Social media has, over the years evolved into becoming one of the most powerful marketing tools a company has. It has dominated digital marketing strategies and a large portion of the marketing budget is allocated to social. 

Not only does it help you reach audiences that you simply might not have been able to before, it allows you to create a sense of embedded loyalty with active users on the platforms. The trick is getting the content and post frequency right. 

We thought we would take a look at what digital marketers are currently doing in 2021, and how they are reaching, engaging, and converting their audiences to loyal fans. Whether you are a business owner looking to grow your business, are new in social media, or simply looking for a few new ideas and tricks for the year, we took a look at what the professionals are doing. 

Making Use of Social Media Software

Let’s face it, social media can be highly resource-intensive. Posts can take up a lot of time to write and schedule, and with the various different platforms that you need to post on, it can really take a huge chunk of time out of your day. This also creates several opportunities for you to make mistakes and for little technical gremlins to creep in. 

This is where social media management software comes in. These powerful online tools can streamline your entire process, and take hours of work out of your day. It allows you to post quality content across various platforms simultaneously, scheduled for the most optimized posting time and with reduced errors. 

Keep in mind that every single platform has different requirements. From image size to word count, and even post structure, there are key differences between platforms like Instagram and Facebook that you need to be aware of. 

Many of these tools provide you with the correct templates, allow you to schedule posts ahead of time, and post automatically. They also provide you with vital reports of your post’s reach, engagement and success. These metrics allow you to strategize future posts for heightened success. 

Spending Time On Content

When it comes to marketing, and social media marketing, in particular, content is the holy grail. The trick with content is to strategize it, create calendars, and focus on content that your audience wants to see. 

You need to make sure that it is engaging, educational, entertaining and empowering for your customer. Yes, every now and then, it is important to create some soft content to put in between your more informative and educational content, but in order to captivate and engage your audience, highly informative content works best. 

Create a yearly content strategy that takes in mind key dates throughout the year. Holidays, festivals, and industry-related dates should be carefully planned ahead. You can then flesh out your content month-to-month and week-to-week. 

Make sure that your content is uniform across all channels. Weekly themes are a great idea to not only lessen your workload but to engage your customer with information that they can look forward to. 

Answer questions that your audience would be asking. Not only will this increase your organic traffic with the relevant keywords, but customers will learn to trust your brand as their go-to company for advice. Let’s look at an example. Say, you are a haircare brand selling online. Create content around “5 Reasons why my hair is so dry” or “Ways to fix a home dye job”. Write the article to post on your site and share among your social channels. You can then mix it up and create videos, image galleries, and even “submit your stories” to heighten the engagement. Using Influencers 

We know, everyone loves to hate influencers, but if you get your strategy right, you will be broadening your brand reach and significantly increasing your conversion rate. If you are a smaller brand or start-up, you will most likely not have a huge budget for an influencer. Some can come with a hefty price tag, but that doesn’t mean you need to overlook the strategy entirely. 

Rather, look into the micro-influencer strategy. These influencers have fewer followers, but those they do have are following them because they share the same interests and they are usually highly engaged. As micro-influencers have less of a following and are using the platform to grow their business, they are more likely to respond to comments and questions and actually spend time on the interactions. 

Look out for influencers who are direct or indirect experts in your field. They will be able to combine their knowledge and insights into the posts to really flesh them. The added bonus is that they are as interested in educating their audience as you are, so they’re most likely to work with you on content strategies. 

Measuring, Tracking, and Testing Everything 

We mentioned earlier that the software provides you with reports on the success of the campaigns. 

The truth is, that even if you do not use any online tools, you are actually able to effectively measure the success of the campaigns directly from the platform. Facebook, for example, provides detailed metrics of the campaign. It details the number of people the post has reached, the engagement, how many click-throughs and how many opens each one generated. This allows you to continuously monitor the success rates of each campaign. 

In turn, you can then identify what works and what doesn’t in your marketing strategy. What kind of content is your audience responding to? What are the formats that actually work? Do videos generate engagement? Or are people responding to your stories that you are uploading? 

You can combine the metrics from the platforms with your Google Analytics measurements to get even more of an idea of what works and what doesn’t. GA provides you insight into your organic traffic, as well as campaign-led conversions. You can track how the traffic behaves on your site, whether it bounces, or whether it converts to paying customers. 

Last Thoughts

In wrapping up, there are tons of little tricks and tips that you can start implementing to heighten the success of your social media campaigns. From knowing how much text to use on images to creating incredibly professional videos and stories to really engage your customers, the options are endless. 

Just make sure that you keep all of your social media on brand. A customer journey needs to be created from the entry of your brand all the way to the last-mile delivery. So, spend some time carefully mapping this out. Your voice, colors, format, and basic messaging need to be incredibly uniform to keep you identifiable and top of mind for your customer.