Syed Balkhi November 5, 2021 Are you interested in improving your social media marketing strategy? If so, you’re far from alone. Believe it or not, 2022 is right around the corner, so many business owners and marketers are wondering how to get more engagement and conversions from their existing social media accounts.
Globally, over 3.96 billion people use social media sites like Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and that number is growing. We expect to see more people using these sites to talk to friends and interact with their favorite brands in the coming year.
Today, my goal is to show you several ways you can get your social media marketing strategy ready for next year. We will also go over a few actionable tips you can use to bring these tips to life for your small business.
Are you ready? Let’s dive in!
Establish Goals and KPIs
The first thing you should do is establish clear marketing goals and key performance indicators (KPIs). Your social media strategy hinges on understanding when something’s working and when you need to make adjustments. Goals and KPIs make it easy to track your progress and make changes as necessary.
I suggest thinking about what exactly you want from your social media strategy. Is your primary goal to spread brand awareness? Or are you interested in nurturing your existing followers? Your answer can drastically impact how you plan future campaigns.
It’s worth noting that your goals can overlap. But if your primary interest is building rapport with people who already follow your account, you may have to rethink how you’ll publish content throughout the year.
Once you develop strong performance indicators and goals, have your team track their progress each week. Now, you can see at a glance if your followers, engagement, and sales from your social media campaigns are on track. I think this is a necessary strategy for businesses across all industries because if you’re not mindful of your goals and analytics, you’re basically guessing, which costs time, money, and energy.
Use Live Video to Boost Brand Awareness
Live video is perhaps one of the best ways to use your social media account for marketing. Research shows that 43% of online shoppers want more video content from brands they know and respect. You can build rapport with brand new visitors while nurturing existing leads by scheduling engaging content like educational webinars, ask me anything (AMA) events, and product demonstrations.
The key to hosting a powerful live video event is to create topics that appeal to your target audience. You’ll want to look at your customer personas and develop a presentation for one or two segments. If your video matches specific goals and pain points, you could see more qualified leads register for the event.
This decision could have a massive impact on overall sales and engagement. A whopping 59% of shoppers use social media for inspiration when they want to buy something online. If you can create a compelling, fun, and educational live video event, sales and website traffic are likely to follow.
You can maximize user engagement by including a question and answer session at the end of every live video event. Use this opportunity to engage with your followers and show that you’re committed to helping them find success.
Encourage User-Generated Content
User-generated content (UGC) is another excellent way to improve your social media marketing strategy. We, like many others, saw success with UGC in 2021, and we expect that trend to continue next year.
Simply put, user-generated content is any post, comment, or image posted by a customer that speaks positively to your product, service, or brand values. For instance, if a friend of yours raves about a new brand name PC they found, that’s UGC. Similarly, when people post photos of themselves enjoying your product or representing branded merchandise, that’s also UGC.
In most cases, UGC is organic, and you won’t know about it until it’s posted. Once you find that someone gave your company a shoutout, don’t be afraid to retweet or share their post with your followers. Not only will this make the original poster feel good, but it can also help you build trust with new followers.
You can also plan specific marketing events to generate UGC. For instance, you could host a photo contest where visitors are invited to share photos of themselves repping your brand for a chance to win a gift card or deluxe product from your online store.
People are often willing to give credit to companies that sell genuinely valuable products. If you create an online contest for your followers and include sharing UGC as a way to enter, you can expect more engagement, social mentions, and conversions.
Work with Micro-Influencers
Next, let’s talk about how working with micro-influencers can help you grow your social presence. One of the significant differences between traditional UGC content and influencer marketing is UGC is unsponsored and organic.
On the other hand, influencer marketing is a paid-for sponsorship where an internet personality reviews your product or service. You’ll typically need to pay in cash, with a free product, or even a lucrative affiliate sponsorship. In this last situation, the influencer will make money for every person they get to invest in your product or service.
You may be shocked to learn just how effective influencer marketing can be for your business. Reports show that, on average, 130 million Instagram users tap on sponsored posts every month!
The big difference between influencers and micro-influencers is audience size. Typically, traditional influencers have 500,000 or more followers. Micro-influencers, on the other hand, have between 5,000 and 500,000 followers. The reason micro-influencers are more effective for your marketing strategy is they are more likely to have a niche audience.
You can find people who talk about your industry or simply have a similar target audience and approach them about a sponsorship deal. If they truly see the value of your product or service, you can easily make plenty of new influencer connections across all social media platforms.
Get Involved in Relevant Communities
Finally, if you want to improve your social media marketing strategy in 2022, engaging with like-minded people is critical to your success. Businesses that don’t engage with their audience on social media tend to see fewer followers, decreased sales, and very little engagement.
If someone leaves a comment on a blog post you shared, don’t be afraid to jump in and continue the conversation. People are more willing to trust brands when they are active in the community.
You should also think about how you can engage with people who are not currently following your brand. LinkedIn and Facebook have groups, while Twitter and Instagram use hashtags to talk about specific topics. Tap into these groups and hashtags to increase your social presence and build rapport with the community.
Final Thoughts
Social media marketing is here to stay. Hopefully, these tips got your creative juices flowing, and now you’re ready to start planning your strategy for 2022. I recommend tracking your social media analytics, on-site referral traffic, and feedback forms if you want to fine-tune your strategy throughout the year.
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