For small companies with a budget constraint, marketing can be a crunch on the wallet. However, the very idea of social media marketing is turning out to be a boon for both small and large companies alike. Social media marketing is allowing businesses to broaden their scope of audiences at a very low budget. According to the data provided by GlobalWebIndex, 54% of social media users search for products on social media channels. These are the statistics that propel businesses to adopt social media as a primary marketing tool.
Here are a few social media hacks to improve engagement:
- Connect with Content
It conveys your brand story to the audience. Focus on empowering your audience instead of simply speaking about your products through content. Promotional content is fine, but not all the time. People tend to dislike your products if they are always about promotions and don’t have an engagement with the audience. Content that solves customers’ problems is more likely to get shared over social media. User-generated content like testimonials creates an impression upon the existing users and the new ones as well. According to statistical data, 80% of the content on social media is user-generated because of its trustworthiness.
2. Visuals
Visuals have a pivotal role in social media engagement hacks. An increased attention span is a direct result of visual engagement for the audience, compared to texts. In general, stories make people intrigued, but when the same comes in the format of visuals, the rate of involvement increases. There are various ways of presenting visuals on social media. The use of GIFs, Memes, infographics and alluring call to action posts hold the loyalty of current customers.
3. Engage With Customers
Don’t shy away from engaging with your customers directly through messaging or answering their queries, adding comments or even acknowledging them for being a part of your brand. This behaviour enables direct engagement with the customers which in turn builds a community for your brand out of the trust you’ve just earned.
4. Go Live
Youtube being one of the most viewed platforms of our time, it plays 5 billion videos every single day. This indicates that people are more interested in video content. The stakes are always high when it comes to marketing through videos. Therefore, you can cater to the needs of your followers and come up with video content as a means of engagement. You can always go live and attract your consumers to increase your brand visibility. Around 80% of people prefer to watch videos than to read blogs of a brand they prefer, whereas, 82% of people prefer live videos over social media posts. While devising your marketing strategy for social media, do consider using Facebook Live, which is one of the most happening platforms across the world. There are various topics that you can cover while going live such as, marketing your product, showcasing what goes behind the scenes of your office space, how your product works and much more.
5. Organize Polls & Giveaways
Use polls to generate engagement as it reveals much about your followers. Also, it works because for a consumer to participate in a poll does not take much time and effort. Organize contests with giveaways where customers will participate willingly and engage more. The encouragement factor will obviously be the prize that goes out as the giveaway, thereby, involving a huge number of audiences.
6. Social Media Scheduling Tools
Social media scheduling tools are effective when it comes to regular engagement with your followers. Your marketing efforts shall be managed with ease when it comes to social media scheduling tools. Keeping track of scheduling posts, performing an analytics check and other activities become possible with these tools. With skyrocketing customer expectations, businesses ought to adopt these tools in order to meet their needs. You can also send messages on different platforms using one tool which makes it more advantageous.
7. Be Authentic
Be who or what you have been since the inception of your brand. Your brand’s voice, logo or name should reflect the values and personality of your brand throughout. Authenticity is the key. Maintaining consistency when it comes to your name, colour and imagery should be something that you consider important.
8. Content curation
It is another means of making your content relevant to the needs of the consumers. Content curation effectively saves your time. Industry trends get highlighted through curated content, thus adding value to your followers.
9. Collaboration WIth Influencers
Marketers have started collaborating with social media influencers to increase their brand visibility and entice customers. Collaboration doesn’t need to be with expensive celebrities all the time. Collaboration can be cost-effective when you do it with your customers, complementary companies or local businesses.
10. Tag Followers & Influencers
Mentioning significant people who have a whopping number of followers and who can be relevant to the conversation using hashtags might enhance the reach of your brand. Hashtag followers are a huge community. Keep track of the ones who follow the same hashtags. Your active participation in this community might draw in lots of followers.
12. Track Your Competitors
Your competitors are your biggest inspirers. Follow what’s going on at your competitor’s social media handles, and remember to participate In their posts as well. By doing so, you will get an insight into their followers’ needs and aspirations.
