BE “SOCIAL”

If done right, #socialmediamarketing has the ability to draw in new clients continually. The century in which we currently live in strives off of well-created content. There's no doubt about it. 

Once businesses discover what marketing strategies work best for them, the skies the limit! 

"Success without fulfillment is the ultimate failure."                                     - Tony Robbins

Every business owner wants to experience success with their company. How can this be achieved? First things first, you need to get the word out there or in other words, Be "SOCIAL!" 

There are so many ways in which this can be achieved, whether it be through advertising, marketing, launches, etc. 

You want to stand out from the rest of them, make bold statements, and create content that will catch the eyes of those potential clients. 

Social Media Marketing can do this for you! 

Want to know some tips & tricks? 

Let's dig deep.......

BE "PERSONAL"

Make your creations complex and personal. I cannot put enough emphasis on this phrase! Your personal touch matters. People are longing for this type of content.

Be you. Be FULLY YOU!

"In a world full of duplicates, be an original."                                                -Malinda Hostetler

In today's modern business society, social media marketing has turned into an invaluable tool. 

Social media, more than any other channel out there, allows brands and consumers to possess meaningful, organic, and impactful two-way discussions. 

This channel is known to be cost-efficient and engaging. Because of this, it has developed into something more popular-competitive-than ever before for brands. 

Marketers who choose to integrate social media into their overall marketing strategy have come to discover major opportunities and new channels of revenue.   

• Social networking is used by about 76% of businesses in order to achieve their marketing objectives.
• Business retailers experience about 133% increase in revenues after marketing their business in the mobile market that promotes social media marketing value for their business.
• About 71% of the consumers respond according to the feedback and recommendation of social users regarding a particular brand.
• The majority of successful brands have a social media page in order to widen their marketing coverage of making their brand more accessible among the social media users.

To this day, it is actually really difficult to imagine a business that doesn't choose to include at least one social media platform when it comes to planning out their marketing strategy. 

Ad Week reports that 70% of marketers are thinking about increasing their social spending in the years to come. 

This increase use and success in social media marketing is exactly why marketers must decide to make an extra effort to grab ahold and retain the attention of their audience by using personalized, strategic marketing. 

Keep in mind, not all social media platforms were created equally. 

Each one is known to have its unique user base with its own likes, dislikes, and general preferences. One-third of marketing professionals have come to say that personalization is the key to becoming successful in social media.  

In order to make your marketing personal, you need to develop an intimate understanding of every platform and find ways in which you can use them in reaching out and forming relationships with your audiences. 

Putting an intense focus on social media as well as personalization is necessary if you are wanting to catch the attention of new clients and keep your current ones.  

In order to make your social media marketing campaigns as personal as you can get to your targeted audiences, remember to keep a few things in mind. 

Here are a few key tips to personalize your content: 

1. Customize Your Audience

Once your targeted audience has been defined, you will be able to then use social media tools where you can send messages straight to your audience. 

Here's an example: On Facebook, marketers have the option of uploading their customer and prospect lists, and allows them to serve appropriate advertising to the segments.

A really great use case is new movers. Close to 16% of your clients are expected to move every year, that makes a total of 43 million people annually. New movers are also considered to be some of your prime clients that you will want to reach out to, because on average, they spend more in their first 6 months following their move than most consumers would do in 3 years. 

Targeting these types of people on social media or any other type of marketing channel can be very tough. 

When it comes to targeting your messages to users based off of location on social media, it can very likely become ineffective now that they have chosen to relocate.  

2. Understand Your Platforms

One very important way in which you can personalize your social media campaign is to find out which kinds of content is going to perform well on which social media channels.  

Consider doing an audience analysis of the various channels, this will help you determine what platforms are going to be most suitable for the campaigns that you are actually thinking about running. 

Wanting to conduct a visual campaign that will include pictures and is intended to target women? 

Well then, Pinterest would most likely be your best choice of platform to use. As you may know, pictures seem to perform really well on Pinterest and it already has an extremely large user base that consists of women that you will be able to tap into. 

If you are thinking about using Facebook or Twitter, you should approach them in the same manner. 

Those who use Twitter like short bursts of information, so using pictures and links on this platform will end up working really well. Facebook users on the other hand, seem to enjoy those longer form posts, so similar content may not work as well in this environment. 

A recent study conducted by comSource compared the demographic composition based on age for each social network. 

Even still, make sure that you are doing your own homework on which platforms are most ideal for your business. 

3. Merge Campaigns

Social Media Marketing, by itself, has proven to be a successful channel for various businesses. 

However, if it is associated with other types of marketing like direct mail and email, social media will have the potential to boost cross-channeling marketing strategies to a whole new level.  

Remember to include social media with your website and any of your campaigns so that you can develop a seamless experience for your audience members.  

4. Track Your Performance

Measuring success and tracking performance in real-time are two critical elements needed to see an improvement in your social media marketing efforts. 

Online platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and etc. all have data settings that will allow marketers and businesses to be able to look at page insights as well as any campaign performance metric. 

Marketers should keep an eye out for engagement metrics like shares, clicks, likes, and comments that will help gauge how campaigns are performing and adjusting if needed. 

Here's an example: on Facebook, marketers can turn campaigns towards geographic information where they can send messages to only their targeted market. Facebook users tend to share a lot of their interests on their profiles. This sheds tons of valuable insight on people like this. 

As you move forward, using only social media in your marketing strategies is not going to be enough for you to see success. It will not make you any different then the rest of your competition, and will definitely not allow you to give your campaigns that intimate touch that users are longing for.  

You need to get to know your platform and its users on a much more personal level. In order for this to be possible, marketers must strive to be strategic and data-driven to capture what their targeted audience is looking for, but more importantly, what they are not looking for.  

BE "BOLD"

BOLD: adj. "showing or requiring a fearless daring spirit"

When it comes to Social Media Marketing, DO NOT be afraid to try new things! 

Media is considered to be the fastest-growing independent agency in the history of the industry! Let that sink in for a moment..........

So why wouldn't entrepreneurs want to take their marketing to a whole new level by integrating social media platforms into their strategy!? 

To be successful, I think it is crucial for you to do so! 

I believe that social media is so, so, powerful and has the potential to not only reach local clients, but international ones as well. 

You want to BE "BOLD" with your content. Be creative with your content and figure out what seems to work best when it comes to reaching your targeted audience.   

Being BOLD takes courage, but I know you can DO IT! 

I'm telling you, once you grab a hold of this confidence, there will be no stopping you anytime soon!  

I recommend diving into as much personal development as you can! So much growth can be found here and it will help you along the way in building a successful business.  

If you need motivation, inspiration, strategy ideas, etc., you can be sure to find some useful information from one of them! 

These four have been some of my top inspirations and I have learned some of my marketing strategies and tips from them. Never stop digging in and learning! 

"An investment in knowledge pays the best interest."                                   -Benjamin Franklin

BE "AUTHENTIC" 

Be yourself. That is all I can say. People will be able to relate with you on a more personal level if you are not trying to be someone you are not. GO FIGURE. 

People want to see the "REAL YOU." 

Your followers are able to spot inauthenticity from miles away. 

"Authenticity is a collection of choices that we have to make every day. It's about the choice to show up and be real. The choice to be honest. The choice to let our true selves be seen."                                                          - Brené Brown    

Two great social media platforms that will allow audiences to get a glimpse of your personal life are Facebook LIVE and Instagram LIVE. 

Remember to engage with your audience as much as you can while doing a #LIVE. People crave interaction. This will allow your followers to ask questions about what you, and your brand, are all about.    

As a brand, you want to stay as far away from dishonest content as you possibly can.  

Clearly, this is not any type of groundbreaking advice. 

Shall we take honesty and transparency a step further? Why not. 

You want to get real and honest about your products and services no matter where you might go. 

Take your audience behind the scenes, here, you can humanize your brand with your content on those social media platforms.

Instagram and Facebook stories are really great platforms to use as well. Here, you can share your day-to-day personal life while implementing your brand.  

Including a couple of hashtags and tags in your stories is another way that you will draw in potential clients. 

So, are you ready to get "SOCIAL" with your business?