5 Best Social Media Marketing Tips to Boost Your Business

Social Media Marketing works wonders. All types of businesses, big or small, have realized this. Two factors have contributed to this change. Firstly, is the realization that social media platforms have huge customer bases, some as big as a country. (In terms of the number of users). Secondly, the tremendous growth in the use of smartphones and mobile computing has made connectivity easier and response time faster.

As a major pillar of any successful marketing campaign is the content, social media platforms are ideal for promotional purposes. It does not matter whether they offer content in the form of blog posts, images, or 280-character tweets. They are a rich resource that when used with the right techniques, can prove successful for any business. Here is a comprehensive list of marketing tips that allow you to use the full potential of social media.

Social Media

1. Serving the right content for each social media marketing platform

Each media platform has a different type of content posted. Pinterest has visual content in the form of images whereas YouTube posts videos. Once a marketing campaign is decided upon, a different type of content to suit each media platform should be generated. Produce long descriptive content for blogs, short promotional content for tweets, and campaign-specific images for Pinterest and Instagram. A video related to the campaign can be posted on YouTube.

The content should suit the demographics of any social media platform. It should also follow rules of etiquette. Blogs are liked for their conversational content. People trust them for making shopping decisions. Content should be genuine, add value to customers and not be too pushy. Spams are a big negative in any social media marketing strategy.

2. Enhance the user experience by using images, audio, and video

Research shows that content supplemented with images has 39% more interaction in the form of likes, comments, and shares. You can use some photo editing tools to help you generate good images thereby saving you time. Infographics are becoming a popular concept these days. Use them on various media platforms to educate the user about your product easily and graphically.

Adding audio is also a great way to personalize any content in social media marketing. Audio can be in the form of a message or even music. You can bypass the 280-character limit on Twitter by uploading audio files. Sometimes, viewers skip a video because it is too lengthy. This problem can be overcome by adding a timestamp to videos. In this way, the viewer can jump to the content he/she is most interested in.

3. Use contests and promotional coupons for social media marketing

There are certain types of content that users respond to most. Like you would receive more comments to questions posted on the site. Likewise, some users respond more to offers and coupons. Some users look for an opportunity to participate in contests. Discounts, free referrals, or consultations are some other types of value additions that customers look for. Depending on your campaign, you can use any or all of the promotional content. You need to find out what your customers are looking for and feed their interest.

4. Encourage feedback and reviews

It would be wise to appoint a team to handle feedback, reviews, and comments from users. Leaving queries unanswered or reviews unacknowledged discredits a business. People lose interest and faith and stop following your account. A dedicated team that handles user response provides consistent and timely interaction with the user. User comments, whether positive or negative should be handled professionally. Any mistakes in tweets or posts should be acknowledged and rectified. They do not include grammatical mistakes, but mistakes related to facts or quotes.

5. Timing the promotion appropriately

People would not be available on social media platforms the whole day. You want users to check new content, like it, share it, or post some comments on it. Since all these activities take time it is important to know when the users are active on their various accounts. Studies have come up with certain days and times of the week when people engage on social media platforms the most. Posting new content at such times would increase its visibility. That is smart social media marketing! People generally check their Facebook or Twitter accounts during office breaks. Weekends see the highest number of shares. Time your promotional content accordingly. You could use appropriate social media tools to your advantage.

These tips, then, should help you get your Social Media Marketing in the right direction. Share with us any additional tips and we’ll add them here. We’ll credit you for it, too!