Are you looking to win big at social media marketing in 2022? If so, you’re far from alone. Business owners and marketers across all industries use social media to connect with their audience, enhance brand awareness, and of course, secure more sales.
There are many things you need to consider when developing your social media marketing strategy. If you don’t understand critical factors like the needs of your customers or which social media platforms your target audience uses the most, you’re going to have a tough time building a substantial social media following.
Beyond the basic best practices mentioned above, there are other ways you can get more website traffic and engagement from social media. Today, my focus is on sharing several tried and true strategies that helped us grow our following on popular social channels like Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter.
I believe that these tips can help business owners and marketers across all industries get more value from their social media profiles while dramatically increasing the value offered to their audience.
Are you ready? Let’s get started!
Share Content from Your Blog
Sharing content from your blog is one of the most cost-effective and powerful ways to amplify your brand’s value on social media. A whopping 77% of internet users read articles online, so you can bet that people will click through to your website if you share relevant, actionable content.
The key to promoting clickable blog content on social media is understanding your target audiences’ specific goals and pain points. Every company should have a list of buyer personas that define the people who shop with their business. If your posts help visitors solve an industry problem or learn about a new topic, you can expect to see a surge in traffic, engagement, and sales.
It’s clear that promoting blog posts on various social platforms can help you keep existing customers engaged, but did you know that it can also help people discover your brand for the first time? When followers share your post, there’s a good chance their peers will click through to your blog.
If you want to know how this translates to sales, consider this; Research shows that 47% of shoppers read between 3-5 blog posts from a business before purchasing a product. Your goal is to offer first-time visitors and loyal fans alike value from your brand. Sharing high-quality content from your blog is an excellent way to get started.
Note: Do you still need help setting up your blog? If so, click here!
Make Live Video a Marketing Cornerstone
Live video is an excellent way to build rapport with your customers and grow a substantial following on social media networks like YouTube. For context, over 1.9 billion people use YouTube every single month. You can safely assume that your target audience is out there and looking for a product or brand just like the one you’re offering.
The fantastic thing about hosting videos on social media is that there are countless options and strategies to grow your brand. Every business is different, so it’s always nice to choose marketing strategies that are flexible and effective.
We’ve had tremendous success using a combination of events, including:
-AMAs (Ask Me Anything)
-Educational webinars (We provide broad, industry advice)
-Product demonstrations (We show off our product and share insider tips that help users make the most of our products)
-Games / Interactive events (For instance, giveaway announcements)
You can use your live videos to do things like grow your email list, educate your audience, and secure more sales. The key is to choose events that align with your goals. For instance, giveaways give you the opportunity to ask visitors to subscribe to your list for a chance to win.
Partner with Influencers + Other Brands
How you choose to engage with Influencers and brand partnerships will play a pivotal role in your success. Despite wanting to build your business without “outside help,” sometimes, you need solid partnerships if you hope to build momentum and grow your social media presence.
When partnering with influencers, there are several things worth keeping in mind. I suggest watching their content so you can determine if your product is a good fit for their audience. For instance, a makeup company likely wouldn’t reach out to a video game steamer to promote their product. Similarly, game companies rarely reach out to health and beauty influencers to sell their latest release.
You’ll also want to look at how many followers each influencer has on their channel. Smaller influencers can help you reach a targeted audience, which could lead to more direct sales. On the other hand, Prominent influencers have a lot more followers with more varied interests. As a result, working with well-known influencers can lead to more traffic and followers but not quite as many sales.
If you want to partner with another brand, the key is to find a company that sells products that complement your own. For example, an email marketing company and a hosting company would likely make a good fit because users typically don’t need email marketing software unless they also have a hosted website.
Think carefully about the partnerships you choose to pursue on social media. One final suggestion on this topic; start each partnership on a short-term basis. You don’t want to sign a lengthy contract only to find out that your brands don’t mesh well together.
Add a Social Wall to Your Website
Another way to amplify your presence on social media is to make sure your website visitors can quickly and easily follow your brand on their site of choice. In my experience, social walls are the perfect way to keep your on-site audience engaged with your social media account while ensuring that they don’t bounce from your site.
Essentially, social walls are a live list of your recent tweets, comments, and videos, as well as how followers are interacting with your posts. You can add this feature to your site as either a standalone page or contained to your sidebar.
There are quite a few advantages that come with adding a social wall to your site. For starters, your live feed will act as social proof for new visitors. Imagine visiting a website for the first time. You can’t see a single thing other visitors are saying about the brand. Do you give them your debit card information? If you’re like most people, you’re a little skeptical, and reasonably so!
Now, imagine the same scenario, except you can see the business actively engaging with social media followers on the sidebar of their site. Odds are, this would impact your opinion of the company and lead to you trusting them sooner.
You’ll also have the ability to keep your site visitors in the loop about upcoming events, such as giveaways or live video events. If you time your marketing posts, you can easily get more value from your other social media marketing strategies with this addition to your site.
Monitor Feedback and Keep an Eye on Your Analytics
Finally, I want to talk about how monitoring user feedback and your analytics can help you truly win at social media marketing in 2022. We send every user who interacts with our business a feedback form, including email subscribers, on-site visitors, and social media users.
The good news is it’s easier to ask for feedback on social media than ever before. You can create a post that acts as a poll on sites like Twitter and YouTube. Simply ask your followers questions about future content, your products, and upcoming events. Use this time to learn more about your followers’ goals and pain points, and you’ll have an easier time keeping them engaged with your business.
You’ll also want to review the analytics on your website and across all of your active social channels. You may notice trends that are not immediately noticeable in surveys. For instance, if one subtopic gets little to no engagement, while all of your other posts get hundreds of shares and likes, you can use this data to restructure what kind of content you create and share in the future.
Back to You
There you have it! These are the tried and true strategies that I believe all business owners can use to win big with social media this year. I suggest tracking your progress as you implement these strategies on your social channels. You’ll want to learn what works well with your audience and what doesn’t. If you regularly check this information and keep your audience in mind when posting on social media, you can find success across many different social media platforms.
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Syed Balkhi is an award-winning entrepreneur and online marketing expert. He is the co-founder of OptinMonster, WPBeginner, MonsterInsights, and WPForms.