Social media is truly the marketing tool of this era. As a marketer, your number one goal is to acquire the attention of your target audience, even if just for a few seconds, and with social media now having billions and billions of users, it’s safe to say that it has absolutely no lack of attention.
Social media has opened up a completely different marketing landscape, which includes an endless opportunity of marketing activities, from paid social media advertising such as Facebook ads, to influencer marketing.
As such, social media has proven to be the marketing channel that generated the lowest CPM for marketers, and as such, it has proven itself able to help marketers drive impressive ROIs from their marketing efforts.
But at the same time as many businesses are seeing impressive results from their social media marketing efforts, there are many businesses which haven’t quite grasped the concept of social media, and therefore drive less than desirable results. The reason for this is that social media is only a marketing tool, and as with all tools, social media is only beneficial if you know how to use it properly. A screwdriver is an amazing tool, but if you can’t use it, it won’t do much good.
Social media marketing is accessible to any business, no matter budget or preconditions, and in this article, I’ll share 5 little-known social media marketing tips that will help you drive better marketing results from social media.
1.Use social media for marketing properly
Before I did into the nitty-gritty of social media marketing, I just have to emphasise something that I see so many businesses are doing wrong. Again, social media is just a tool, and if you’re not using it properly, it won’t prove beneficial to you.
Here’s the deal:
So many businesses are using social media with the traditional advertising mindset. As such, it means that their marketing strategy is based on the tactic of shoving as many promotional messages in people’s face. And the reason why this doesn’t work is because of the fact that people’s mindset and user psychology is different on social media. Unlike television where people expect to have ads shoved in their face, they’re using social media because they want to stay up-to-date with what their peers are doing, be entertained, and interact with their friends.
As such, the reason why you’re not generating the results you’re hoping to is because you’re not creating a strategy that is adapted to this user-mindset.
If you instead of focusing on sharing promotional messages focus on bringing your audience actual value, you’ll create a value-propositions which instead of pushing your audience from you attracts them to you.
2.Responding to your audience
This is an extremely underestimated social media marketing strategy as it has proven to yield incredible marketing benefits.
When people writ to you on social media, they expect a response. Just like you would when speaking to someone in real life.
Unfortunately, this is a strategy which most brands don’t prioritise, since, if you take a look at the comment sections on any of the major brands, you’ll see plenty of messages from customers that need responding, but very few responses from the brand if any.
This is bad news considering the fact that brands only respond to 11% of people (source: https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/brands-ignoring-consumers-on-social-media-are-in-trouble-infographic/512213/)
But the biggest issue with not responding to your customers on social media isn’t that they will become disgruntled or that they will shame you, but instead, it’s that you’re missing out on incredible opportunities. By responding to your customers, you get a tremendous opportunity to engage and interact with them, and build your relationship with them.
And this brings me to my next point.
3.Social media for relationship-building
Social media isn’t a promotional tool. It’s a relationship tool. After all, it’s called social for a reason.
Brands that use social media as part of their marketing strategy focus too much on marketing, and in that, they forget what truly drives marketing benefits and results.
The single most effective marketing strategy isn’t to acquire new customers, but instead, it’s getting your existing customers to return. In fact, acquiring a new customer is anywhere from five to 25 times more expensive than retaining an existing one.
At the same time, by increasing customer retention rates by 5%, you can increase your profits anywhere from 25% to 95%.
That’s quite substantial.
Safe to say, focusing on customer retention is far more beneficial economically than acquiring new customers. The best part is that social media is an incredible tool for customer acquisition.
Since it’s a relationship tool, you can use social media to interact and engage with your audience. By doing so, you can continue to build your customer relationships and increase your customer loyalty. And with customer loyalty comes both advocacy and repeated purchases.
4.User-generated content
User-generated content is the type of content that your audience creates and is not created by the brand itself or any professional. The reason why UGC content is so powerful in social media marketing is that it comes off as much more authentic and trustworthy than professionally created content.
The reason is that people know that businesses only have one agenda, and that is to sell more, whereas their peers don’t have that agenda.
Best of all is that social media allows you to effortlessly access content created by your audience, but at the same time encourage your audience to create it through UGC campaigns.
5.Show your personality
Last but not least is this social media marketing strategy. Showing your brand’s personality is a part of your branding strategy, but unfortunately, a lot of brands pay little or no attention to this.
The good news is that social media is an incredible platform for branding since it allows you to show your personality in a fun and engaging way.
Now, how does this help you with driving marketing results you may ask?
Well, branding actually has a number of marketing benefits.
First, branding is what helps differentiate you from your competitors. Through a distinctive branding, you can stand out form the crowd and make people remember you.
Secondly, by showcasing your personality, you make it easier for your audience to resonate with you. Since your branding should be created aligned with your target audience, they’ll resonate much better with you, which contributes to making them more loyal.
About the author
Jens is the editor-in-chief and co-founder of marketing blog Veloce International. He is also a contributor to Millenary Watches Journal