Social media marketing is a common strategy for large, multinational businesses. Even TV shows promote Twitter hashtags and Facebook pages and try to build large online communities. It's easy to understand the value of social media for a brand with a national or international audience, but one thing that many brand owners don't consider is how to leverage social media effectively.
Reaching Your Market
If your brand has a presence in several countries, or several parts of the UK, it may be tempting to try to promote the brand on just a single profile. While you can, and should, have a central profile for publishing company-wide promotions, that single profile may not be the most effective one to reach your main target audience.
Narrowing down your target market by determining which social media platforms your target market is actively using, when they are most active, what content is popular and has the best visibility and reach is just the start.
Building Social Engagement
Engagement is at the core of every social media marketing strategy. Engagement is what increases the reach of your marketing campaigns, promotes brand awareness and also builds trust. Engaging with local users produces better returns than running a global campaign, because local users will have a greater number of connections that can convert into prospective customers. A good social media strategy will provide you with:
• Powerful social signals to improve local search ranking
• Better brand awareness
• Low-cost word-of-mouth advertising
• Increased trust from local consumers
• Highly targeted reach
New Media for New Users
While Twitter and Facebook are still the pillars of any good social media strategy, there are several other networks that have risen to popularity recently, including Pinterest, Instagram, Vine and to a certain extent even YouTube. It is a good idea to make use of all of these social networks. Text content is useful for conveying information, but pictures and video are eye-catching and have an immediacy to them that makes them particularly powerful marketing tools.
If you're not sure how best to leverage the power of Pinterest and similar networks, take a look at the profiles of well-known brands such as Starbucks and Honda. These companies have managed to build a community around their Pinterest profiles, and have users participating in content sharing and looking forward to seeing new content from their brands. Pinterest is gradually losing its reputation as being a network for women only, and is now a place for aspirational content for both genders.
Social media is something that every company, no matter how large or small, should be involved with. Why not make 2018 the year you embrace social media and turn your customers into the most powerful brand advocates you have?