Social Media Marketing Tips for Business — Part 1
It’s June of 2019 and if you want to be a credible, refutable and ultimately, profitable business, you must boast a strong social media presence. Hundreds of thousands of companies have come to this realization over the past few years and have actually created sole positions and sometimes even fully dedicated departments to advancing their social media contribution. Advertising through social media platforms will soon be one of the most highly invested forms of advertising, if it’s not already.
With so many businesses competing with each other and moving in the same direction, how does one business stand out from others? This article is Part 1 of a 3-Part series and content is published every week! Check out these tips from our social media experts on how to nail your social media marketing plan this year.
And don’t forget to follow us on Instagram and Facebook for daily content and updates on parts 2 and 3! @thepivotalcompanies
The four purposes for social media content that most businesses forget are 1) To Inspire, 2) To Entertain, 3) To Educate and 4) To Convince. Most businesses are just trying to Convince a prospective buyer that their service/product is the best against competitors, but social media should be exactly as it sounds — “Social.” People do not want to be sold to on every piece of content you publish. They want to laugh, they want to engage, they want to socialize digitally with brands they admire and trust. The best way to ensure this doesn’t happen to you is to plan out your social media content in advance. Motivation Monday, Win It Wednesday, Feel Good Friday — the possibilities are endless when it comes to making your current and potential followers feel appreciated by and engaged with your account.
Instagram, Facebook, Etsy, LinkedIn, YouTube… There are so many platforms out there that are pivotal to the success of a brand, when used correctly. Gone are the days of wondering if your marketing efforts are producing a return, because with Digital Marketing you can review peaks and pitfalls in real time as actions are taken (or not taken) on your accounts. Make sure you have created a Business Account for your Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc. — whichever platforms you believe will best benefit your business goals — and monitor their progress as often as possible. This can be done through the integration of social media “Insights.”
You can see actions taken on your account such as likes, follows, comments, etc., but you can also see the reach of your content during the time parameters selected. This is key, because it will allow you the opportunity to determine if your current strategy is reaching enough accounts or if you should switch things up to reach the desired amount of accounts. Insights even allow you to see where your followers are from and what age range they are, for you to best publish content to fit the audience you are attracting.
Tag- YOU’RE IT — and with an appropriate and intentional tagging strategy, you could become the most well-known brand in your industry. When we say “tag,” we’re talking about three different types of social communication tools through your accounts: 1) Hashtag, 2) Geotag and 3) Account Tags.
Hashtags — Now that we’re in 2019, I think it’s safe to say people are no longer alluding to this symbol “#” as “the pound sign,” and most are finally understanding what a hashtag is and it’s purpose in connecting people through digital efforts. Hashtags are used on almost every social media platform to create topics and discussions about certain things — i.e. #fashion, #blogging, #marketing, #kimkardashian, etc. The more times a hashtag has been used, the more prevalent it becomes in searches and generating on individual feeds.
Instagram allows for up to 30 hashtags on an individual post. Our advice? USE THEM ALL and use them strategically! Make sure you are tagging relevant words to the post you created, but also using hashtags that Instagram considers the most popular. You’ll also want to create at least one hashtag that directly correlates with your business and continuously use this, so YOUR business becomes part of the larger community discussion!
GeoTags — As Social Media Marketing Consultants, this is a tool that we see misused frequently by business accounts. Most accounts either do not utilize the Geotag feature at all or they tag their own location. Yes, it is helpful for accounts to know the whereabouts of your location (utilizing Instagram’s mapping integration), if they have never been there before, but in order to reach a larger community of people and increase your organic following, you should be tagging a larger, more relevant location that correlates with your content.
In the example above, we were showcasing a recently hired Social Media Influencer in Chico, CA. Instead of tagging the property that the Influencer will be promoting, we tagged the University in close proximity to the property, which will now be in the feed associated with that Geotag — i.e. if any users search “California State University Chico” in the “Places” tab on Instagram, this post will pop up!
Account Tags — Last, but certainly not least in your tagging strategy is account tagging. The purpose behind this tactic is to be shown to a larger community on the “tagged photos” of the account that you have mentioned. On the example to the left, this post will now be added to the tagged photos portion of the accounts of @moniquinton, @postonnord and @bumble. This is also a helpful tool when it comes to Instagram stories. If you tag an account within the caption of your post, the account will be notified, but the post will NOT appear on the account’s tagged photos page nor will the user be able to re-share the post on their Instagram Story. With an account tag within the photo, however, both of these engagement tools will be possible.
