5 Ultimate Tips for Social Media Marketing
Flexible ways to promote your social profile and gain followers
Social media is a vast platform with an increasing number of public activities daily worldwide. I think today almost every individual knows about the most driven forces of the internet i.e., social media.
According to Statista.com, in 2019 the estimated number of social media users was 2.95 billion. Quite a huge number, right?
But this is not all, the expected rise in the number of people is estimated to almost 3.43 billion in 2023. The more people there are, the more opportunities there will be for social media marketing. This will become a prime factor for marketers to reach millions of unique people to offer services, articles, products, etc.
Social media marketing is an ever-growing, ever-changing sector, but several core elements will help you ensure a steady foundation for your social media ventures.
To help you succeed in your social media marketing journey, the ultimate tips are listed below from the #1 Web marketing Amazon bestseller Ebook of 2015–500 Social Media Marketing Tips by Andrew McCarthy.
Along with these five strategies, some bonus tips are also present to help you take your social media marketing journey to the next level.
1. Add your social profile to your email signature
Think about how many emails you send per day. Now imagine that each email you send is a chance for someone new to find out about your social media profiles.
Attach your social media URLs to your email signature along with a ‘Like Us’ call to action, and a reason why people should visit and ‘like’ your page. e.g., “Like us on Facebook for exclusive vouchers and discount codes!”.
2. Blog about your social profile and give reasons to follow
If you have a company blog, why not create posts specifically to promote your social media presence?
Give your readers 5 interesting reasons why they should ‘Like’ your fan pages in a blog post- e.g., exclusive offers, news to their feeds, sneak peeks at upcoming products.
Don’t beg them to like you; just give reasons why they’ll benefit and watch the like box numbers tickle upwards.
3. Promote your social media profiles in the actual world
Anywhere you display your social media URLs there is free advertising for you.
Just think about how many people would see a car bumper sticker with your Facebook address on, or a sign in the office or store window asking visitors to follow you on Twitter.
Also, combine offline and online by letting the people you meet in real life know about your social profiles, by getting their URLs printed on your business cards, letterheads, etc.
4. Ask distinct sets of followers to like your other profiles
If a person follows you on one social network, chances are wonderful that they will want to follow you on another too.
For example, give some interesting reasons to ask your Twitter followers why they should join your Facebook community, much as in the example of blog post promotion mentioned above.
A tweet might read, “Great discussion about our newest garden tool range happening right now — get involved! http://www.facebook.com/yourfacebookpage.” Besides, don’t be afraid to promote your social profile once in a while.
Unlike the approach above, here you simply point to your page with a message along the line of “Enjoying our tweets? Why not join us on Facebook too? Click here http://www.facebook.com/yourfacebookpage.” Create and save three or four different variations of this message, so you don’t repeat the same tweet over and over.
5. Ask your email list to like your social profiles.
Got an email marketing list? Consider sending a dedicated email asking your subscribers to follow or like you on social networks — again with compelling reasons why they definitely should do that.
Whenever you send out future messages to them, include links to your social profiles underneath the key message.
Bonus tips:
Use emoticons to increase engagement
Emoticons have long been used online as a way to express emotion with more lucidity than text alone can convey, and their significance rolls on into the social media era.
A study by Amex Open found that using emoticons in status updates increased comments by an average of 33%, while a separate investigation by Buddy Media discovered that posts with emoticons received on average 57% more likes, 33% more comments, and 33% more shares.
Not all emoticons are equal, however. The same study by Buddy Media found reported that the best three performing smileys were :D (very happy), :P (poking out tongue), and :-D (very happy including nose). Posts that garnered the least amount of interaction included emoticons like- :o) (happy with round nose), ;) (winking) and ❤ (love heart).
On the topic of emoticons, it’s worth knowing that Twitter, Vine, and Snapchat all support the use of Emojis — fully drawn, expressive emoticons and ideograms that can add a whole additional layer of fun and expression to your status updates; select them via the smileys option on your mobile device.
Don’t post for ‘empty’ engagement
One of the biggest traps that lots of many businesses fall into is that of posting certain kinds of posts as bait to encourage likes and comments.
The most obvious examples of this are ‘Fill in the Blank’ and ‘Click LIKE if you think X is X…” sort of posts on Facebook.
While these are great for occasional use, they do not give you a very accurate overview of fans and customers who are engaged with your content, and how successful your efforts are.
Anybody can post an image of a cute kitten to get likes, but what real impact does it have in your fans’ opinion of your brand?
Search the web for social mentions of your brand
Type in and search for your brand name and keywords related to your company, and experiment with the different filters found in the drop-down menu.
For each mention found, the site provides a set of overall metrics particular to it, including the sources it is found at and whether people are interacting positively or negatively. Scroll over each metric with your cursor for a short definition of each.
I hope these strategies will help you get the desired audience you want and simplify your path for social media marketing.
