by Michael Stuart
All consumer-oriented businesses today know that they must be active on social media to stay relevant. As a result, social media marketing has overtaken traditional advertising as the prime channel for connecting with potential customers. Indeed, many organizations now believe that social media is by far the most effective marketing channel.
Influencer marketing is the fastest-growing marketing practice in the world. Yet, because of the influencer boom that has occurred over the past five years, very few have taken the step back and really analysed the best way to utilise this medium. Too often marketers jump on the influencer bandwagon because of the trend associated with the practice without really interrogating the best way of using an influencer in order to achieve on defined objectives (or appreciating the potential dangers associated with associating individuals with their brands).
Social media marketing centers around getting the attention of your present and prospective customers.
“The best time to post on social media is when your customers (both present and prospective) are online”.
Social media eCommerce trends indicate that the use of social networks for eCommerce is on the rise with an estimated global eCommerce sales of $4.5 trillion by 2021, a 246.15% rise. Hence, questions like why post on social media and what are the implications of not posting on social media are becoming more and more irrelevant. Now, the only question that needs to be answered is when to post on social media for maximum engagement.
What to post on social media for your business: A Guide for FacebookSince Facebook’s audience is highly coveted by online businesses simply because of its sheer reach, you could have a regular flow of informational content, industry news and updates, and product promotions. These will generate brand loyalty and increased sales. Remember to have an effective CTA to your posts on Facebook, like Steam Horse Dry Goods Co. below. The post is crisp, to the point and has a clear CTA.
What to post on social media for your business: A Guide for InstagramPrimarily a photo sharing app, Instagram is highly impacted by product images and is a key driver of brand awareness for eCommerce. New product launches, lifestyle posts, and user-generated content teamed up with effective hashtags have been seen to be doing really well on Instagram. You could also post short videos.
Very often you might be required to post to multiple social media accounts at once, and it can be very daunting for those who don’t know how to post on social media. Here are some tools that will help you with this:
Hootsuite is a great tool which enables you to schedule your posts across all major social media pages at specific times. Available both as a free and paid version, this is an excellent tool to publish and monitor your posts on multiple platforms from one single screen. It also has an “auto-schedule” option which is based on the company’s own knowledge on the best time to post on Instagram or on Facebook.
Apart from publishing and monitoring, if you are also looking for an app that will also do the reporting for you, Hubspot is the app to go to. It provides a closed-loop reporting data, which means that you’re not just seeing which channels are giving you the most engagement, you can also track the funnel down further to see which posts are driving actual leads and sales.
If you are focusing on just Twitter, you should not look any farther than TweetDeck. Apart from being one of the oldest to be around, it is one of the best too. You can follow several conversations at once with this tool, and it is actually quite fun at times.
This is a Trigger-and-action tool. Acronym for ‘If This Then That’, IFTTT is an automation tool that can save you a lot of time while it manages your social platforms effectively. The tool links your website, social media pages, and apps based on a trigger and an action. Based on a particular trigger you create, it starts an action. For example, if you publish a blog (the trigger), then IFTTT will automate and create a tweet (the action) about it.
Apart from allowing you to access data and schedule posts from a variety of social media platforms, Raven provides reports from information gathered about pay-per-click (PPC), search engine optimization (SEO), and social media channels. Thus, you get insights on topics like what the best time to post on Instagram is or if SEO is a better channel than PPC campaigns.
Buffer or Dlvr.it are advanced applications that provide Automated scheduling and engagement analysis.
Conclusion There is really no magic rule to engage with users. Every brand is different and so are their respective audiences.
Trust is a currency. It’s arguably the most valuable currency in today’s B2B marketing environment.
Partnering with influencers can provide a dramatic boost to your brand’s credibility and authority in the eyes of your audience.
Influencer marketing is quite the buzzword these days, among marketing pundits and honchos. Start-ups to established brands, everyone has been bitten by the bug called influencer marketing. It’s a marketing technique where companies tie up with influential people, to promote their product, service or brand.