out what competitors have your audience’s attention – Tools like Facebook’s Audience Insights, and Twitter’s Analytics can help you with data about which brands your audience is interested in, on social media. Use Facebook’s Audience Insights to find your target audience’s demographics. Facebook’s insights are invaluable for customer reach. With Twitter Analytics, find each of your Top Followers, visit their profiles and check their follower list for accounts they interact with, or their feed for re-tweets, etc. 

Narrow down to 5 of the best – You don’t have to fight everyone in the market. From the large list of potential competitors, narrow down your list to the most important 3 or 4 brands most closely competing with your brand on social media. 

Step 2 – Get Intelligence and Data

After narrowing down to your most important competitors, find out what they are up to, on social media. A quick glance through the social networks of every brand that you identify as a top competitor can give you important points that might help, like – 

• Their preferred social networks
• Their follower count and rate of follower growth
• Rate of posting content
• Engagement rate
• What their preferred hashtags are, and how many hashtags they use.

This information is easily available on your competition’s social profile. 

Step 3 – Carry Out A SWOT Analysis

A SWOT Analysis can help you figure out how you are stacked up against the competition. Find out ways to improve your strategy, and learn to fight threats along the way. Take a look at your business, and identify the below – 

S – Strengths

List metrics where you score more than the competition.

W – Weaknesses

List metrics where your numbers are below the competition. This is where you should improve and always remember, to work both on strengths and weaknesses for each social network. 

O – Opportunities

After comparing yourself to your rivals, you can get an idea of where you stand and can find potential opportunities to make use of. These are areas where you may improve vis-a-vis your competition, based on previously-gathered information.

T – Threats

Finally, do account for threats that come from outside the company. Study the growth numbers and catch any anomalies, like a previously smaller rival suddenly experiencing a spike in followers.

Out of these, strengths and weaknesses are to do with factors under your control. Opportunities and threats are based on external factors that you need to be cognizant of.

Step 4 – Incorporate The Data With Social Media Monitoring 

Carrying out one competition analysis is not going to help. Try to carry out your social media competitive analysis regularly, with the latest information. You can get the latter using a social media monitoring strategy, which will give you the newest data to incorporate in your next analysis, great for identifying potential threats and opportunities. 

There are several tools for social media monitoring, allowing you to listen in on conversations about your brand, competition, and the industry.

Conclusion

In conclusion, carrying out a competitive analysis can help you gain valuable insights and even uncover a flaw in your marketing strategy, if one is present. It can help you improve and change quickly enough to stay ahead of others and at the forefront of your target audience’s minds. Read our blog on social media influencers and how they can play a pivotal role in attracting the right audience to your brand. 

The post How to do a Competitive Analysis on Social Media first appeared on Publir.

Understanding New-age Social Media and Various Ways to Use It

In an age when we are saturated with information, how do you make your product stand out, without hard-selling it? How do you stand apart from your competitors, each of whom has an almost identical marketing strategy? Thankfully, the advantages of social media aren’t just restricted to its advertising capabilities. There are many ways to use social media besides direct advertising. Here are a few – 

For Social Selling

Being full of vendors, social media platforms are now slowly morphing into shopping sites too. And unlike your regular eCommerce sites, here people air their grievances on the brand page itself. Hence it is very important for a business to have trained sales reps who maintain active brand profiles, build trust, forge partnerships, and foster relationships with the company’s clients online. Only then can they expect to make more direct sales off their page. For instance, if you are a consumer looking to purchase a TREK bicycle off the company FB page, you could try interacting with them on messenger. If TREK’s marketing strategy is good, they should have someone on the other end who can help you make a purchase on the TREK Facebook page itself. Brands should also not shy away from giving away freebies or discounts or even loyalty points if customers make purchases online. 

To Build Goodwill 

Nothing helps more in the digital age than word-of-mouth. Social media is full of people making recommendations about products and services. As a brand, social proof is a great way for boosting conversion rates. Testimonials, reviews, and more go a long way. Social media is a goldmine for this because customers and brand advocates are usually willing to support the brands they love. There are many social listening tools and sentiment analysis methods that crawl social media looking for conversations or mentions regarding your brands and keywords related to them. Once you find some positive reviews, you can always take screenshots of them to put on your landing page on your website, to build goodwill among those who visit your website. 

To Create a Brand Story to Attract Consumers 

Story sells and is a  great way to build a steady audience, but brands must take care not to sound preachy. As a brand, your main objective is to capture the audience’s attention. Whether you want to be informative, inspirational, or impart education is up to you. For example, Nike. Since 2018, it’s had 318 social media profiles online and counting, and is one of the most followed brands online. Its content is inspirational and revolves around a certain lifestyle and way of thinking. This drives people to Nike’s philosophy, and consequently to its stores and products. At the same time, Nike pulled all its products from eCommerce stores and started retailing directly from its website. This helped the brand funnel its most important customers right where it wanted them. Today, Nike’s Facebook page is a hub for its online presence and activities. Apart from being a normal fan page, it has customizable tabs linking directly to its Instagram page and a support page. Other links take users to Nike’s website, and there’s even a ‘Shop Now’ CTA button that takes users to a store. 

To Provide Excellent After-Sales Service

The good and bad thing about social media is that grievances can be aired immediately, and they can spread quickly. Since 50% of customers buy from companies that they think provide good customer service, it’s important to ensure that testimonials spotlight this. As mentioned earlier, a sales representative to help drive sales is great but what if someone isn’t happy with what you’ve provided? Even a huge company like Amazon has employees on its social media handles, combing comments and helping consumers. This is what makes a big difference in helping current customers bring in new ones. If you are sloppy with after-sales service, an unresolved complaint can quickly snowball into something untoward, as various brands have unfortunately learned over the years. Even the smallest gesture matters. Like this instance of a steakhouse giving a customer a free surprise meal, something that would’ve gained them a lot of goodwill. 

To Connect with Influencers

Today every dollar spent on influencers has a return on investment of more than $5. People look up to celebrities and personalities, making marketing easier with the right connections. For example, NBA and NFL athletes in the USA are widely followed across all social media platforms, and some of them are influential voices across Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. Many of them do promotional posts for brands for a fee. However, you don’t always need to shell out a top dollar in every case. People also heed the advice of local influencers, as they believe that such influencers may have a genuine interest in the product that they’re reviewing. In any case, if you have a brand that manufactures sports hydration drinks, you have the option of doing a post with a pro athlete and spending thousands of dollars or roping in a local influencer for a slightly lesser amount. 

Final Thoughts 

In conclusion, everything your brand does on social media does not necessarily have to be an ad. While marketing budgets and ad spends are no doubt important, it is also vital to build a brand ‘presence’ online. Your brand needs to have a ‘personality or a ‘voice’ that attracts people. Read this blog about the evolution of content marketing, to get a clear idea of how to make a great content strategy and reach out to your audience. 

The post Top Ways to Leverage Social Media Outside of Advertising first appeared on Publir.

From interacting with our loved ones to getting our daily news, social media is everywhere and no doubt, it is here to stay! Since its initiation in the early 2000s, social media has shown tremendous growth and is still growing, exponentially.

For businesses, it’s important to recognize the power that social media holds over an audience and, as a matter of fact, over the entire population. Everybody knows what enormous influence social media has, and how its mindful usage can take your business to heights that you might have never even imagined. By mindfully leveraging social media channels and adopting correct internet techniques, you can grow your platform from within the space of your own home or office with just a few clicks.

Is Social Media Important to Grow Your Own Platform?

In 2021, around 3.78 billion people use social media all around the globe, which equates to 48% of the total population of the world. Facebook leads the way with around 2.32 billion active monthly users. Also, according to a recent survey, a user roughly spends 2.5 hours on social media each day and 73% of the ‘digital’ markets from all around the globe believe that social media has helped them grow their businesses very effectively.

On the consumer end, 54% of social browsers use social media to research products before buying. These are huge numbers and produce a very impacting effect on the consumer level. And if these facts are not enough to convince you about the magnitude of social media on the marketplace today, then let us tell you that in the US alone, 84% of the population between the age of 18-29 and 81% of those between 30-49 are active social media users. 

If your organization isn’t leveraging social media, you’re truly leaving money on the table. 

How to leverage your brand socially- What Is Social Media Branding?

Social media branding is essentially being present on social media in a way that reflects your brand and your company values in an effort to pass value along to your audience. The main purpose is to boost brand awareness and make your business profitable. By leveraging social media channels, you can grow a robust network of followers who not only want to engage with your brand but are also eager to buy from you. This way your impact on the market becomes stronger day by day.

How To Leverage Social Media Channels To Grow Your Platform

You can use social media in many ways to leverage and grow your digital presence. Let’s look at the most effective ways for publishers, advertisers, and brand owners to make the most out of social media. 

Know Your Target Audience As Good As You Know Your Food Preferences

The fundamental rule to be able to market your brand on social media is by understanding and defining your target audience as intricately as possible. The better you know your target demographic, the better you will be able to appeal to your potential customers. And the better the appeal; the better will be your profit.

Develop A Strategy And Keep Working On It Consistently

Another important way to boost your social presence is by developing a strategy that will help you achieve social milestones slowly but consistently. You need to make a solid strategy that you can follow on a daily basis, aimed at engaging those active followers on your platform. You can use ads, influencers, power promotions, and many other strategies to grow your platform, at the same time to keep your existing audience engaged.

Use Various Social Media Platforms Instead Of Just One

Who is not on  Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter? The majority of your target audience will be spread out over these platforms, and tapping them on various platforms will improve your brand’s impact. First, find out where your audience is spending their time and determine which platforms align with your brand. Then develop a strategy to stay visible on those platforms. You don’t need to be everywhere, but you do need to show up consistently where your audience is.

Engagement

The key to successful social media branding is engagement. In order to interact and connect with your audience, you have to engage with them, sometimes in the form of comments, shares, likes, and sometimes in the form of live videos. Many among the now popular and successful brands like Zomato and Netflix actively engage with their audiences in the form of comments and posts, which not only increases their social presence but also their engagement rate which plays a vital role to enhance their existence online.

Leverage The Power And Image Of Your Brand Using Social Media Influencers 

Promoting your brand by engaging with popular social media influencers can do wonders for your brand image. This is why established brands hire and sponsor influencers to promote their products online and offline. It increases your brand’s follower base and helps your reach out to the masses easily. 

Takeaway

The power of social media is massive and it is definitely unavoidable. Therefore, you should use it to your own advantage and make some profitable social media strategies for your brand. This is the age of social media and you have to up your game if you really want to succeed in making an impact digitally. If you want to explore blogs on digital content, visit us here!

The post Leveraging Social Media Channels To Grow Your Own Platform first appeared on Publir.