10 Things You Should Do In 2018 To Dominate Social Media

Social media marketing is ever changing and there’s a constant pressure to keep up with your competition.

When coming up with a marketing strategy, you can’t afford to ignore the numerous variables that exist including change in user behavior, new social media platforms etc

In 2017 alone we saw numerous changes take place including:

• Twitter changing its character limit from 140 to 280 characters.
• Changes in Facebook’s algorithm
• Enormous growth of video on both Instagram and Facebook
• Rise in LinkedIn influencer outreach

Below is a combination of strategies that I believe will help you crush it in 2018 as far as your social media marketing goals are concerned.

Storytelling on Social Media

Audiences on social media have grown tired of brands that are impersonal and that mainly use spam tactics to gain new followers.

To connect better with your target audience brands are now compelled to master the art of storytelling. Content that is skewed towards storytelling is not focused on call to action and usually won’t even have links. Instead this new kind of content is engineered to drive a discussion.

These type of content has two major benefits:

• Since algorithms have been updated to demote link-heavy brands, this type of content is more likely to show in your follower’s feed.
• Audiences view this kind of content as being more meaningful and positive and are likely to join in the conversation.

Fine-Tuning Your Brands Presence on Facebook

Recently, Facebook announced that they would be putting more focus on user generated content appearing on feeds rather than brand content. This is in a bid to encourage more engagement on the social platform.

Even though clear specifics have not yet been provided by Facebook there are a couple of things your brand can do to weather this coming onslaught.

• No More Baiting

Facebook have indicated that they are no longer willing to put up with annoying tactics such as excessive use of Facebook features such as  “like this post if you…” or Tag-a-friend. These are just a few of the examples that brands use to game Facebook’s algorithm.

• Change tact on how you link

As mentioned earlier, your brand will drive more discussion with its followers if you have less links pointing back to your site. Encourage discussion by using different types of posts such as:

• Storytelling posts
• Question posts
• Using memes

 

• Use Ads for Testing

One of the ways you can get your promotional content to your followers and target audience is by using ads. Especially now that Facebook is discouraging brands from posting promotional content on their followers’ feeds.

Be creative and try out different ad types such as carousel ads to engage with your followers.

Evergreen Content

For your brand to be successful you’ll need to ensure that you have a solid presence on various social media platforms. This of course presents a challenge, as it’s hard to come up with new content for each social media channel you’re on.

That’s why it’s important to always ensure that you create evergreen content that can be repurposed for your audience. This way you’ll be able to regurgitate the same information without losing followers.

Some ways to repurpose content include:

• Extract data from your posts and turn them into shareable graphics for instance infographics.
• React to information taken from an experiment and start a conversation on Twitter or on Facebook.
• If you’ve written list-type content in the past, break down the post and condense the list into tweets.

Engage Brands and Influencers In Your Posts By Tagging them

As a way to gain more exposure for your posts and brand, you should ensure that you tag brands and influencers in your space.

Tagged posts, similar to posts with hashtags, tend to receive more exposure. The great thing about tagging is that it takes almost no time at all, but yields great results.

You can use social media tools such as Buzzsumo or Buzzstream’s discovery tool to discover influencers in your niche.

Socialize with Micro Influencers

Some brands make the mistake of interpreting an individual’s followership as a measure of their worth as an influencer. This is not always true. Sometimes, your brand can benefit more if you choose to target niche audiences.

According to a study conducted by Izea, people are more likely to trust niche influencers rather than individuals who boast a followership in the hundreds of thousands. In fact, it has been noted that influencers that have fewer followers tend to have a much higher rate of engagement.

Take Advantage of Instagram’s Geotags

If you’re a local business, you should try using Instagram’s geotagging feature. This will signal to your target audience and followers that your business is part of the community which might motivate your audience to like your posts.

Geotagging also allows you to curate customer photos as proof of your business’ customer service. This will allow potential customers to see your business as authentic.

Go Live

Lately, Facebook has been encouraging brands to take advantage of Facebook Live now that they’re planning on making changes to their algorithm. According to Facebook, live streams get as much as 6 times more interactions compared to conventional video.

At the same time, live videos on Instagram have seen an enormous growth with over 300 million users now using the feature.

There’s a sense of urgency inherent to live videos that urges audiences to watch it as it streams instead of later as is the case with YouTube video clips.

Brand Advocates

To stand apart from the rest of your competition you’ll need brand advocates. These are people within your network who will help amplify your brand on social media platforms.

Brand advocates can be your existing customers or employees. It helps to have your employees promote you to their respective followers and acts as an instance of social proof.

Give Your Brand A Personality

Long gone are the days when a brand could hide behind a “suit-and-tie” persona. Brands that were successful in 2017 and will continue to grow in 2018, are brands that remind their followers every now and then that there’s an actual person who runs the account.

When you give your brand a voice it doesn’t necessarily have to be funny. According to a survey conducted by Sprout Social, over 60% of consumers would like to see brands take a stand on social and politically relevant issues.

When brands make their opinions known followers are more likely to show unwavering loyalty.

Please note, I’m not advising you to dive right into controversial and potentially explosive debates, but rather let your brand’s voice be heard on issues that are relevant to your target audience.

Conclusion

When it comes to engaging social media followers, brands are always looking for new ways create a discussion that will hopefully lead to a long-term relationship with their audience.

We hope the above tips will help you connect better with your followers on all social media platforms your brand has a solid presence.

Do you think there are social media tips we missed that can greatly influence how well you connect with your followers? Please let us know in the content section below.

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