A new year presents new opportunities to revisit and refine your company’s marketing techniques. Are you making the most of the tools at your disposal? What about your social media marketing strategy- are you keeping up with the latest trends? In the fast-paced world of marketing, resting on your laurels often results in being left behind.
Nowhere is this sentiment more accurate than with regard to your social media marketing strategy. Think about it – when is the last time you came across a business that didn’t have a Twitter or Facebook presence? It’s hard to believe that less than 15 years ago, these marketing methods didn’t even exist, so prevalent are they in our lives nowadays.
That’s why it’s more important than ever to make sure you’re properly harnessing the power of social media in your marketing strategy. It’s not enough just to have accounts – you need to be using them right. Here are some simple tips for staying ahead of the social media marketing game.
Be active… but not too active.
Potential customers want to see that you’re active and involved in your business and in reaching out to them; there’s no point in having a Twitter or Facebook account if you aren’t committed to posting to it regularly. While “regularly” means different things within different industries, you should aim to be posting at least once a week if possible. Of course, you need to be wary of the line between informing your audience and unnecessarily spamming them; if someone decides to unfollow you on Twitter because he or she is sick of your constant updates, then your marketing strategy has backfired.
Use multimedia when possible.
Studies have shown that tweets and Facebook posts containing images are more likely to be clicked on and shared than those without. Why? The easy answer is that people are visually oriented and like looking at pretty pictures (the phenomenal success of Instagram is testament to that fact). Dig a little deeper, and you’ll find that people connect more deeply on an emotional level with imagery than they do with words. And from a practical standpoint, images can help to convey your message without wasting valuable character-related real estate.
Reward your followers.
Everyone loves winning stuff. While your product should, in theory, stand on its own, there’s nothing wrong with providing your users with a little incentive in the form of a contest or giveaway. It doesn’t have to be a huge cash award; sometimes even offering people a chance to score some free merchandise is all it takes to get them more involved with your brand. And you have the extra-added bonus of familiarizing the winner with your product.
Monitor your results – and make adjustments accordingly.
As with most things in life, the key to success in your multimedia marketing endeavors is to learn from your mistakes. Experiment with the time of day in which you tweet or post updates, as well as the way in which you deliver your information. If a certain technique doesn’t work, you can make a note of it – and make an effort to try something a little different.
“While all these strategies are true, even the most logical social media marketing plan will fall flat without SHARABLE content. WISE Content properly targets the community of interest for the brand, and EARNS their attention through customer-centric content,” says Galileo Tech Media CEO Joseph McELroy.
Think you’re doing all the right things, but wondering why your social media marketing strategy isn’t creating the right conversations? Why your content isn’t being shared? Talk to us. Wise Content is not just about the latest technology and practices, but about the right content. Wise Content is based on strategy, technology, data, keywords and analytics; and comes from some of the best brains in the business who dig into your brand and breathe it just like you do.