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Do you have content that you want to share with the world? Are you looking for a way to market your blog and improve your search engine rankings?
Social media is an excellent opportunity for this. It's not only one of the easiest ways to reach people, it's also free! This article will give you tips on how to use social media marketing as well as some different platforms that can be used in order to get the word out about what you're doing.
Do you know the best way to promote your blog online?
Hint – it’s trendy, you are probably on it, and it’s often free…
That’s right! Social media.
Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, you name it!
When I first started my blog in January 2021, I had all sorts of ideas for blog titles. I had a plan, a domain, and even content ideas, all the necessary components that make up a blog, but one key piece was missing – marketing my content on social media. Luckily, I have since figured it out. Now, it’s time for me to share that knowledge with you and empower you to market your content.
To build and retain an audience, social media marketing is crucial. Especially these days, as blogs are mushrooming and more content than ever before is being created, you need to grab attention, and social media is a powerful tool to do so.
As marketing expert Jay Baer once said, “Content is fire, social media is gasoline.”
Promoting high-quality content is one of the best ways to niche down and learn about your intended audience. You have the opportunity to publish on social media platforms where you can learn from clicks, shares, and likes. By posting content on social media, you engage with your readers and give them the brand experience while promoting content from your blog.
Essentially, effective social media marketing is a win-win situation for all! Content promotion on social media is a skill and an art. Whether you are doing it on your own or working with a social media manager, you need to have a clear understanding of the process and strategy to guide your team and promote your mission and vision.
That said, content marketing can be tricky, particularly for beginner bloggers. Here are some of the things you might be wondering about.
What is a social media marketing strategy?
How does social media support content marketing?
Is social media effective for marketing?
Now, if you have ever asked yourself any of these questions, you are in the right place. This article covers all of these topics and more.
Contents
- Social media and content marketing
- What is a social media marketing strategy?
- How does social media support content marketing?
- What makes social media such an effective marketing tool?
- The 8 critical elements of a social media content plan
- How Social Media Marketing Can Help You Meet Your Marketing Goals
- Social media advertising across individual platforms
- How to market your content with social media?
- Conclusion
Social media and content marketing
Social media is a powerful tool. Used strategically, it can increase your content visibility, craft your brand personality, and help you achieve your business goals. Understanding your target market’s needs is key to providing quality content, growing your brand, and nurturing your community. This starts with a social media marketing strategy.
Social media marketing is internet marketing that involves creating and sharing content on social media platforms to achieve your marketing and branding goals.
Trends such as mobile connectivity, purchasing decisions, and key influencers only highlight the increasing influence of social media. For instance, people accessing the internet via mobile increased by 60.3% to 818.4M between 2012 and 2014 (source: smartinsights.com).
As it is a clear and profitable marketing opportunity, do not skip out on social media. Stay up to date with rising trends, such as mobile connectivity, to help you further strategize and reach your audience. Ask yourself questions, can my readers read my blog on their mobile phone? You'll be surprised to find how much you learn about your presence and enhance your audience experience along the way.
If you choose not to promote your business through social media, be aware that your competitors are probably out there, making most of their social media pages. More importantly, your customers are very likely on social media, engaging in rich conversations on social media platforms with your competitors!
If you don’t leverage social media, you are missing out.
Social media are channels of communication that reach your reader in various ways. Here are just a few ways you can support engagement and promotion:
Direct message. Or also known as “DM” is a great way to interact a make a direct pitch to brands and companies.
Affiliates. List your affiliate links on your post to boost potential sales.
Videos. Videos and short-form content is the best way to to go viral and create content for the most popular features.
Pictures. Use images to promote engagement by posting infographics and simple concepts.
Promotional content. Pay to increase engagement on your products and services.
In fact, social media is one of the most important platforms that you can use to promote your content. According to CMI, 93% of B2B marketers list social media as one of the top five content marketing tactics.
“Needless to say, content marketing and social media go hand in hand. Good content has no value without being promoted on social media, and social media marketing will fail without a good content strategy” (source: jointviews.com)
Aligning your website content with your social media posts sends out a clear message that your audience quickly understands. Understanding your target audience crafts the plan for content marketing campaigns. So, maximize your website and social media synergy and focus on objectives, buyers persona, product/service, and your editorial plan.
Did you know that 97% of marketers use social media to reach their audiences?
If you think about it, social media is unique. It hits that sweet spot between ease of use and direct audience access in a way that few other marketing tools can.
Cost effective
Social media is one of the most cost-effective marketing strategies out there. Many small businesses are careful about the type of marketing strategies they invest in. With a limited marketing budget, social media enables you to reach potential customers by promoting services and products.
Click to Tweet
Connection and reach
Social media gives you access to a mix of current and potential audiences. Small businesses typically start with blog posts, a service, or a product. Social media gives you the reach to connect with a prospective audience and capture their attention with your posts.
Join the crowd
In fact, according to MarketingSherpa, 95% of online adults aged 18 to 34 are likely to follow a brand on social media. When users follow brands and engage with their social media profiles, they find value in these social media campaigns’ content and information. Whether they are looking for deals, enjoy entertaining content, or just want to learn more about the brand, social media users are open to engaging with brands on social media channels (source: lyfemarketing.com).
Unifying experience
It is only human nature to trust the recommendations of our friends over strangers. Social media marketing makes the most out of peer approval, as most social media sites are made for sharing. It's easy for your audience to share, and the more they share, click, and like, the more the algorithm promotes you.
By planning your social media content ahead of time, you can save yourself both time and effort. Planning also allows you to make the most of all your opportunities; think- holidays and special events. Create a strategic social media content plan by considering these eight essential elements.
Cyclical content
Cyclical can indicate the time of year (e.g., holidays), the time frame between campaigns, and the last time your prospective customer bought a service or product. Think about the value of the product or service your customer bought 2-4 months ago and ask yourself “will this new product or service support or overshadow the purchase?”
Measure your answer against buyer rates, time of year, and unique customer information.
Demographics
The demographics of your audience is essential in terms of where they live and their time zones. For example, if your target audience lives in California, but you live in Portugal. Your posting schedule will definitely look different based on the times your audience is active on social media. Holidays and transition may also vary, so keep in mind the times of the year your customer is most likely to purchase.
Branding
Since social media marketing is so effective and easily accessible, almost everyone is on it! To avoid getting missed among your competitors, create a memorable image for your social media.This means being both consistent and specific.
To do so, start by defining your brand voice and visuals. For example, identify the color pallet you want to use.
Is it Christmas?
If so, you may opt for reds and greens.
But what shade?
This is where your brand comes in. You get to market your brand with a consistent presentation!
“Showing up consistently on social media is an important tactic to increase trust and brand awareness among your audience. Consistent use of color alone can increase brand recognition… It can also help to drive revenue: consistent presentation of a brand increases revenue by roughly 23%”
Your brand’s voice is magnified by the hashtags and formatting. Hashtags are used by social media users and can increase a potential customer’s likelihood of following your account and making a purchase.
Think about the written content, too and ask.
Is it formal or more casual?
Do you abide by standard grammatical rules?
Do you use emojis, or do you prefer graphics?
These can all be inviting or deterrents based on the audience you are trying to reach. Picture your brand’s voice and vision and promote the user experience that resonates most with your brand.
Social Media Use
Tailor your plan to your audience by considering how your audience uses social media. Do most of your customers respond to videos and live streams, or do you find that long-form writing gets more attention? Whatever it is, incorporate it in your plan to engage your audience by video, music, talk, graphics, short content, long content, polls, and many more. You may find that you have a mix of preferences. In this circumstance, plan to integrate your social media strategy with other channels.
“In today's marketing environment, an integrated approach drives results. A well-integrated and customized campaign can boost effectiveness by 57%, according to AdReaction: The Art of Integration. This isn't surprising, considering that 86% of shoppers are regularly channel-hopping across at least two channels…Make a plan to cross-promote your social media content. Your strategy should outline how you will share and promote social content via email marketing, website, direct marketing, and any other channels you are utilizing.”
Set triggers to your links so that your audience is led to the content they most want to see, engage, and purchase. For some, that may be adding a link to a newsletter inviting subscribers to share on social media in exchange for an incentive.
Analytics
Marketing is done to reach out to your audience. As such, you need to know whether your strategies are working! Tracking analytics will give you the information you need to adjust your social media strategy. Remember, tracking isn’t limited to only website traffic – it also includes social media engagement.
Here are the most common tools people use to measure social media marketing results:
- Native analytics tools on Facebook, Twitter, etc. (65%)
- Social media management platforms like Later and Recurpost (62%)
- Web analytics such as Google Analytics (59%)
- Dedicated social media measurement platforms (22%)
(Source: socialmediatoday.com)
Some people prefer to wait a few days before looking at analytics.
Personally, I like to track from day one. Sometimes a pin performs better than others, and I can identify that people who clicked on the pin also engaged with my content or made a purchase. These are pins I may consider making my blog post's featured image, for example. Find what works for you in alignment with the focus of your campaign.
Content Calendar
It may seem counterintuitive, but to consistently share content that seems fresh, new, and relevant, it is essential to plan months in advance. Create content calendars based on holidays or special times of the year. Be sure to include a variety of content in your calendar and recycle evergreen content.
Communication
Make room to celebrate wins! Host a video chat, send out reimbursement coupons, and join in on an online dinner. Make room to laugh and be okay with sitting in discomfort when negative comments or an increase in refunds come in. Learn with your team about what works and how you can meet deadlines, goals, and brand objectives.
Maximize the customer experience
All that to say, an excellent social media content plan should be focused on enhancing customer experience. Based on your audience’s cyclical location, use of social media, and analytics trackers, create a consistent social media strategy that includes content calendars and input from your team.
At least two-thirds of internet users are on social media. Each platform has a unique set of activities that promote brands such as video, image, text, and more. Missing out on social media means missing out on creating devoted brand advocates and driving leads and sales.
How Social Media Marketing Can Help You Meet Your Marketing Goals
Creating engaging content, assessing your results, and communicating with your team sets your business up for an excellent social media strategy. In preparation for a launch, goals and objectives are crucial to measuring metrics. Below I outline critical components of goals and objectives for an excellent social media strategy.
Now that you know the critical elements of a social media content plan focus on the next part of the content marketing – goals and objectives. Establishing clearly-defined aims and targets ahead of time is necessary to create a complete content plan.
Here are some factors to consider when deciding on goals to market your content on social media.
Goals and Objectives. Objectives are the overall picture: your why and the end goal. Your goals are how you get there. Your objective may be to entertain your audience with educational content that helps them identify and bring meaning to your brand by investing in brand equity, creating and retaining customers, and increasing product and service sales.
Tips to increase engagement on social media
- Choose a social media platform
- Post regularly
- Engage with your audience by replying to comments within 24 hours
- Support creators by sharing, liking, and commenting on their pages.
Buyer’s Persona. In your mind, begin to piece together the persona of your customer.
Ask yourself, who is my customer?
Think about sociodemographic factors such as location, age, gender, and personality factors like worries, concerns, and motivation. You can analyze your existing customers to identify these factors or create a potential customer’s persona based on your product.
Product/Service. Within your community, there is a lot of diversity. There is bound to be someone who would find your product or service to be the perfect fit. Evaluate your own product to honestly figure out who would be interested in it and when. When you market, you want to reach the correct people quickly and effectively. Make sure you choose the right audience to target your product or service.
Editorial Plan. Create a strategy that supports your campaign. This means planning and timing your blogs, posts, newsletters, and announcements to align with a launch. So, schedule a meeting with your social media team and create color schemes and messaging, inviting new and existing customers.
Social Channel. A social channel can be Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest… you name it. You do not need to start on all social media platforms. Instead, think about where your audience is.
In addition to looking at age groups, find influential voices in your topic, and see what social networks they are interested in.
Think about user engagement; where is your audience most likely to comment, share, and like?
When identifying the right social media channel for your content, think about how the platform will support your brand. For example, if you plan to curate content and share links, you may consider Twitter and Facebook. These platforms offer thumbnails, snippets, and sharing. Instagram is a great place to launch products and visually promote limited releases. If you are a business with content-heavy posts that host webinars and events, you may consider LinkedIn and Facebook.
Essentially, your social media marketing goals should be created to serve your target audience, and content should be individualized to your specific type of product or service. Set clear goals before you start putting the plan into motion.
Social media advertising across individual platforms
The most commonly used social media platforms are Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter. In this section, we take a closer look at each of those sites, starting with the most popular of them all.
Facebook
Facebook is the leader in universal reach and advertisements. You can find campaigns on ebooks, giveaways, and product coupons on Facebook. This platform allows you to target your advertisements based on location, job description, and past activity.
Click to Tweet
Not only that, the demographics of Facebook users are worth looking into. For example, more women (83%) than men (75%) use Facebook regularly (source: socialmediaexaminer.com). This means that if you target women for product sales, Facebook may be a platform to consider.
Another cool feature on Facebook is their live streaming app Facebook Live. If your product or blog is suited for video marketing, Facebook Live can be an efficient way to establish your brand presence on Facebook. According to socialmediaexaminer.com, Facebook Live’s launch has spurred an increase in video views by a whopping 700%. This is a considerable increase in potential customers.
This trend extends to posting content on multiple platforms and being responsive to your audience. With this strategy, you may consider responding to and connecting with your Facebook audience.
Instagram
Instagram boasts over 1 billion users in 2021, making it a staple in the social media platform circle.
2021 monthly active users by social network (Dreamgrow.com)
In addition to its massive audience, Instagram has a lead on engagement over Twitter and Facebook. “Twitter’s average engagement was at 0.04% of total followers in February. Post engagement on Facebook was at 0.53% of all page likes. An Instagram post gets 2000% more engagement than a tweet!” (locowise.com)
2016 study of social media platform growth (locowise.com)
According to the Pew study, Instagram users are skewed towards females, with 38% of online adult women using the platform compared to 26% of online adult men (socialmediaexaminer.com). Plus, stats have shown that a third of all Instagram users access the platform multiple times a day, and more than half check Instagram daily. (socialmediaexaminer.com). Because of this, there are multiple opportunities to engage with your audience.
Twitter is preferred by people who like to engage with unfiltered and bold content. 79% of people on Twitter want to discover new things, and 53% of Twitter users are more likely to buy a product for the first time, according to Twitter (Twitter).
This makes Twitter the perfect platform for small business owners to showcase their products and services.
As far as demographics, the Pew study has found that 24% of online adult men and 25% of online adult women use Twitter (socialmediaexaminer.com). It is also a platform that caters to people of all ages, with only 22.5% of Twitter users between 25 and 34. (socialmediaexaminer.com). Being aware of these statistics could make it easier to find your target audience and engage with your community.
Pinterest's demographics are less balanced than Twitter or Facebook, with 45% of online women using the network versus 17% of online men (source: socialmediaexaminer.com). At large, Pinterest is regarded as the most robust platform for e-commerce sales (datafeedwatch.com)
With an audience of 335 million, millennial women are at the core of the Pinterest audience. Purchase trends include a detailed and long description with intentional pins and links for an audience that is two times more likely to spend a week researching, spend $500 or more on women's clothing and shoes, and learn about new brands.
There are many ways you can promote your content on social media. Most sites allow for great flexibility in range. If you are a creative type of person, social media marketing is the perfect place to think out of the box! That said, it can be overwhelming at times, so here are a few tried-and-tested ideas to get you started.
Ask an influencer.
Influencers have an established market that they look after and nurture with products and services that meet their needs. If you find an influencer that catches your eye, contact them via email and social media. To make your proposal more enticing, you can offer to include the influencer quote on your article as well as link it to their website and social media accounts. Once the article is published, ask the influencer to talk about it on social media. This way, you gain both exposure and authority.
Social media marketers know about new updates and trends. As professionals, they can help boost your brand by setting a tone and engaging with your audience. As with all new hires, be aware of costs, time limits, and agreements. To make the most out of their service, be sure to clearly state your goals and objectives and listen for strategies that make sense for your brand.
Participate in content communities.
Share your work with content communities to help you get honest feedback and communicate with other business owners in the same niche. There are many benefits to networking with others, mainly if the content community is specific to your field. Not only does it open up opportunities for future collaborations, but it can also be a fun way to stay updated on developments in your area.
Invest in ads
Promoting your content on social media is as easy as posting the link and title of your latest blog post. Promote sales, promotions, new content, and opinions on your social media. You can buy ads on social media networks that can give you more information about your market. It's also a great way to meet potential customers!
To sum it all up…
If all of this is overwhelming to you, start by thinking of your brand and scale up from there. Let’s take the first step together by creating a content calendar. A content calendar helps avoid mistakes, and you can directly link them to your objectives and goals. If your goal is to develop a consistent marketing strategy, identify when things will get launched. I personally like to think backward.
Here is my personal thought pattern.
1. Identify a day when the blog will be published
2. Look at the month and organize a color scheme
3. Identify holidays and trends (e.g., such as shopping for Mother's Day)
4. Think about topics for the month and organize them on the calendar
5. Write a blog post
6. Print the blog post with 1-inch margins on both sides. This helps me annotate and highlight areas of the blog that I want to promote on social media
7. Make social media content and schedule it
8. Engage with the audience and celebrate successes (big and small)
Conclusion
Social media is everywhere these days. Use it wisely, and it can be an indispensable tool in your marketing arsenal. Content marketing on social media can help you grow your audience, but remember to stay consistent and remain relevant to your brand.
TODO:
Drop a comment below and let me know if you would like me to share my personal formula for content marketing on social media.
Originally posted on April 25, 2021 @ 12:45 am
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