Social media tactics are a great way to reach the billions of people worldwide who log on to various social media platforms each day. These platforms allow users from all over the world to connect and share stories, make new friends, and find new interests.
What does that mean for you as a business owner?
A social media tactic is a great way to wield the power of social media to get your content in front of your target audience. Your content will pop up in between posts from users’ friends and family, which makes it more likely those users will see what you’re selling.
Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing involves taking your brand to one of the many social media networks available and using those platforms to increase your customer base. From Twitter to LinkedIn, a large portion of your audience likely spends some time on social media. The best social media marketers know how to use that presence to their advantage.
A good digital content strategy that can help you meet your business goals should involve social media. By taking advantage of the algorithms that direct content on social media, you can reach your target audience far more effectively than by using traditional advertising methods alone.
Social Media Marketing Tactics
Most social media networks make it easy to create, schedule, and run an ad campaign within just a few minutes. Combined with regular posts, your ads can be a great way to generate the most engagement.
However, you should keep a few things in mind when building your social media presence and developing your social media marketing campaign. Consider the following social media marketing tactics when creating your social media strategy.
Give More Than Just Promotional Content
Although it may sound counterintuitive, you’ll want to limit the amount of promotional social media content you post to gain a following and promote engagement. There are two reasons for this.
First, users have no personal stake in your company. They visit social media to interact with friends, family, and influencers who provide relevant content. If you provide content users can connect with, they’ll be more likely to click that follow button.
Second, suppose a user chooses to follow you but is inundated with promotional content multiple times a day. In that case, they may start to develop negative feelings toward your brand pretty quickly. Worse, if the frequency of your content comes off as pushy, users may block your account entirely.
Get Your Timing Right
One post per day is ideal for preventing users from becoming brand-weary. However, you also want to post other fun things in between. For example, funny videos, user-generated content, or staff members doing TikTok trends are great ways to show off your human side.
One way to ensure you’re posting the right mix of promotional and fun content is to use a social media calendar or other scheduling tools to schedule posts ahead of time. Scheduling will also help decrease the amount of stress you might feel about coming up with fresh ideas daily.
You can also use advertising analytics to determine the best time to run promotional content versus content that will boost engagement and awareness.
Choose Scroll-Stopping Visuals
With the advent of Snapchat, Instagram, and TikTok, social media has become increasingly image and video-based in recent years. As a result, users aren’t stopping to read so much as skimming for something eye-catching to engage with.
If you’re promoting a product, a quick video that demonstrates how the product is used is far more likely to get a user to stop scrolling than a wordy ad. On the other hand, if you’d like to post something non-promotional, you can participate in specific social media trends, like dances or voiceovers, that show how relatable your brand is.
Write Great Ad Copy
While a great image will get a user to stop scrolling, you still need to nail your ad copy to give your audience more information about your product. Nothing will keep a user scrolling faster than a wall of text detailing why someone should invest time into your post. Write something short and sweet–no more than fifty words. You want to offer information that’s quick and easy to digest.
Look to What’s Worked Before
If you’ve seen success with certain advertisements or content in the past, there’s no rule against reusing or repurposing that old content. So take a look at your social media analytics to see which paid ads were successful in the past and put a fresh spin on them to make them relevant to the present day.
Dip Into User-Generated Content
Every company thrives on great reviews and testimonials. But nothing tells potential consumers to “pick me” faster than a real-world instance of a regular person using your product, such as a video on social media. This user-generated content can be a boon for many brands.
The benefit of user-generated content is that the people who post it are considered trustworthy and influential. That trust means social media users are more likely to try out a new product.
If you still aren’t sure how this works, a quick internet search for “TikTok products” will show you page after page of products that have gained popularity thanks to user-generated content.
The most important thing to remember when sharing a user’s social media content is that you’re also sharing their profile and everything that comes with it. So before you choose to use that person’s content, make sure they don’t have anything in their profile that could hurt your brand.
Use Those Hashtags
The best way to get the social media algorithms working in your favor is to use hashtags. Hashtags help connect users with the right content. Using the right hashtags and relevant keywords can increase your chances of landing on the News Feed or For You Page for users likely to engage with your content.
Tag Interested Parties
In addition to the algorithm, two major forces drive engagement on all social media platforms: influencers and brands. So when you post on social media, you should never forget to tag influencers or brands who might be interested in your content.
Influencers
Influencers are social media users who often have hundreds of thousands or even millions of followers who view their content daily. So if you’re offering a product that you think an influencer might like, you should consider influencer marketing.
Influencer marketing involves putting your product in the hands of an influencer who will include it in a sponsored post. If an influencer thinks your product is worth trying, you’ll get your brand’s name out there in front of millions of viewers in a format that they might actually engage with.
When it comes to influencers, don’t forget the little guy, either. Micro-influencers, who don’t have nearly the same following as some big names on social media, are often considered more trustworthy than prominent influencers. They also tend to represent niche industries, which can be great if your brand falls into a small category.
Brands
Tagging brands in your posts is a great digital marketing strategy because it can benefit your brand just as much as the other brand. A great example of the mutually beneficial nature of tagging brands would be commissioned work.
Say you’re an indie author, and you’ve just commissioned some character artwork from a popular indie artist. A great way to promote your brand is by tagging that artist in a social media post. Not only will you be offering that artist the benefit of free advertisement, but you’ll also be putting your content in front of anyone who follows them.
The Human Element
Social media fosters communication among people from all walks of life. Teenagers, senior citizens, and everyone in-between interact daily. The best content creators know how to tap into this vast pool of users and find the best way to engage as many of them as possible.
To make a name for your brand on social media, you should find as many ways as possible to show your brand’s human side. A great way to do this is to use the Live feature available on social media platforms, including Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.
Going Live on social media can benefit your brand in a few ways. First, it promotes brand awareness. Even if you don’t mention your product once in your Live, your mere presence brings awareness to you and your brand. It also allows your audience to interact with you in real-time, which can be a fun experience.
Have a “Thing”
If you want to gain a following in addition to garnering clicks, create a social media schtick that represents your brand but doesn’t force a product in front of followers. For example, some influencers offer daily inspirational quotes, others post regular tutorials, and some like to provide comic relief.
Essentially, they all have a “thing” that they’re known for.
The most important thing about successful content-creators is that they offer something to their followers that don’t involve purchasing a product while also managing to remain on-brand. However, they’re also organically driving internet traffic toward their product by including links in their bios or profiles.
Social Media Platforms
Now that we’ve covered the many reasons you should tap into the vast world of social media marketing, you need to know what platforms are out there and who’s using them. So let’s go over a few of the big names in social media to decide which is the right platform for you.
Facebook is the world’s largest social media platform, with nearly three billion users active each month. As of February of 2021, 69% of adults say they use the network. So if you want to increase brand awareness, Facebook is the place to be.
Facebook advertising is a great way to get your product into the Newsfeeds of a very targeted group of users. You can also add Facebook’s tracking pixel to your website to get your ads in front of even more people.
The only downside to Facebook ads is that they generally require a large budget along with quite a bit of trial-and-error. They’re good for almost any business, though, and offer great tools to analyze user behavior, so they should be at the top of your list.
Instagram started out as an image-sharing platform that now offers other features, including Stories and Instagram Live. More than 70% of Instagram users are under the age of thirty, so it’s ideal if you’re aiming for a younger demographic.
The main issue with Instagram is that you have to post often to make sure your content lands in front of your intended audience. However, when you run an ad or boost a post on Facebook, you can link it to run on Instagram simultaneously, which helps ease the burden of frequent posting.
Twitter is perfect for those content creators who excel at witty one-liners or repartee. When it comes to marketing, Tweets are the equivalent of the “elevator speech.” You have a set number of characters to use to push your brand, and you have to make each one count.
Twitter is a great way to share quick tidbits of news without carefully curating graphics for each post. It’s also a popular place to start conversations, run polls, and ask for opinions.
The only downside to Twitter is that, like Instagram, it’s geared toward those looking for instant gratification. Users scroll and skim Tweets, so you need to make sure yours stands out. There’s also a lot of “noise” to compete with, so you’ll have to post multiple times a day to really garner more engagement.
TikTok
TikTok is a video content platform that’s grown exponentially in popularity in recent years. Approximately half its users are under thirty, so it’s definitely more popular with a younger demographic.
If you have a functional product or offer a particular skill, TikTok is a great way to show it in action. It’s also a great place to find influencers with the largest followings who can help promote your work.
However, like Twitter, TikTok limits the amount of text you can put on a post, so you have to be deliberate with every word and hashtag you use. TikTok also has a 3-minute time limit for all videos.
YouTube
YouTube is a great way to share video content across multiple platforms without requiring users to visit the YouTube site or app. You can easily embed YouTube videos on your website, allowing your site visitors to see your marketing content without leaving your site.
Embedded videos offer the perfect opportunity to show product demos, informative content, or share other meaningful information. They’re a great way to round out the totality of your marketing strategies because they offer the benefit of more detail.
One of the biggest drawbacks for YouTube is that users have high expectations for longer videos, so you’ll need to make sure your content is top-notch.
LinkedIn is a great way to connect with other professionals and brands if you’re into sharing content about your industry. Although it isn’t generally a place where users socialize or find entertainment, LinkedIn is still a great way to gain some brand recognition within your industry.
The main thing LinkedIn has working against it is that it isn’t designed for eCommerce, which means you likely won’t gain a lot of revenue. It also has a much smaller user base than the larger platforms.
That said, it’s still a viable platform for marketing.
Social Media Channels
Marketing channels allow you to reach potential customers but don’t offer the same engagement as a social media platform. Although they aren’t technically social media, they still allow you to reach customers directly.
Newsletters
Newsletters are the perfect way to deliver brand information directly to your potential customers’ inboxes. You can use a web service such as MailerLite or MailChimp to send out your newsletters regularly and utilize various social networks to gain subscribers.
Advertising
Social media advertising offers the option of a one-way pipe of content if you’d prefer not to have engagement directly on the ad. For example, if you’re worried that your message will be lost in the comment section or that you won’t be able to mediate comments, it’s easy to turn off or limit commenting.
You can also advertise using search engines or on websites. A sponsored ad on Amazon or Google will put your internet brand in front of the people who need to see it most.
Pop-Ups
Although pop-up ads can be a nuisance in some cases, if done correctly, they can also be a great way to drum up business. For example, you can offer a coupon code in exchange for signing up for your newsletter or following you on your social networks.
Conclusion
Social media marketing is a valuable tool for any brand or business. Social networks gain new followers every day, allowing you to reach new potential users continuously.
If your social media marketing efforts thus far haven’t been very fruitful, just remember–it takes time to gather momentum on social media. If you choose the right social media strategies, though, you’ll be on your way in no time.
