Social Media Marketing (SMM) has been an integral component of digital marketing for a long time now. The significance is crystal clear with different studies showing the stats to back them up. It doesn’t matter whether you like it or not, the fact is social media has slowly crept into our everyday life. Easily manageable, exponentially cheap, and with great chances of succeeding are some key attractions that have invited the revolution in marketing. The ideal thing now for all small and large businesses is to get in, learn, and benefit from SMM for many years to come.
Every 6 in 10 individuals around the world are connected with some type of social media. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and WeChat combined account for 85% of that mass. Well, these numbers might be good enough for many to make some efforts on SMM. If you are still not convinced here are some points and numbers to munch. SMM focused online businesses helps in:-
* Easier to find and reach the best audience/groups related to your products.
* 30 percent more return clients/customers due to easy reachability.
* Four times more likely to trend in the market if your product is fantastic.
* 1.5 times more increase in traffic.
* Three times successful in growing your brand awareness.
* Instrumental in direct-promotion of services and products from the community level.
* With a clear goal in mind, marketing strategies are ten times more likely to succeed with SMM.
There might be few reasons businesses are failing to use Social media properly. Not knowing where to get started or not seeing the benefits of SMM are the major ones. If you are just starting or planning to learn more, this article is very helpful. Here are 13 Tips for Social Media Marketing (SMM) focusing on 2021.
1. Be regular with interactive posts
Social Media as the name suggests is a platform to interact with everyone digitally. At first, you might find it difficult to gain a cloud of community. But it is not rare, especially if you are new. The key here is to be regular. Interact and engage with your followers/circle. However, doing so in a large quantity might sometimes not be worth the effort. Here are some tips in the volume which will help your Company profile grow logically in Social Media.
– For Facebook two posts per day is optimal
– 3 to 20 tweets/retweets per day depending on different types of Businesses.
– One Post per day on Instagram.
– Make use of stories/temporary posts (up to 6) for minor updates and interactions.
– Once a day in Linkedin in prime business hours (10-11:30 am)
– Pinning 10 times per day max in Pinterest
2. Invest in quality content
Now this here is a real concern in 2021. The trend of copying or sharing from other pages/platforms exclusively might look too easy. Well, it seems like an easy task rather than spending hours to create one. As uncomplicated it might look in the short run, one obvious truth is that you are not helping your brand building. It is quite the contrary in these cases. Invest more time and if necessary money in making quality content original to your profile. Studies show it is 300% more likely to attract organic followers to you in comparison to other options.
3. Be updated in different Platforms
Once more reminding you that social media is not just a giant bubble. There are several different kinds of websites and applications that you can utilize. For example, if you are a tech company using Facebook and Twitter only, you can achieve more by joining professional networking mediums like Linkedin and Xing. It is better to interact in a dedicated community of ten than in a random sample of a hundred. Similarly, stay updated in all of the media, if possible try to refresh your notifications and feeds daily. You can schedule some time frame splitting them into different parts and focus it on several platforms here.
4. Image over Texts
Images earn almost twice the engagements than texts in social media. This was a primary focus and game-changer for many companies this past decade. Well, this is more and more relevant for 2021. For your ease, most of the Social Media platforms are more image-oriented rather than text. While creating image contents try focusing on one thing rather than stuffing every king of information. Using Images has helped a lot in the growth of e-commerce, campaigners, celebrities, and more. Learning a few technical stuff like data visualization, editing, and design will benefit your community’s success further.
5. Strategize to grow your social media presence
Now, even if you are a regular user of social media, utilizing it for your business might be different. One must be a bit more organized and formal if needed. Other factors soon come up as a company profile and you might need some help on it. Keeping everything simple, spend the first few weeks here to strategize. Plan how you are going to post, engage, reply, and convert your cloud to potential clients. If necessary learn from bigger communities and take measures in case of mishaps. Rather than just winging it, maintain your social media presence from the very get-go.
6. Work closely with the influencers
Influencers can directly contribute to showcasing your brand to the wider public. It is one of the best ways to grow your business presence and some notability. Make a list of influencers and filter those who are likely to attract ‘your type’ of the crowd. For starters experiment with some short-term deals and study the changes. If satisfactory, you can sponsor a similar type of influencer and benefit a lot more.
7. Authenticity and originality is still important
It might be fun and all for a personal account to copy-paste their posts but that can be worst for a company. Maintain the originality of your business rather than riding every wave of trends out there. For a brand working to raise the trust and loyal community, it is supremely vital. Post less frequently, if you have troubles but try be maintain the integrity of your products on social media.
8. Schedule important posts rather than rushing
Scheduling or managing tools are provided for most Social media. Utilize it properly. For example, rather than designing the ‘new year’ message on the last day, prepare it beforehand and schedule it to post at the best time. For effective measures, there are several free and premium schedulers mastering several Social Media platforms that you can take advantage of.
9. Video posting is the way to go
Video contents are some of the most engaged and shared content in Social media. It is a difficult and time-consuming format to prepare. However, good video travels faster and is useful to carry multiple messages that can help to pinpoint your clients. For example, a pet store posting a video of a puppy is more likely to get thrice the inquiries than plain pictures and texts. There are many video-focused platforms like Youtube and Metacafe that bring in tons of visitors to your account.
10. Live interaction sessions are the next trend
Going live is one of the best ways to reach your target audience. It is a growing trend and with the popularity of many social media apps, it’s not even near the peak. Now is the best time to make live content and respond directly to your community. Live showcasing and launch of products gather twice the visitors than other mediums. Similarly, you are more likely to convert viewers to followers more with these kinds of sessions. Facebook, Youtube, Twitch, and Instagram are the major streaming options for you to try in 2021.
11. Stay relevant to your community
This is an issue for most of the growing business. Being monotonous can sometimes be too much and you can lose the interest of your community. Mix up your content. Use polls and QnA sessions to stir up the crowd every now and then. Reddit and Quora are some major sites where your followers can make a sub-profile of your company and interact within themselves. Keep this thing in mind that as long as your followers are active, you can grow further faster.
12. Work in Online Reputation Management too
Online Reputation Management is very important once you have reached a major follow in different Social Media. There are bound to be negative and positive responses to several things. Use different tools and tips to maintain your positive online reputation. Be transparent enough to your community and make sure to give them the top priority. If needed, you can try to address the concern yourself otherwise ignoring might be helpful many times. Online Reputation Management can help you to attract and expand your company domains better.
13. Using Social Media Platforms as Shopping Channels
Different social media apps are now giving you the freedom to directly showcase your products. You can highlight the important stuff and further benefit from them. Being direct might be helpful especially for startup businesses. Always be ready to give support and respond to inquiries for better reviews.
It is clearer every day, the importance of social media in any marketing strategy. You can do better and gain more with these tips for social Media Marketing heading towards 2021.