Social media marketing has grown tremendously in the last decade. It has evolved from being a tool for friends to keep in touch to a powerful marketing opportunity for businesses of all sizes. Today, companies can’t hope to stay competitive if they’re not putting some effort into social media. As far back as 2014, 92% of marketers believed that social media was important for their company’s marketing success.
Social media marketing can be confusing. It can also be time-consuming and ultimately not very successful without knowing the best practices and keeping a consistent posting schedule. If you’re struggling with how to establish brand awareness and loyalty on social media, here are 4 tips to help you improve your social media marketing efforts.
Target Generation Z
Generation Z is becoming a powerful part of the economy. They’ve grown up with technology as a driving force in their lives. They’re social media savvy, and 70% of them buy products and services on these sites. If Generation Z is part of your audience, you need understand their behavior and to speak directly to them.
What does Generation Z want? They want brands to get to the point. Attention is a premium. It’s important to start off with powerful storytelling as a hook. They like to be engaged with the marketing process through interactive content, and they’re big advocates for social and environmental responsibility. Brands need to embody these values and create a consistent message across channels to engage with Generation Z.
Content Diversification
Getting enough content out into the world is a challenge for businesses without big marketing teams and bigger budgets.
Blogging can bring in traffic and play a key role in content marketing. But content diversification can help you keep things fresh and interesting. It will also keep you from running out of ideas and providing readers with more engaging content.
Making sure your content stays fresh and interesting will be essential for optimizing your digital marketing efforts, yet the landscape will be competitive.
“Companies will really need to adapt to this trend to stay in the game,” said Daniel Kempe, CEO of Quuu, in a recent expert round-up on the future of digital marketing.
Because of this competition, Kempe predicts that marketing firms will merge with creative firms. “We’ll see larger companies hiring video producers and graphic designers to collaborate with their marketing teams.”
Adding visual components can break up large amounts of text and create a more mobile-friendly experience. Video, screenshots, lists, and how-tos—your format can change from post to post. You can also use social media content to ask questions. Other options include prompting engagement and create engaging short-form posts that instantly get to the point.
Having a range of content will appeal to more potential customers and help keep you from getting stuck in a marketing rut.
Ask for Feedback to Improve Customer Support
You can’t improve your products or service and customer support without knowing what you need to work on. The first step in improving your customer support is to monitor what people are saying about your company on different platforms. After your initial audit, you can set up alerts for when people mention your brand in a specific way.
Social media has become an important channel for providing customer service. You need to have someone responding to both positive feedback and criticism, and use that feedback to improve your service and amplify what you’re doing well. Social media can be a powerful tool for gaining real-time feedback from your customers—both good and bad.
Remain Informed on Privacy Updates
Ignorance isn’t bliss when it comes to consumer privacy. After Facebook’s recent scandals, people are more wary than ever about what is done with their personal data. Many sites have updated their privacy policies, and companies need to stay up to date with this information to avoid violating each platforms’ policies and terms of service. Now that Europe’s sweeping new data privacy policy is in effect, companies need to be extra diligent about handling data responsibly.
Companies that don’t adhere to applicable policies and regulation can expect negative consequences, whether from the sites themselves or unhappy consumers who feel violated. First and foremost, however, your reputation shouldn’t affect how you approach the ethics of the situation—your consumers deserve the respect you’d give your own personal data. Ethics in big data is still a topic that is being explored, but that doesn’t give marketers an excuse to exploit consumers’ data. Most people know what crosses the line and what doesn’t.
Trends are Always Shifting
When you’re trying to create better content and improve your social media marketing, it’s important to realize that things can change almost overnight. It’s key to keep up with shifting trends in the industry and constantly aim to adhere to best practices.
With that said, there are a few principles that never change in social media marketing. Using storytelling techniques to engage your audience and creating consistent, quality content on a regular basis never go out of style. Social media marketing is a marathon, not a sprint, but by implementing the latest best practices, it can become an important part of your marketing strategy.
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