Social media is a powerful marketing tool — but it can also be really intimidating. When you’re using social media to promote your media company’s content, there’s nothing more disappointing than getting five likes on your latest Facebook post (probably especially if it’s a link to something good). But how do you get those likes and shares? Sprout Social has the answers, with this study of successful practices by some of their most knowledgeable clients.
Start with a strategy.
Your strategy should be based on your goals and the needs of your customers. If you’re a startup, it’s likely that you want to grow your audience and increase awareness. If you’re an established brand, it’s important to maintain a consistent presence and communicate with customers in real time when they need help or have questions. The point is, if you don’t know where you’re going, how do you expect to get there?
Use the right tools for the job.
Don’t use every single tool out there just because it might be convenient or popular right now — find the ones that work best for your brand and stick with them. For most businesses, this means using several different types of social media platforms (like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Google+), but not necessarily all at once. If your audience isn’t on Snapchat yet, don’t invest time or money into building an account just yet — wait until they are before launching anything significant there (if at all).
Set Goals and Identify Target Audiences
Set Goals and Identify Target Audiences
The first step in building a successful blog is to set goals. If you don’t know where you’re going, how will you know when you’ve arrived?
The two most common types of blogs are informational and promotional. An informational blog is all about sharing knowledge with your audience. A promotional blog, on the other hand, aims to drive traffic and leads back to your business website or landing page. You can mix these two types of blogs up so that some posts are promotional and some are not, but it’s important to have a clear idea of what kind of content you want to produce before you start writing.
Once you’ve decided what type of blog you want to create, it’s time to identify your target audiences. It’s important to understand who your potential readers are because this will allow you to tailor your content accordingly (and possibly even write posts that they’ll find useful). Here are some ways that you can do this:
- Analyze the Keywords Used by Your Target Audiences
- Study Other Blogs That Focus on Your Topic
- Survey Your Friends and Family
Create Engaging Content
Engaging content is the best way to get people to pay attention to your brand. It’s a great way to attract new leads and customers, as well as build relationships with existing ones.
But what makes content engaging? One of the biggest factors is entertainment value. You need to make sure that your content is interesting enough that people will want to keep reading it or watching it.
If you want to create entertaining content, here are some tips:
Make sure it’s relevant and timely. You don’t want your audience getting bored while they’re trying to find helpful information about your business or industry — especially if they’re already reading other articles on the same topic. If you can’t come up with anything fresh, then consider using an outside source for inspiration (this can be done legally on sites like YouTube).
Make sure it’s easy to read or watch. Don’t expect people to spend a lot of time trying to decode too many complicated words or concepts — even if you think they should understand them! Instead, try using simple language and imagery that anyone can understand without much effort.
Personalize Your Brand Voice
Your brand voice is the personality you want your company to have. It’s how you want people to feel when they interact with your brand, and how you want them to talk about it with their friends.
Your brand voice is the personality you want your company to have. It’s how you want people to feel when they interact with your brand, and how you want them to talk about it with their friends.
You can’t just create a social media account and expect people to interact with it. You need a plan for what kind of content will be shared, how often it will be posted, who will share it and more. All of these things should be thought out before any type of content is created.
The more personal the tone, the better. Don’t try too hard to sound like a human being — just be yourself! Customers can tell when someone is trying too hard to sound like someone else; they prefer authenticity over perfect grammar every time!
The less formal and more conversational your tone is, the more likely customers are going to engage with it on social media platforms like Facebook or Twitter. If a customer sees a friend post something funny or interesting on Facebook or Twitter, they’re more likely to engage with that post.
Share Other Media Organizations’ Content
If you’re a media organization, sharing other people’s content can be a great way to build an audience and grow your reach.
For example, Mashable shared 50 articles from other publishers in the first month of 2019. In that period, Mashable’s engagement with those articles increased by more than 2,000%.
Here are some tips for sharing content from other media organizations:
1. Share as much as possible from other media organizations — not just the big ones. You want to make sure you’re providing value to your followers by sharing content they might not have seen before.
2. Think beyond just articles: Consider sharing videos, podcasts or other kinds of content that are relevant to your audience.
3. If you have enough resources, consider creating an account on a platform where you can share other people’s content (like Pocket). This will allow you to keep track of all the content you’ve shared and ensure that it doesn’t get lost in the shuffle when someone unsubscribes from your newsletter or unfollows your account.
Run Contests & Promotions
Running a contest or promotion is a great way to get your brand in front of a large audience. But it’s easy to make mistakes that will hurt your business.
Here are some tips on how to run contests and promotions:
- Choose the right platform – There are many platforms available for running contests and promotions, including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest and more. It’s important to choose the platform that best suits the purpose of your contest or promotion. For example, if you’re looking for engagement on Facebook, then a photo caption contest would be ideal. If you’re hoping to drive traffic from Instagram, then a photo giveaway would be effective.
- Create a clear call-to-action – Make sure there’s no confusion about what people have to do in order to enter the contest or promotion (i.e., follow you on social media) or what they will receive if they win (i.e., an Amazon gift card). If there’s any ambiguity in either of these areas, then it’s likely that people won’t participate at all or do so without understanding what they’re actually doing.
Listen to Your Audience
As a business owner, you know that your business is only as good as the products and services you provide. But the reality is that if your customers aren’t happy with your offerings, they can go elsewhere. So it’s important to listen to what people are saying about your business and adjust accordingly if needed.
Here are some ways you can better understand your audience:
- Use social media. Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube give you direct access to your customers’ thoughts on your company and its products and services. You can also use these tools to share news about upcoming events or new releases. It’s a great way to interact with your audience and get feedback on what they like best about working with your company or buying from you.
- Involve customers in decision-making processes. Whether it’s deciding which new products should be added to your catalog or figuring out ways to improve customer service, involving customers in these decisions gives them a sense of ownership over their experience with your brand — which makes them more likely to stay loyal customers in the long run.
Respond to Questions, Comments and Concerns
Responses to questions, comments, and concerns are a great way to show your customers that you care about them.
The most important thing is to respond quickly. Customers expect it and will be frustrated if you don’t. The average online shopping experience is 3 minutes long, so it’s important to answer questions within a few hours of them being asked.
Here are some tips on how to respond:
- Be polite and respectful. Remember that a customer who has asked a question is one who cares about your brand and wants to feel heard. Be sure not to come across as condescending or annoyed with their question or complaint.
- Address their concerns directly and honestly. If you don’t know the answer, tell them so — it’s better than pretending like you do! If someone says they’re unhappy with something, apologize and ask what would make them happy again.
Track Your Progress with Social Analytics & Reporting Tools
Social media is a great way to connect with your customers and potential customers, but it can be difficult to track the success of your campaign. Luckily, there are many social analytics and reporting tools that will help you measure your performance.
Here are some of the best social reporting tools:
Sprout Social is one of the most popular social media management tools on the market, allowing users to easily schedule posts, track engagement levels and monitor followers. It also has some great reporting features that make it easy to see how your campaigns are performing. The paid version costs $99 per month and has unlimited users, while the free version allows you to manage up to three profiles at once.
Social Report has been around since 2009 and offers a number of features designed specifically for businesses looking to grow their presence on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. It helps users manage multiple accounts at once with ease, plus it offers detailed analytics about each account’s performance over time so you can see which strategies work best for each platform. You can also create reports based on specific keywords or topics so you can track what content works best for your audience over time. The basic plan is free while more advanced options cost $9 monthly or $90 annually.
Stay Current with Industry News on Social Media
Stay Current with Industry News on Social Media
For the past several years, social media has been an excellent source for staying current with industry news. When it comes to your business, you need to know what’s happening in your industry and how it affects your customers. You can use social media to learn about trends in your market, which is important for staying ahead of the competition.
Below are ways to use social media for learning about industry trends:
1. Follow industry influencers on Twitter and Instagram. These people have built up their following by being interesting and informative and sharing their knowledge with others. Follow them so that you can see what they’re doing and how they’re doing it.
2. Use hashtags to find relevant information on Twitter and Instagram. Searching hashtags will help you find posts related to your industry or specific topics that interest you. For example, if you want to find out what marketers are saying about advertising on Facebook lately, search “advertising” in Instagram’s search bar or “marketing” in Twitter’s search bar. You’ll find lots of results that will give you great ideas for marketing campaigns using Facebook ads and other tools at your disposal as a marketer!
Build Up Your Brand Advocates and Ambassadors
The best way to build your brand is by getting your customers to do it for you. This is where brand ambassadors and advocates come in. They are people who love your brand so much that they want to share their enthusiasm with the world.
They can be the key to your success, but only if you take the time to cultivate them. Here are some tips on how to build up your brand evangelists:
1) Be aware of who your customers are. It’s important that you know what makes your customers tick. Do they use social media? What topics interest them? If they have children, what kind of interests do they have? What kind of hobbies do they enjoy?
2) Find a way to engage with them online or offline. Once you know what kinds of things interest them, try reaching out through social media or through offline events like meetups and conferences.
3) Make it easy for them to share content about your brand without having to invest too much time or effort into doing so (e.g., by creating an easy-to-use sharing button).
Support Employee Advocacy Programs
When you think of employee advocacy programs, you might picture employees with a direct line to senior leaders. The reality is that employee advocates can come from all levels of an organization and from any department. The important thing is that they are the people who are talking about your company, your brand, and your products on social media.
When it comes to employee advocacy programs, there are two main categories: internal and external. Internal advocates are employees who work for your company and promote it internally on social media platforms like Facebook or Twitter. External advocates are people outside of your company who advocate for you by sharing their experiences using your products or services on social media platforms like Facebook or Twitter.
There are many benefits to having an employee advocacy program in place, including:
- Lower marketing costs through word-of-mouth marketing
- Better brand awareness due to increased exposure across multiple channels
- Increased customer satisfaction because customers feel more connected with their favorite brands
Schedule Posts in Advance to Save Time
The social media scheduling tool sprout social lets you schedule posts in advance. With this feature, you can plan out your content and publish it when it’s most likely to get attention.
You’ll need to create a campaign in order to schedule posts in advance. A campaign is a collection of messages that are linked together by a common theme — such as an event or promotion — and can be published at one time or on different dates throughout the year.
To schedule posts in advance:
1. Log into your account with your username and password.
2. Click on the “Campaigns” tab at the top of your dashboard.
3. Click on the “+ Create Campaign” button at the top of your screen and select “Create Campaign.”
4. Give your campaign a name and click “Continue.” You’ll see a list of options displayed below; choose “Schedule” under “Advanced Options” (see screenshot below).
Integrate Your Marketing Tools for Greater Efficiency
One of the most important aspects of marketing today is having an effective social media strategy. It’s something that everyone has, but not everyone does it well.
One of the best ways to improve your social media marketing is to integrate your tools. By integrating your tools, you can get a more holistic view of what’s happening with your brand across all platforms.
If you aren’t doing this already, here are three tools that should be on your radar:
Sprout Social – This tool lets you monitor and post across multiple channels in one place. You can also schedule posts in advance so you don’t have to worry about missing a beat while you’re out at lunch or on vacation. Sprout Social also has built-in advertising capabilities so you can manage your ads from one place as well!
Buffer – This tool is great for scheduling posts in advance and making sure they go out at peak times when they’ll get maximum views and engagement with your audience. Buffer also allows users to share content from other sources into their queue so their customers don’t have to do any extra work!
Hootsuite – This tool can help you manage multiple accounts all at once and see what’s happening across all of them at once as well.
Takeaway
Here are some tips for optimizing social media strategy for your media company.
Social media is a powerful tool for communicating with your customers and potential customers, but it can be difficult to get right. Here are some tips for optimizing social media strategy for your media company:
1. Don’t be afraid of automation. Automated posts can help you get more content out there without sacrificing quality or consistency, and they’re a great way to keep up with new trends in your industry.
2. Be consistent with your content schedule. If people know when to expect new content from you, they’ll be more likely to engage with it as soon as it goes live and share it with their networks — which means more exposure for your brand!
3. Use analytics to watch what works best for your audience and adjust accordingly. For example, if one social network tends to drive more traffic than another one, focus on that one when developing new campaigns or posting new content.
