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Increased exposure and traffic are the top two benefits of social media promotion cited by marketers in the 2017 Social Media Marketing Industry Report. To gain those advantages, and more, for your business, consider incorporating these elements into your social media promotion strategy:
Engagement is key.You want your followers to comment, like, and share your posts on social media. When they do that, it increases exposure to your content by getting more people to look at it. "Make sure you generate content that is appealing to the masses and makes people want to share it with their friends," says Justin Sochovka, a principal in Psyched Media Marketing. Asking questions in a creative manner, holding contests and connecting with social causes can be effective strategies for increasing engagement with your content. Polls and how-to videos are also popular.
Balance promotion with value-add.No more than one out of every six or seven posts should be overtly promotional. The rest should focus on sharing content that is authentic and genuinely useful to your followers. It's okay to "soft-promote" your business in those other posts, as long as it's subtle and relevant to the value-added content being shared, for example, offering advice on how to use a product most effectively or economically.
Think video, video, video.The average user spends more than twice as much time on a website with video than one without, and two-thirds prefer videos of less than 60 seconds--perfect for social media! "It's the best way to organically generate buzz," Sochovka says. Spend some money on a good camera to maximize the video's strong points: attention, emotion, perceived value, and clarity. After creating a video, host it on your own site first, then post to social media channels.
Set up complete profiles.Seems obvious, but Chris Stocker, CEO of CSI Marketing Solutions, says it's amazing how many small businesses neglect to do this. Important information that is often omitted includes email address, street address, business hours and relevant images, he says. "Be as thorough as possible. This may be the first impression many people have of your business-;and maybe their last."
Be prepared for negative feedback.Murphy's Law is real. Occasionally, things go wrong. It's okay to pre-craft responses to your most common questions and complaints, so you can respond quickly when they crop up. But make sure to personalize your responses, as well. People want a quick response on social media, but they also want to feel they are being heard.
Use ads strategically.Advertising to those who have already been on your website can be an effective and economical way to promote your business through social media. For the best results, use remarketing tags, which are free to install and use on Google, Facebook and LinkedIn. Tags are short snippets of code that add your website visitors to your remarketing lists, making it easy to target them.
There's no one-size-fits-all solution for creating a social media promotion plan, but according to the 2017 Social Media Marketing Industry Report, all plans should address five key points: choosing the most-effective tactics, maximizing engagement, measuring ROI, optimizing use of paid social media and targeting the right audience. Set clear objectives for what you want to achieve with social, and use these guidelines to formulate a plan and optimize it as needed.
T-Mobile is not associated with or endorsing the brands, services or products mentioned in this article.
Since the beginning, Jeff Bezos has been reminding his team that at Amazon, it is always Day 1. Every year, he reinforces the company's commitment to this philosophy by republishing the 1997 letter to shareholders in which he mapped out the Day 1 approach.
Here's how he described his vision for Amazon:
This is Day 1 for the Internet and, if we execute well, for Amazon.com. Today, online commerce saves customers money and precious time. Tomorrow, through personalization, online commerce will accelerate the very process of discovery. Amazon.com uses the Internet to create real value for its customers and, by doing so, hopes to create an enduring franchise, even in established markets. ... Though we are optimistic, we must remain vigilant and maintain a sense of urgency.
That sense of urgency is what keeps Amazon acting like an aggressive startup two decades later, even though the company earns more than $100 billion annually.
Often, when companies reach a degree of success, they take their foot off the gas pedal. They get to a certain revenue number, reach a tipping point with the number of employees on staff, and then they try to figure out how to act more like a mature company.
In doing so, they end up abandoning the traits that enabled them to achieve their level of success in the first place. No bueno.
Being a big company doesn't mean you have to stop acting like an aggressive startup. And it doesn't mean you have to lose that sense of urgency that existed in the early days of your business that fueled your growth.
Amazon proves this is possible.
Bezos was recently asked what Day 2 looks like. He was frank with his response In his 2016 letter to shareholders:
Day 2 is stasis. Followed by irrelevance. Followed by excruciating, painful decline. Followed by death. And that is why it is always Day 1.
Bezos expounded on what the Day 2 decline actually looks like for companies that find themselves in it:
To be sure, this kind of decline would happen in extreme slow motion. An established company might harvest Day 2 for decades, but the final result would still come.
Ouch.
The good news is, Bezos provides clear advice on how to keep your company acting like a startup with a sense of urgency. He breaks it down into four key areas.
1. Obsess over customersBusiness is about creating value for your customers. To do that consistently over time, you have to be relentless about solving your customers' problems like none other. You have to create an experience for them that makes them feel like no other option will do.
According to Bezos, this is the most important aspect of being a Day 1 company. He notes, "Even when they don't know it, customers want something better, and your desire to delight your customers will drive you to invent on their behalf."
2. Resist proxiesProcesses are important because they help you operate efficiently and effectively. They help you deliver the same level of quality to your customers over and over again. But if you're not careful, your processes will run you.
Bezos explained the danger from this approach in his 2016 letter:
3. Embrace external trendsThis can happen very easily in large organizations. The process becomes the proxy for the result you want. You stop looking at outcomes and just make sure you're doing the process right. ... A remarkable customer experience starts with heart, intuition, curiosity, play, guts, taste. You won't find any of it in a survey.
Independent of what is happening within your company and the vision you have for it, there are outside forces that are changing the way business is done. It is up to you to see the trends and embrace them, rather than waiting until you are forced to get on board.
Bezos described in his letter why this is imperative: "If you fight them, you're probably fighting the future. Embrace them and you have a tailwind."
4. Make high-velocity decisionsWhen you were just starting out, there was a ton of information you didn't have. So you had to work to make the best decision with the data that you had at your disposal.
You have to get comfortable doing the same even when you have the resources to get more information that provides you with a higher level of certainty.
Bezos has a strong point of view on this, citing in the letter that "most decisions should probably be made with somewhere around 70 percent of the information you wish you had. If you wait for 90 percent, in most cases, you're probably being slow."
It's time to get back to Day 1. No matter your size. No matter how long you've been in business.
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