Social media has evolved greatly over the last few years. Many businesses can utilise the benefits of social media strategies to optimise their position in the digital market. With the market seeing huge changes in 2019, it’s important to stay up-to-date with social media marketing trends in 2020. With 3.484 billion social media users worldwide, having a solid social media strategy can help your business achieve its KPIs. Depending on the target audience of your business, having the right social media marketing strategy will make a difference in reaching your desired audience and increasing your social media revenue. The question is, how can you utilise the power of social media in your marketing efforts and which social media strategies should you use? This blog post will help you reach your social media goals in 2020 and set out a winning strategy.
Here are some strategies you can use in your social media marketing plan:
- The importance of video marketing
- Use Giveaways to increase engagement
- Build an authentic social media community
- Influencer marketing can help to reach new audiences
- Use content curation to post consistently
Video marketing
Different types of content will increase the effectiveness of your social media strategy. Alongside video, varied social content on your social profiles improves engagement, this includes infographics, gifs and other immersive experiences. Using video will increase the likelihood of people engaging with your content. The amount of video consumption has increased. 78% of people watched videos online every week in 2019, this alone should encourage you to use this approach as part of your social media marketing strategy this year. Social media users are responding better to video content when compared to traditional text. We can’t ignore the fact that videos are driving sales and helping brands stand out. Here are some statistics:
- Tweets with a video attracted 10x more engagement than tweets without video. And Promoted tweets with videos save more than 50% on cost-per-engagement.
- Videos shown on LinkedIn have an 84% success rate compared to other types of content.
- Videos shown on Instagram were viewed more than pictures.
These statistics show a demand for video content in 2020 that your business can use. This study found that 53% of consumers would like to see more video content from brands and businesses that they follow which presents great opportunities to market your business on different social media channels by creating video content in 2020. Different social media platforms all require a different approach to marketing your business. Knowing which social media platforms your target audience regularly uses will help you understand where to focus your video marketing efforts.
For example, Netflix announced the new season of their psychological thriller show ‘You’ by posting a video on Twitter (Yes, a third season is coming). This caused a lot of stir in the fan base and resulted in a high number of users engaging in the post and plenty of retweets.
If you’re a small business owner, we suggest choosing and focusing on 1 social media platform. You can also utilise Facebook Stories, Instagram Stories, and Snapchat Stories. The use of video marketing has seen a real surge across different social media platforms. Video marketing will increase your brand awareness and reach. Utilise this growth to expose your brand to more potential customers this year.
Giveaways
Fenty Beauty giveaway on Instagram
You’ve probably seen this strategy when scrolling on Instagram or watching Youtube videos. Aside from using the right hashtags, holding a giveaway will also increase the engagement of your page. The algorithm of most social media pages measures the quality of a post by analysing the engagement. Many businesses have used this strategy to grow their engagement, following and brand awareness. Providing prizes to users by asking them to follow instructions such as sharing a competition picture, tagging their followers or following the page, can really boost the number of leads to your social media posts. After all, who doesn’t like free stuff?
This strategy gives the opportunity for your business to be shared on different social media profiles which could generate more potential leads and increase your social presence. There’s a huge opportunity for your business to increase its social media presence by offering giveaways. Share your giveaway on different social platforms such as Facebook ads, Instagram ads, or LinkedIn. You can use ads as part of your social media campaign or even influencers. That brings us to the next point.
Influencer marketing
Using influencers as a method of reaching a wider audience on social media is a great social strategy to add. Creating a buyer persona for your optimal customer can help make your vision clearer. The influencer marketing industry is expected to be worth $15 billion by 2022. Plenty of businesses are under the misconception that they need to use influencers with millions of followers to reach their intended audience. Surprisingly, this isn’t the case. Micro-influencers are able to reach a targeted niche audience and according to this podcast via Buffer, marketing using micro-influencers will yield a better conversion rate. Micro-influencers are more likely to be engaged with their followers and actually know what they’re interested in. With this smaller following, they’re able to build a connection with their followers and earn their trust. As a result, their followers will be more willing to buy products that their favourite influencer recommended. Having an influencer market your product or service on the desired social network of your customer could help your social marketing.
To make sure that you’re achieving the right ROI for your social media marketing strategy, keep track of your engagement. You can do this by using Google Analytics to keep an eye on your progress. Keep track of all your measurable goals by giving custom links to each influencer. Attracting new leads through influencers is great, but don’t forget the current followers of your social channels. You’ve worked hard to retain your current customer base, so catering to them will ensure satisfaction with your brand in both groups. Use social listening to know what your users want.
Social media communities
You may not be familiar with this strategy but social media communities are not a new concept. Positioning your business within social media communities will create brand awareness, engagement and brand loyalty. Users don’t only want to buy from your brand, they also want to be informed, build relationships and be part of a community. Creating a community creates a space for people to talk about your service/product and even spread the word. It’s important for businesses to allow communication between themselves and their users. Create a space where users can share their case studies, reviews and insights. This will make a remarkable difference in your social media marketing strategy.
Content curation
Quuu platform
Consumers are suffering from social media fatigue now in the age of digital marketing. There’s an oversaturation of content online and standing out in the sea of content can be challenging. Regularly posting on your social media profile will allow your audience to see more of your business so you can build better relationships. It can be challenging to keep up with constantly posting quality social media content, and curating can take a long time. Luckily, there are social media tools that can help to curate posts for your social profiles. Here are some content curation platforms you can use to get started:
Content curation and social media marketing go hand in hand, using a content curation tool can help reduce the time it takes to search the internet for quality content. Figuring out the best times to post and setting up your scheduler at those times will help clarify your business’ social media activities. Your content calendar will help to keep track of all your social media marketing campaigns. With a content curation tool comes a social media management tool. There are different ones to choose from such as Buffer, Hubspot and Socialchief.
So, what are the steps to follow?
- Create a social media marketing plan.
- Use the strategies that best suit your business and the goals you’d like to achieve.
- Create a social media or content marketing calendar.
- Measure your social media metrics with Google analytics or another social media analytics tool.
- Tweak your social media marketing plan where necessary.
Which social media marketing strategy will you use?
Having the right social media strategy is great, however, there are multiple factors that need to be taken into consideration. How’s your business currently engaging with your customers online, what type of content are you currently using and what steps are you taking to improve your strategy? All these tips can be overwhelming, especially if you implement them on your own. Regularly reviewing your strategy on different social media sites ensures that you’re constantly evolving with social media trends. Integrate these strategies in your marketing plan to achieve your business goals in 2020.
Have fun using these strategies!
