One of the biggest challenges that social media marketing brings for brands is the constant pressure to remain up-to-date. With each passing day, one can witness new changes in platforms and user behavior. This has forced brands to change their social media marketing strategies.
So, being a brand what social media tactics should be embedded in your plan to make it more relevant in 2018?
We come up with the answer by listing down 9 evergreen social media tactics that blends well with the best practices today. Make a good combination of these strategies for your brand and stay ahead in the business.
- Know how to do successful social media storytelling
Bombarding your user’s page with lots of promo links can be far from effective social media marketing strategy these days. This is true for any social platform and not considered a good practice if you are looking to add more followers.
To sum up, people are literally pissed off by spam and impersonal brands.
There may be times when you do not have proper CTA button or accompanying link in place and this is where social storytelling comes into play. Story based contents drive discussion rather than clicks. Story-driven posts get lots of comments and are a chance to know your brand’s vulnerable side.
These types of posts are beneficial in two ways:
- Users consider these posts as meaningful and positive way of conveying message rather than marketing spam.
- As new algorithms are degrading link-heavy brands and promotional messages, these posts stand a better chance to pop up in your follower’s feeds.
Bottom line- You do not need your posts to be a promotional spam, rather learn the art of successful social storytelling.
- Make your Facebook presence felt
Being merely present on Facebook is not enough now-a-days, you need your presence to be a rage amongst your users. Facebook’s recent steps to discourage brand content have sent a vibe of panic among some marketers.
While this report is still under veils, it will certainly take some time to see the changes and their effects. But Facebook has already warned marketers to brace themselves against the new algorithm storm.
To protect your promotion against this new algorithm, try these steps:
- Stop baiting- Facebook is actively blocking social media contents which they see as ‘engagement bait’. Stop creating content that uses excessive “tag-a-friend” or “like this post ____”, which makes Facebook a bit more skeptic towards your content.
- Take care of your links- You should post fewer links referring users back to your site to make your content look genuine. In place of text, go for video posts which are highly encouraged.
- Go for sponsored ads- In place of getting totally wiped out from the feeds of your potential customers, creative ad types can prove to be the best bet for getting noticed.
- Reuse your best social media content
To have an effective social media presence, brands today need a hell lot of content to fulfill their social calendars and by saying that we mean multiple posts per day across many social media platforms. Most of the times you can get this done by some of the best social media marketing agency in Kolkata.
If you are running short on time and have access to limited resources, you can reuse some of your best contents. Just saying, you can use some of these modern social media tactics to extract more from your content:
- Use quotes and stats from previous blog posts and turn them into share-worthy graphics (You can find dozens of free tools for this purpose).
- Use data or facts from a case study to start a new debate or discussion across different social media platforms.
- Make use of listicle to get a few tips (like “10 ways to ___”) and post them as a series of scheduled tweets.
With these tips, you can use a single blog post and convert them into multiple posts across Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest.
- Make a habit of tagging influencers and brands in posts
Tagging has become an internal part of every tweet or post and is a time-proven method to gain more exposure for your post.
As posts with tags garner more engagement, tactical tagging can bring more to your business. It doesn’t matter what the purpose of your business is, tagging influencers and brands in your posts will take no time and bring in huge benefits.
And if you are looking for the right person or brand to tag, you can do a little research on relevant keywords or hash tags or take help of Branding & advertising company in Kolkata. Tools like Buzzsumo can be used to get some clue on your potential influencer targets.
- Get along with Micro Influencers
As a matter of fact, never let anyone’s follower count fool you for an influencer. More often than not, targeting niche audiences can work in your favor.
According to studies, small influencers are trusted more as compared to someone with 100,000+ followers. Brands with fewer followers (less than 10,000) show a higher engagement rate which is the ratio of likes/comments to the total number of followers.
So, don’t judge anyone as an influencer simply based on how many followers they have. Having a lot of followers doesn’t mean they are worth your attention. The job of an influencer should be to put more power in hands of someone who has smaller audience.
- Use Geo-tags on Instagram
One of the most profound social media tactics is Geo-tagging on social media sites which is a nice way to get more local followers.
Tagging your brand’s location across social media platforms not only establishes you as a part of the local community but also motivates the customers to engage with you more.
Curating your customer’s photos through Geo-tagging is an excellent way to have your social proof. People immediately recognize you as one of them and make a better sense of your brand’s personality.
- Go live
With video content going more common, brands are now pushing the limits of live video. As a waking move, Facebook has already advised brands to make use of Facebook live to cope with their algorithm change. Real-time videos are known to get six times more attention than regular ones.
Live videos are compelling because they bring in freshness for viewers who are bored by watching polished videos on You Tube. You can expect more live video pop ups in your feed over the course of year. You can learn all about making live video at digital marketing company in Kolkata.
- Take professional help
To stand out as a brand in a sea of competing content, sometimes all you need is to focus on people who are a part of your network.
Your social media strategy needs to pivot around your employees and customers who can serve as brand advocates. As a starter who does not have much to invest on ads, having your friends promote you socially is a better way to make sure your reach goes beyond your brand account.
You employees talking about your brand adds to your social proof. More the promotion, better it is.
- Take pride in your personality
Lastly, don’t forget to give your brand a personality. Forget the days when “safe branding” with suit-and-tie was the norm. Today, brands don’t hesitate to take that extra risk to remind followers of their brand personality.
These were some of the tactics that one can use to enhance their social media presence and improve their brand image