The world of social networks is rising at an astonishing pace. According to some recent studies, the number of social media users will rise up to 2.62 billion by the end of 2018. So, what do these figures tell you? To put yourself on the radar of your customers, deliver a personalized approach, and improve your conversion rate, you need to create a solid digital marketing campaign.
However, boosting your brand awareness via social networks is not just about creating accounts on all platforms available, inviting random people to like your page, and sharing a few posts every once in a while. It’s about marketing to the right people, through the right channels.
Here are several social media marketing tips that will take your branding efforts to a whole new level.
1. Choose the Right Social Networks
Choosing where to focus your social networking energy may be a daunting task. You need to keep in mind that not all social media platforms will work the same way in helping you reach your goals. Precisely because of this, you need to be picky and make educated decisions. There is a plethora of questions you need to ask yourself, most important of which are:
- What are the networks your customers use?
- How popular is a certain social networking channel?
- Does this channel make sense for your brand?
- How can it improve your brand awareness?
Once you do your research and answer all these questions, you will be able to narrow down your choices. For example, since the majority of your potential customers are on Facebook, you need to be there, too. This platform gives you the opportunity to target a wider audience, engage different social groups with your brand, and build an extensive online community. Twitter is for those brands that want to boost their conversation with a tech-savvy crowd, while LinkedIn is great for B2B companies that are looking for new influencers, business partners, or employees. If you have a knack for photography or you’re planning to share DIY tips, you should turn to Pinterest and Instagram and pair them with your Facebook account.
2. Share Engaging Content
Content marketing is an inseparable and most valuable aspect of your social media campaign. Only by delivering relevant, easily digestible, and shareable content will you establish yourself as an expert in your niche. However, improving the performance of your content on social networks requires more than writing good-old articles. You need to focus on an interactive and engaging visual content, as well. Use infographics, photos, videos, memes, gifs, and quote graphs to hook your followers’ attention and keep them interested in the content you share.
If you’re active on Snapchat, Instagram, and Facebook, you should also take advantage of ephemeral content that will boost your customers’ excitement and trigger FOMO (the fear of missing out), motivating them to take action faster.
3. Be Unique and Consistent
To engage people with your brand, you need to deliver recognizable content people will instantly relate to your brand. Such an approach will help you build trust among your target audience and put an emphasis on your brand’s mission statement, goals, and core values. Here are a few strategies that will set your brand apart from its competitors.
Invest in your brand’s visual identity
For starters, make sure that your logo, colours, and font types are used consistently in all posts you share. To give your visual brand a boost, you should also focus on delivering the same feel across all social networks. Make all the pieces of your visual content look like they belong together by using the same picture size, filters, patterns, and font types.
Find your tone of voice
To make the most of the content you create, you need to define your tone of voice. Gather a representative sample of the posts you’ve shared so far and cast a critical eye on it. Are your posts trustworthy, quirky, or action-oriented? See what tone suits your brand the best and stick to it in your future content creation efforts.
Schedule your posts
To let your target audience know what to expect from you, you should stick to your content distribution calendar and share your posts regularly. Instead of managing your posts manually, you should make this process simpler by using social media management tools. They will help you sync your social networking profiles, find fresh content, and schedule hundreds of social media posts at once.
To make the most of your social sharing, you should also classify your content by type. For example, you could introduce a “Pro Tip Monday,” when you would share industry-specific content and answer your followers’ questions. On Fridays, you could share fun content, like gifs or photos of your staff.
4. Answer and Acknowledge
One of the most powerful ways to earn your customers’ respect is to provide them with an instant feedback. To stay on top of your communication with your customers, you should use social media monitoring tools. With their help, you will be able to monitor your target audience’s discussions and participate in them in real time. When doing so, you need to obey the following rules of social networking:
- React and respond to all questions in a timely manner (consider implementing chatbots).
- Be polite and professional.
- If you were wrong about something, apologize.
5. Use Social Proof
Why do we stay loyal to famous brands like Coca-Cola, Apple, or Starbucks? The fact that there are millions of people around the globe using their products lends an air of authority, trustworthiness and quality. That’s called social proof and, to integrate it with your social media campaign effectively, you need to:
- Share your users’ testimonials.
- Inspire your customers to rate and review your products and services.
- Seek for influencer endorsements.
- Show appreciation for mentions.
- Share your business’ milestones, such as reaching a certain number of customers.
6. Offer a Rewards Program
When done right, customer loyalty programs are immensely powerful customer retention boosters. As the holiday season is here, you should incentivize your followers for being loyal to your brand, as well as for sending feedback, making referrals, or sharing your posts. And, social networks are a perfect place for you to do so.
Just make sure that the rewards you offer are valuable to your customers. You could throw a giveaway, offer huge discounts, involve your customers in your brand promotion, provide them with an exclusive product preview, give free access to the content they value or ask them for suggestions.
To Wrap it Up
Any way you slice it, social networks help you promote your brand to a wider audience, deliver a personalized user experience, offer outstanding customer services, and collect instant feedback. Hopefully, with the tips listed above will help you harness the power of these channels and give your branding efforts a kick in the pants.
How do you use social media marketing to boost brand awareness?
