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The Flevy Blog covers Business Strategies, Business Theories, & Business Stories.
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Editor's Note: Take a look at our featured best practice, Digital Marketing Plan (34-slide PowerPoint presentation). Introducing our new and improved digital marketing template plan designed to capture your audience's attention, generate interest, create desire, and prompt action (AIDA model). This template is not just for a one-time campaign but for ongoing business activity. It's perfect for [read more]
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Social media is an essential part of your online marketing strategy when used effectively. A well-thought-out social platform campaign can increase your brand’s exposure, help you interact with your target audience, and build the trust and loyalty of your fans. If you want to take advantage of this free-to-use PR tool, consider these 7 tips that will help you use social media effectively.
Monitoring brand mentions is easy when your fans’ users spell your brand’s name correctly or use hashtags, but what if they don’t? Social media monitoring tools are capable of seeing the engagement you may have missed, as well as mentions that are easy to track, like keyword use and trending topics. You can also use monitoring tools to help you stay one step ahead of your competition, as you can track the hashtags and keywords they use.
1. Respond Quickly to Comments and Questions
Most businesses think they’re providing incredible customer service on social media, but 92% of consumers disagree. In fact, if you don’t respond within 60 minutes, 74% of customers will be upset with you. You can instantly improve your user’s experience by replying less than 30 minutes after a comment was posted. By doing this, you’ll also gain their trust, loyalty, and purchase.
2. Alternate Between Photos and Video
No matter what your post is about, you should always add high-quality photos to your content. Visuals offer high engagement rates than posts consisting of only text, and colorful images are more likely to convert customers. Videos provide even more benefits to the customer and increase exposure, engagement, and reach tenfold. Alternate between the two mediums for more variety.
3. Customize Your Profile and Page Photos
A customer gains an immediate impression of your page based on how it’s set up. Colorful profiles, or one’s with a color theme, will increase your follower count. Humans like order, symmetry, and an easy-to-identify aesthetic; it simply makes us feel good to see it. Be sure not to stretch or warp your photos, as that will make you look unprofessional or uncaring.
4. Hold Contests, Offer Coupons, and Promote Flash Sales
Contests will easily earn you vanity metrics (likes, shares, comments) through fan engagement. Ask your followers to comment, post photos, share the post, or offer up their email address to enter. To receive more engagement for your posts, promote them on your website and other social media networks, and follow up with entrants who didn’t win to thank them for their participation.
5. Encourage the Use of Tags
Simply asking your followers to add tags to user-generated content that includes your brand will make it more likely they’ll actually do it. An effective call-to-action won’t make your customers feel like they’re being sold to. However, if you do use this method too often, your followers will notice and start to feel like you’re only interested in their money, not them personally.
6. Create an Interesting Brand Voice
All successful brands have an image: Apple is made for rebels, and Nike is made for “doers.” Your brand voice needs to stand out from the crowd to stay relevant in the cultural landscape, and no one does this better than Wendy’s. In the competitive fast-food market, Wendy’s manages to be hilarious, relatable, and blunt without coming off as too rude or cringy.
7. Stay Away from Paid Likes and Followers
The fastest way to make your brand uncredible is by buying your social media likes and followers. Businesses are always caught doing this because their organic posts and reach don’t match their follower count. Most social media platforms have caught wise to this practice and will only boost your ads to “people who like your page,” which are bots. It’s a waste of money.
You can download in-depth presentations on Digital Marketing Strategy and 100s of management topics from the FlevyPro Library. FlevyPro is trusted and utilized by 1000s of management consultants and corporate executives.
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These best practices are of the same as those leveraged by top-tier management consulting firms, like McKinsey, BCG, Bain, and Accenture. Improve the growth and efficiency of your organization by utilizing these best practice frameworks, templates, and tools. Most were developed by seasoned executives and consultants with over 20+ years of experience.
