Every year, the world of social media changes just a little. This means that your social media marketing campaign from last year is a bit outdated, and it’s time to bring it into 2017.
New trends, new fads, new services and new technologies. It’s always so dissimilar after each passing year.
These are all things your brand should embrace as you produce a new social media marketing plan for the new year. Otherwise, in this ever-changing world, where a whole lot can change in just one day, you may be left behind in the previous year. In today’s environment, you never want that to happen.
For instance, the total number of global smartphone users today stands at 1.91 billion, and that figure is anticipated to reach two billion within the next year or two. Meanwhile, it is expected that live video will play an even greater role on Facebook and Twitter this year. Algorithms across social media are also receiving a makeover in an era of fake news and spam.
These are quite the developments from last year.
Whether it’s an updated mobile strategy or a different type of content marketing, your company’s social media campaign might need to freshen up, or perhaps even a complete overhaul.
So, after some consideration, you might be wondering what exactly you can do.
Here are the dos and don’ts in your 2017 social media marketing campaigns:
- Do: Be Active on Social Media
- Do: Maintain a Brand Personality
- Do: Pick the Right Social Network
- Don’t: Connect With Everyone in the World
- Don’t: Ignore Your Audience or be Spammy
- Don’t: Fully Install Automation in Your Campaign
Do: Be Active on Social Media
One of the most prevalent social media blunders that businesses, especially smaller ones, tend to make is being inactive on social media.
For whatever reason, they think that the simple act of creating an account on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram will suffice. You need to do more than just open an account.
Being active on social media is an imperative task. Whether this is a chore to you or not is irrelevant. The only way brands can fully optimize social media marketing is to regularly contribute to the Facebook universe or the Twittersphere: sharing, tweeting, liking, mentioning and all of the other elements of social media.
As soon as you begin being active, and stay that way, you garner more attention, generate more leads, increase more sales on your spreadsheet and add more zeroes to your bottom line.
Do: Maintain a Brand Personality
Take your jacket off, undo that tie and show off your pearly whites. Don’t be so stuffy or a boring old Betty when you’re online.
In other words, showcase your brand’s personality on social media.
Another error that businesses make is being too formal on Twitter, being too serious on Facebook and being too official on LinkedIn. This won’t create the buzz you want, and it certainly won’t attract attention from shoppers.
Here are some tips to maintain a brand personality:
- Skip the written word and visualize your content with infographics, gifs, memes, videos and anything else that immediately establishes a fun impression.
- Allow your employees to take over your social media accounts for a while.
- Share images of your company events (just make sure they’re amusing).
- Self-deprecating can be endearing, but don’t overdo it to the point no one wants to buy from you at all.
Simply put: you want to humanize your business and tell the world that there is a person behind the brand.
Do: Pick the Right Social Network
You want to maximize social media, and nobody can blame you for that. However, maximizing social media does not entail creating accounts on every platform available. It is true that 70 percent of younger consumers maintain a minimum of five social media accounts. You don’t have to follow suit, you know.
The best thing you can do is hone in on one or two websites and focus all of your efforts and attention on those outlets.
By having a presence on every social network under the sun, you come across a few things:
- You do not have the manpower to post constantly on every social network all day.
- Your company may not flourish on a particular social network.
- You have a unique audience and they may not be on that website.
- Your brand has to take one step at a time.
Another thing you risk is damaging your image. Should a prospect come across your profile on LinkedIn or Pinterest and find that it’s empty then it may give off a negative impression.
Moving forward, it is a prudent idea to select just one or two social networks and try to be successful in that realm. If you find that you have the knack for social media then you can experiment with other outlets down the line.
Don’t: Connect with Everyone in the World
You are the company you keep. You probably remember your mother telling you that.
How does this relate to social media? It’s simple: you don’t have to connect with everyone that is connected to social media.
Let’s say that you have generated 23 followers in the past week, who are all different sorts of people. The appropriate response is to not immediately follow them back. This is child’s play.
Coca-Cola doesn’t follow every single user that follows them. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has only follows 121 people. Media personalities only connect with a handful of fans.
Growing your presence on Facebook or Twitter doesn’t need to include connecting with teenagers, pranksters or inactive users.
Don’t: Ignore Your Audience or be Spammy
One of the worst things you could ever do is ignore your audience. If they ask you a question, if they mention you in a conversation or if they have made negative comments, you should intervene and attempt to rectify the situation immediately.
Customer service has dramatically changed today. It isn’t just about selling a product and receiving money. Social media allows you to show off your expertise, reward customers for their loyalty and spotlight shoppers who have been fully dedicated to your brand.
At the same time, you don’t want to be too spammy on social media.
How can you be spammy on social media? Sharing the same information constantly, inundating your followers with promotions and becoming an overall nuisance.
If you’re able to integrate regular activity with a conservative approach then you have mastered the art of engaging with your audience while avoiding being too spammy.
Don’t: Fully Install Automation in Your Campaign
Automation is the latest craze in the world of social media marketing. Since businesses lack the necessary manpower to maintain an active social media marketing campaign, they attempt to automate as much as they can.
This often consists of automatically posting content, automatically replying to direct messages or automatically responding to mentions/inquiries.
Although this streamlines the process, it eliminates the human factor. Remember when we talked about your brand’s personality? This is a part of it: limiting your automation exposure.
Indeed, automation is a great complement to your endeavors when you are overwhelmed or swamped with orders. However, you should refrain from having automation take over your social media marketing campaigns entirely.
You still need to have a hand in it for your strategy to succeed.
Lastly, there is always the danger of automation being faulty. There have been many cases in recent years whereby automation has gotten brands into trouble. (We’re look at you McDonald’s.)
Final Thoughts
Social media is constantly changing and, as a result, so is social media marketing.
Small businesses, corporations, non-profit organizations and startups all need to realize this. Just because something was successful in 2013 or 2015, it doesn’t necessarily mean it will thrive in 2017 and beyond. You must always keep up with the times.
There are many things that you should do and many that you should not do in your social media marketing campaign. Even when a certain step is the right one, you need avoid going overboard. If a specific measure is the wrong one, you need to correct the mistake almost immediately.
As more and more businesses tailor their marketing operations to all things social media, it is always a great reminder that you need to pay attention what the experts are saying, what technology is being utilized and, most importantly, what your audience really wants.
Meme source: http://facts.zone
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Hi Ana great post and true to the core. A lot of business take little things like these for granted and hence ruin reputation before it even began.
I will bookmark this and surely visit it again. May be even share it to me networks because i am sure lots of people will benefit from it.
You have to be active on social media and consistent. Great info Anna