It’s time to ditch the old, dated social media marketing techniques.
Those bandwagons are not for jumping. They have been and gone. If you want to have an impact in today’s competitive online world, it’s time to switch things up a bit!
To get ahead with your social media strategies in 2021, you must know what’s working right now. You need to get up to speed with the latest social media trends.
Here are the proven social media marketing techniques that customers.
In this guide, you’ll discover the proven social media marketing techniques that customers currently love. You’ll see how to use these techniques in your own business and how they will help you stay ahead of the competition.
User-Generated Content
Creating endless streams of content for social media is expensive and time-consuming. Instead, why not take advantage of some of the great content that your audience is already producing?
This is a win-win situation, especially if you have a large audience size on social media. You get great content, and your audience gets their account featured on a big brand account.
Encourage user-generated content by running a challenge or a competition. Make it fun, unique and be sure to take the time to respond to everyone who submits content.
Get Started With Video
If you haven’t tried video before, now is the time to give it a go. Social media users expect video nowadays. If you put your face on camera and talk directly to your audience, it is one of the best ways to build a connection.
Videos don’t have to be lengthy, high-production affairs on YouTube. Try a short video on Instagram stories, or give TikTok a whirl, especially if you primarily target the younger generation with your marketing.
If you aren’t comfortable appearing on camera or don’t feel that format suits your business, try a behind-the-scenes feature. Video footage of your business operations will give your audience an insight into your company.
Try Messenger Chatbots
If you are still running email marketing campaigns, you might have noticed a steady decline in open and click rates in recent years. The average email open rate dropped in 2020.
Customers are developing the same immunity to email promotions as they did to banner ads many years ago. If you want to reach out to your audience in 2021, social media offers a far better alternative.
Platforms such as Facebook allow you to set up messenger chatbots. These chatbots automate your customer communication in a more informal, friendly way using chat facilities on social media.
Create Stories
It’s hard to run a corporate promotional campaign on social media without it looking forced or boring. To stand apart from your competitors, try the storytelling technique in your next set of social media posts.
The storytelling technique is about creating a more human narrative around your brand. It helps people connect to who you are and what your company stands for.
This type of content works well with a sequence of posts and can either be done via video or written content. If you go with this idea, invest in a digital marketing agency that can help bring your story to life.
Hire Social Media Influencers
You could have the best product in the world. You could even have the most competitive price or unrivalled guarantees. But nothing beats a recommendation from a friend when it comes to getting sales.
At least, that used to be the case. Nowadays, many people online value social media influencers’ opinions as much as they do their close friends and family.
Hiring an influencer can be a savvy and cost-effective marketing tactic. Try a giveaway for your latest product launch, and incentivize an influencer with a commission for each sale they make.
Become an Audience Detective
How well do you know your audience? If you want to revamp your social media marketing in 2021, it’s time to turn detective and find out what your customers really want.
Create a survey and send it out to your existing followers to find out what their current needs and gaps are in their lives. Better still, start some online conversions with your biggest fans and followers.
Even if you think you know your audience well, there is no substitute for good market research. Having social media at your fingertips makes this process easy.
Use Advanced Analytics
Smart businesses have turned to cutting-edge analytics and data platforms to take their social media marketing to the next level. Investing in data can help you look at the big picture from your social media campaigns.
Before trying your hand at analytics, make sure you have clear business goals that tie in with what you are doing on social media.
It is not worth measuring your social media performance unless that effort translates into something positive for your business.
Once you understand your business goals, find the best social media marketing tools to track views, clicks, and conversions across your different social media platforms.
Data intelligence will not only help you see if your latest campaign was a success. But it will also give you the insight to understand how to improve your marketing strategy in future campaigns.
Customize Your Content Across Platforms
If you are still reposting Instagram content to Pinterest and Twitter, now is the time to give that strategy a rethink.
Your content needs to stand out. If your audience sees generic content across every social media platform, it gives the impression that you are just ticking a box rather than truly engaging with social media.
It costs time and money to redo content across different social media platforms. But the results are worth it. You’ll get a high return on investment because it will boost engagement and boost follower numbers.
Plan Your Content Calendar Around Events
If you have been marketing on social media for any length of time, then you probably have a content calendar that you use to schedule your social media content.
What you might not have is a content calendar that plans around big current events and trending topics.
The ability to get on board a trending social media hashtag (providing it’s authentic to your brand, of course) is the perfect way to boost your reach in a short space of time.
You can do this by watching for trends as they come up, but often there will be annual events that you plan in advance, such as Black Friday. Make sure you add all of these to your content calendar for the next 12 months.
Create Your Own Trending Brand Hashtags
Why follow a hashtag if you can invent one? That’s what the top brands do on social media, and when they are successful, they can add a boost to your social media following.
Some inventive examples from top brands include:
#Oreohorrorstories, where the famous cookie brand created a trending hashtag during Halloween, producing parody horror videos.
Pet lovers enjoyed Purina’s #petsatwork hashtag, giving pet owners an easy excuse to post pictures of their best friends at work with them.
Put your creative brain into action and think of a unique brand hashtag. You could see some pleasantly surprising results.
Promote Conversations, Not Broadcasts
The biggest mistake many brands make with social media is using it as a megaphone to announce a new product or service.
Whilst this may seem tempting, especially if you have a big audience, it goes against the ethos of social media, which is all about connecting and conversing with one another.
Instead of broadcasting announcements to your entire follower base, try starting a conversation with two or three of your most highly engaged followers for your next campaign. Who knows where that might lead.
Team Up With Another Brand
This is a useful social media tactic to try if you are still a relatively new business with a small social media presence. Find a company in a similar or complementary niche and run a joint campaign.
This is such a potent marketing trick. Not only does it allow you to amplify your voice on social media and reach a bigger audience, but it gives you some authenticity and credibility.
This is even more true if you team up with a brand with a high level of trust with their audience.
Not only that, but it’s much more fun running social media marketing campaigns when you are teaming up with someone else. You can bounce ideas off each other and come up with something truly creative and unique.
Try These Social Media Marketing Techniques Today
Social media is more than just creating large groups of followers and making money. Social media should be fun, and if you do it the right way you can use these platforms to win over lifelong customers for your business.
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