Find out which Social Media platform suits your brand
With the high progress of the digital world, you probably use all the major platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter. But, do you know that these platforms have an important role in Digital Marketing? – Yes, there’s so much more to social media than chatting and sharing photos. You want to start your online business page? – Look beyond and see a whole new world, utilizing advanced features to bloom. Let’s dive more into the known social media platforms before you start your next digital marketing campaign.
Why people use Social Media Platforms
- Market research
- Brand awareness
- Lead generation
- Engagement
- Building solid relationships
- Customer service
- Connecting with professionals and brands online
With more than 2.23 billion monthly active users, Facebook has become one of the most important social media platforms present nowadays. Considered a “Social Networking Platform,” Facebook allows its users to connect with others and brands online in different ways. Basically, Facebook is the king of all social media world. If your business doesn’t have a presence on Facebook, you don’t exist at all. No, you can’t afford that whether you’re a big, intermediate-sized, or small business. According to a recent study, more than 80% of the world’s marketers include Facebook in their marketing strategy.
why is Facebook considered one of the most important social media platforms?
- Facebook encompasses all demographics
Whether you’re targeting teens or adults, you can always find your audience on Facebook. People of every age linger on Facebook for a long time, with an average of 60 minutes per day. Just create a business profile, post creative content, and reach your target audience through effective Business Ads. Yes, Facebook is precise that you get to choose who to view your advertisement, according to age, location, interests, and more.
- Facebook is growing
Facebook has been dominating social media, making its way to the top powerful platforms in the Digital Marketing world. And, there is no way it is slowing down nowadays or even in the near future.
- Advertising on Facebook is affordable
Facebook Advertising is affordable, offering different payment methods, including CPM and CPC. The best thing is that you get to control your own budget and decide how you want to spend it.
- Targeting your website customers
Another effective option that Facebook offers, Retargeting! You can use the re-targeting option to show your Facebook Ads only to the audience who previously-visited your website.
- Friends of Friends Targeting
Facebook allows you to multiply your digital marketing efforts through “Friends of friends targeting.” Meaning that, when your target customers view your paid ads, their friends can see them too, boosting your brand exposure.
- Measure your marketing efforts
Of course, you will want to make sure that you’re spending money in the right place, that your marketing efforts are worth it! Facebook Insights allows you to measure your marketing efforts for free, giving you a glimpse of what to change in the future. You can track your performance, organic, and paid ads, through its valuable metrics. You can easily get detailed information about your audience and how they engage with your content.
These metrics show the number of engagements (likes, shares, and comments) and determine which posts get the most traffic. They also identify which content drives traffic to your website and which appeals to your audience. That way you can determine if you’re doing it right, what to change, and what is effective.
How can you use Facebook in your Business?
- Achieve your goals
The first step to start your marketing strategy on Facebook is to determine your goals. Set a roadmap to guide you when implementing your marketing strategy. Ask yourself what do you really want; brand awareness, exposure, engagements, or lead generation?
Here are some common goals for businesses to choose from:
- Boosting sales
Thanks to Facebook’s detailed targeting, you get to reach an audience who is interested in your brand easily. Take your time to study your options, start your well-planned strategy, and let Facebook boost your sales. Yes, Facebook can increase your exposure and reach like no other platform.
- Brand awareness
If you want more and more people to recognize your brand, Facebook is blindly your effective go-to platform. Determine what Facebook has to offer and make use of its resources to introduce your brand through a business page. Optimize your page and start to provide all the important information, including the industry, logo, address, and contact (for more credibility). It is also essential to add a profile picture and cover photo that represents your company. Make sure to be consistent across all your social media channels to be easily recognized in the News Feed.
- Standing out among your competitors
Do you want to be one step ahead of your competitors? – Facebook will help you add a better pulse to your business. But, you have to know that implementing the perfect marketing strategy isn’t that easy. Study your competitors and listen before you speak. Do your search, listen, test your content, and compare until you decide which content engages your audience the most.
- Smart Growth
Without a doubt, once you’ve started your online business, you will want grand exposure and high acquisition. Facebook can help you achieve all the aspects of a successful business if utilized right. Want to nurture sales prospects, want to increase your audience, or boost social selling? – Facebook marketing strategy will get you closer to these goals!
- Study the buyer persona of your target audience
Any marketing effort can be useless despite how effective it is if you haven’t previously studied your buyer persona. Check the audience engaging with your competitors and how they react to their content before you start. Check Facebook Insights and understand your current audience to employ the right marketing strategy. Identify their gender, age, location, education, and language to know how to approach them. And, of course, conduct informative, creative content that interests them.
- Engage your audience
As you started a powerful online presence, don’t forget that conversation is the core of any social media network. Engagement is the basic key to your success as it builds a rapport with your audience, encouraging them to always come back to you. Don’t wait for your audience to reach you. They won’t! Start an industry discussion, reply to your customers’ comments, and build a solid community that trusts your brand. As you can’t reach all your relevant customers, there are many important ways to increase engagement
- Know the best time to post on Facebook
Exerting great efforts on your social media plan, you don’t want them to go in vain. Posting on Facebook at the right times is an important aspect that you can’t avoid to surpass. Check Facebook Insights and know when your audience is most online during the day and week. Algorithms have made it difficult to identify the best posting times. At Digital Experts, we are up to this challenge, guiding you on the best time to post, boosting your engagements.
- Create a content calendar
Posting regularly is an effective step in your Facebook marketing, making a content calendar a must. Pre-scheduling your posts will be your savior if you’re having a long meeting or not capable of posting at specific times. This applies to all types of Facebook posts, including status and stories. At Digital Experts, we can help you create a powerful content calendar, depending on the highest expected audience engagement.
- Post creative, fresh content
Focus your attention on creating fresh, informative content that stirs your audience’s curiosity. People just love content attached with visuals, whether it’s a photo or video. And, a bit more humor will do the trick! Ensure that your content encompasses these aspects:
- Identity: Does your content represent the identity and feel of your business? Does the content showcase your services or products correctly? Is your content valuable and relevant to your customers? Are your posts matching with the look and color palette of your logo colors?
- Tone: Does your content represent your business voice tone? Is your content tone consistent across all your social media channels? How do you want to approach your audience, professional, humorous, friendly, or an iconic mix of all?
- Reward: What will your audience get? How to engage your audience in a creative way? Competitions, awards, deals, promotions, codes, or industry guides? Make your choice!
- Action: Your content must guide your audience to the next step, driving an action. Identify your goals first and then, choose a clear, relevant call-to-action button.
- Track your performance
Making sure you’re on the right track is an essential step while implementing your digital marketing strategy. Facebook offers valuable metrics and insights to stay on top of your efforts and track your marketing performance.
Looking for an audience of professionals? – You find a better social media platform other than LinkedIn. With over 660 million active users, LinkedIn has made it to the top social media platforms nowadays. But, is LinkedIn really effective? – A recent study has shown that 93% of B2B marketers use LinkedIn for lead generation. Also, around 50% of members stated that they trust companies they engaged with on LinkedIn. Yes, lead generation magnet, beating out all other social media platforms! And, you don’t want to miss this huge world. With LinkedIn, you position your brand as an expert!
Want to start finding leads related to your industry on LinkedIn?!
- Create a company profile
Set up your company page, including the company name, logo, description, industry, location, products, and services. Upload an iconic image that best showcases your brand. For more authenticity, include the “About Us” section. Remember to include relevant keywords in your About Us and link your company website. Now, you’re on LinkedIn!
- Post fresh content
Like any other social media platform, content marketing is critical for the success of a digital marketing strategy. Try to develop creative ideas to impress your audience and keep them around for a long time. Incorporate the different LinkedIn post types, spread out the posts daily, and start engaging your audience. Try a catchy headline to complement your content and upload an eye-catching image. According to LinkedIn, publishing around 5-10 posts on LinkedIn maintains credibility. Around 94% of B2B marketers use LinkedIn to post their content and spread it to the world.
- Use LinkedIn’s targeting features
Start your LinkedIn advertising and help your brand connect with the right audience through sponsored content, text ads, or sponsored InMail. Another effective feature, the Matched Audience Tool can be used to retarget your existing visitors in the sales funnel. Why is this tool great? – Because 98% of your visitors aren’t going to be converted on their first visit.
- Boost your connections
LinkedIn allows you to search for a relevant audience through the search bar, according to location, mutual connections, and even current work. You can also narrow your search for more customization through the “All Filters” tab.
- Check LinkedIn groups
Search for groups in your niche or industry and make relevant connections through LinkedIn groups. Join new groups start a conversation, and interact with professionals and leaders in your industry. It is an ideal way to see what interests the crowds, the most active conversations, and how people interact with these topics. Share your ideas, ask questions, and provide insights into your circle of professionals.
- Start your own group
Mark yourself as an industry leader and start your own group, offering your audience a closed environment to share their ideas and opinions. It will also give you an insight into your audience’s mind, what they think of your brand, and what to improve.
- Use InMail Feature
Do you know that you can triple your response rate on LinkedIn using the InMail feature? – This hidden feature is incredibly powerful as you get to emphasize the relationships already built on the groups. Reach your prospects, influencers, or anyone on LinkedIn directly when you activate the InMail. It is a paid feature but totally worth it!
Why LinkedIn differs from Facebook in the position of your brand?
LinkedIn is mainly a professional networking platform, exposing your business to industry leaders in a more business sense. It is a powerful platform if you’re looking for a B2B business or professional advertising. On the contrary, Facebook is designed to be a friendly platform, where the user connects with his friends and family at any place in the world.
While Facebook uses targeting that depends on interests and demographics, LinkedIn focuses more on professional targeting such as job title, industry, or company name. Simply put, LinkedIn is the perfect match for B2B business, while Facebook is more suited for B2C.
With 126 million daily active users, Twitter has made it to the top Social Networking platforms used by a wide range of audiences. Extend your reach and communicate with people through tagging, hashtagging, and private messages on Twitter. Now, millions of businesses have considered Twitter in their marketing strategy. According to a recent study, a Twitter user follows five brands as average and 80% of users have mentioned a brand in a tweet at least once. To dive into this world, you will have to know how to approach your audience and how to be more human on this network.
And, because your marketing strategy is the foundation of all your upcoming efforts, it is really worth the time you spend establishing it. Like any other platform, your marketing efforts depend completely on your content to grow brand recognition and boost sales. Actually, 60% of users admitted that they are more likely to make a purchase after following a brand page on Twitter. Understand how the platform works, be creative, and study your audience to come up with the best marketing tactic. Here are the magical steps to develop a powerful Twitter strategy for a solid online presence.
- Study your competitors
You can easily search for your competitors through Twitter, see what strategies they are using, and how they approach the audience. Have a closer look at their customer service and the type of content that interests the users.
- Research the latest features
Twitter is always changing, adding advanced features and more powerful options. Keeping up with these changes and utilizing them is a must during your present action plan. This step is essential to keep your impressions high and boost engagements.
- Study your audience
Who are you addressing? Who is your business targeting? It is important to identify the personas of your audience and know who you are trying to reach. Without this step, unfortunately, all your efforts are useless even if you put too much effort into your content marketing. That’s because you will be putting great content in front of irrelevant crowds that are not interested in your business.
Include Twitter Marketing in your business
- Build a strong profile, adding your profile picture, logo, services, and of course, the About us section. Consistency is key. You will want to be easily recognized when appearing on any platform’s News Feed. Try to use the same pictures and colors, giving the same look and feel to stick into people’s heads.
- Craft high-quality content, offer an idea, educate the audience on your industry, and speak directly to them. Being friendly is what matters in the end because that’s how you build relationships. Mix your text with images and videos, adding emojis and GIPs to add a vibrant touch to your content. No one likes to chat with a robot!
- Engage with your audience, tag them in your tweets, and respond to their comments. Try the competitions and giveaways strategy to add some spice to your marketing efforts.
- Visit Twitter Analytics, measure your results to make sure that you’re on the right track. Check the impressions, follower count, total number of audience, and which post has the most engagement.
- Consider paid media on Twitter and target the right type of audience to boost your reach. If you want to invest in a Twitter advertisement, you have two options which are Promoted Tweets and Twitter Ads.
- A promoted tweet looks exactly like the normal tweet, except it appears to people not following your brand’s page. Users can comment, like, and retweet your tweet, recognizing your business.
- Twitter Ads will be a great option if you want to promote several types of tweets to start a campaign with the same goal.
With over 500 million daily users, Instagram is among the biggest social platforms that specialize in Photo Sharing. And, as visuals are the core, high-quality images and videos are the keys to your success on Instagram. And, you can leverage the Live Videos and Instagram Stories to build a rapport and connect with your audience. Engage your audience through tags, likes, comments, and direct messages. This platform will be the ideal choice if you’re having a company that can benefit from photography like restaurants and fashion stores. Also, Instagram is the main hub for Influencer Marketing, which plays an important role in digital marketing nowadays. A recent study has shown that about 93% of influencer campaigns take place on Instagram. Do you know that about 80% of users purchased after discovering a brand on Instagram?
Increase engagements and make use of the different types of Instagram posts, including:
- Images
- Behind-the-scenes
- Reposts from employees
- Educational posts
- Influencer posts
- Motivational posts
- User-generated content
- Videos
- Boomerangs
- Instagram Stories
- Hyperlapse
- Instagram Story Highlights
- Instagram Live
- IGTV
- Shoppable posts
Yes, one picture is worth a thousand words, but the caption must be catchy and engaging to capture attention. Writing unique captions can be challenging, so, don’t rush the process and create delightful content. Instagram allows you to write up to 2,200-characters captions and include a geotag. The studies have shown that posts tagged with locations achieve 79% higher engagement, showing more credibility. Make sure that your posts represent your voice tone and give a distinct feel. When in doubt, a short caption is enough and let the visual do the talking. With so much content on Instagram, hashtags will come to your rescue, encouraging your account to be more visible. And, don’t forget, consistency is key!
YouTube
When was the last time you’ve used YouTube? – Chances are we’ve all spent a lazy night watching silly videos or Beyoncé video. With over a billion active users, you can never say “My audience isn’t on YouTube.” Do you know that over 300 hours of videos are uploaded on YouTube every minute? Do you know that more than 72% of customers prefer videos to text posts?
83% of marketers stated that including videos in their marketing strategy has resulted in a strong ROI. Whether you want to start a brand page or utilize promoted ads, YouTube will expose your business to a whole new range of audiences. Study your audience, create your own videos, and start advertising! Check the types of YouTube ads and take your time before you decide which suits your business.
- Video Discovery Ads (in-display ads)
- Skippable In-stream Ads
- Non-skippable In-stream Ads
- Non-video Ads (overlays & banners)
Snapchat & TikTok
- Snapchat: 190 daily active users
- TikTok: 80 million application downloads
Snapchat and TikTok have become among the biggest interactive media platforms. They offer a wide range of interactive features, musical overlays, and games, in addition to sharing photos and videos. Being new applications, companies started to shift their attention to it, leveraging their wide audience (basically Gen-Z). Like Instagram, you can post images, videos, stories, or videos to engage your audience.
Get close to your audience when you post behind-the-scenes stories so they know your business. Also, these applications attracted many influencers who have young audiences, encouraging Influencer Marketing. If you’re targeting the young-age demographic, you may want to consider one of them in your marketing efforts. Yes, conducting content can be quite difficult and expensive, but it is creative and growing by the day.
Ready to start your marketing plan?
At Digital Experts, our team has a strong understanding of each social media platform and knows how to use their features right. Whether you want to explore a new potential market for your brand or want to start an online page to connect with your customers, we’ve got your back. Don’t hesitate, contact us, and let our experts choose what’s right for your business. Are you ready to start your next advertising campaign?