13 Feb Top 5 Social Media Marketing Tips to Dominate 2023
Either Dominate or Be Dominated
The Internet wasn’t born yesterday. It was actually first built as a workable prototype in the late 1960s by UCLA and Stanford and funded by the US Department of Defense. Facebook started in 2004 and Instagram was started in 2010. It is safe to say that the Internet and social media has been around long enough, such that, just about everyone is trying to sell something online or is trying to capture someone’s attention.
You can’t just put-up photos and expect to garner and audience. Instead, you need to manicure your content and purposefully create campaigns that are targeted to a demographic and have a purpose beyond the single post. Point being, you need to know what you are doing, and you need to think out your steps. As you start to create content and build an audience think about the following social media tips and how you can improve your craft.
1. Write Down Your Goals
The main fault that content creators make is that they don’t think through their strategies. You can no longer spray the Internet and social media platforms with whatever and hope something works out. The average individual has limited attention and there are but so many people in the world to look. It isn’t about too little content. It is about the reason why you are posting.
Ask yourself, why are you posting this? What are your goals? Let’s take a step back. Answer the following questions in order and write them down. Each post should satisfy or aid in your goal achievements.
- What are you doing online? E-commerce? Branding? Influencer? What are you doing online?
- What are your broad business goals? Sell products? Sell services? Get followers?
- Which Social Media Platforms are related to the purpose of your business?
- What are you going to use these platforms for? Brand awareness? Selling? Client interaction?
- How do you need to use each platform to succeed?
2. Understand the Purpose of Each Platform
Each platform that you are looking to use is only successful as the content posted related to the audience that is present on the platform. So, if LinkedIn has manly professionals, you won’t want to post content that wasn’t professionally targeted. To figure this out, it isn’t a question of how YOU use that social media platform. The question you need to answer is “how does your target demographic use the social media platform.”
If you use the platform how you want, then you may not be catering to your audience. If you provide your audience with what they want, then they will be more likely to come back to your profiles and posts because they can rely on your account to provide what they want.
List out all of the social media sites that you are using or want to use. Write down the purpose of the site and the potential target demographic that could be using it. This will help you understand what types of content you will need on each platform.
3. Use Video Content to Your Advantage
Video content is becoming more and more common not just on video hosting sites like YouTube but also on blogs and informative sites. This could be related to reviews or unboxing videos. This could also be related to educational videos. Videos give a great personal touch to your content. Besides words, videos are visual and auditory.
Not everyone learns by reading text. Instead, there are a lot of learners that need other methods. If your site offers more ways to explore the subject and content, you will most likely draw in a larger crowd that sees the benefits of your content. Use all of your social media site’s tools. Each one allows for some type of video. Use this tool. It is there for a reason.
4. Keep the Salesy Talk to a Minimum
No one likes to be pushed to make a decision. Infomercials are hated for a reason. Everyone can spot a sales pitch from a mile away. Social media platforms aren’t the place to make a sales pitch. Social media sites are made to create a following. They are used to offer content that is useful for some reason.
That usefulness could be just a little distraction with a pretty shot on Instagram. Or it could be a post about the best Bluetooth headset for streaming gamers. These are useful posts that generate followers by showing authority in your niche. If you only try to sell without proving why they should buy from you, no one will believe that you are worth the money.
5. Vary Your Content Type
The last point is something just now becoming popular for 2021, so pay attention. Articles, photos, and videos have been used over and over. This is old hat. You need to vary your content such that your audience is interested in the different ways to connect. Here are a few alternatives to the standard bog article, photos, and videos.
Surveys
You may know a lot about your niche, but you may not fully know what your audience wants or how they use the information. Giving people a free “thing” for the survey is a great way to build an audience. First, it provides you with invaluable information on your niche. Second, you can start to build an email list of people that you already know will interact with your brand. Followers are great, but followers that actually interact are worth their weight in gold.
Quizzes
Quizzes aren’t made to be hard, but rather they are made to be an easy and fun distraction. You can make it about your niche, or something closely related. Either way, you are gathering data about what they answered wrong and what they answered right. This can help you target the more difficult subjects for future articles. It also creates a nice email list.
Competitions
If you aren’t a graphic designer but you need something created, you could go out and hire someone. Or you could crowd source it. Instead of hiring out, offer a package or product to the winner of the competition. This generates buzz and popularity to your brand or business. At the end you get a free “thing” and gained a lot of excitement in your brand. This is the best of all worlds.