Wondering how your competitors are using Social Media? Discover how much time marketers spend on social media channels, what social media channels they use for marketing their products and services to get the maximum returns and much more. This article provides detailed information on the various ways small and mid-level organizations and startups can use the social media channels for business advertising.
It’s the best feeling, isn’t it? The thought of monetizing your startup business in just a few days?
You earn substantial subscribers, viewers, which may run into potential revenues and millions of dollars. As most people recognize the power of social media, they want to see more engaging and stimulating branding and advertising efforts from you. Without a doubt, today’s audience is smart and to cater to this intelligent audience, brilliant marketing strategies need to be identified. And social media is the best pick here.
If you dig deep into the latest stats on how much businesses can benefit from social media marketing channels and strategies, you’ll be surprised to know that:
- There are around 2.80 billion global social media users in 2017, equaling 37% penetration
- Facebook is reaching 2 billion monthly active users
- More than 50 million small businesses are now using Facebook Pages to connect with their audience
- There is a total of 328 million active users on Twitter
- There are 1.5 billion logged-in YouTube monthly active users
- Global social media advertising budgets have doubled over the past two years- from $16 billion U.S. in 2014 to $31 billion in 2016
- A Cisco study estimated that mobile video traffic will account for 75% of total mobile traffic by 2020
- 56% of B2C marketers have indicated that Facebook ads have helped them in generating revenue for their business, as per a report by MarketingProfs.
Now that the figures absolutely favor the social media channels becoming the driving force for all businesses in this digital world, it’s time to create a space for your consumers and users to feel special. However, as easy as it may seem to use digital media platforms for marketing and advertising your products and services, it requires a game plan. A right foot forward at the right time is the key to capturing the biggest market out there on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Pinterest, SlideShare.
The major reason behind all this is that rather than the advertiser promoting the brand or service, if your family or friend or colleague has shared the content with you, it provides an implied endorsement. And that’s what the social media advertising is all about; thus, it’s winning everywhere.
We have gathered data from the various sources on the internet and from various business interviews of social media experts, business leaders and entrepreneurs who have in real achieved the little and more success through social media marketing. Rather than just expert’s sayings, we’ve focused on real-time successes- includingnew businesses- who have now become brands. Here’s the advice from them.
Influencer Marketing
As social media has around 2.80 billion active users, 70% of them prefer brands that are extensively visible to them whenever they are online from desktop, laptop or their mobile. It’s simple, post illustrative and relating content in the form of blogs, images, videos, infographics, slideshows to share fresh information about your brand or services. One thing that has to be kept in mind while advertising your product on social media channels is that millennials hold brands more accountable on social media. That said, develop campaigns that attract the teenagers and millennials.
L’Oréal Paris signed up five influencers to create its own ‘fashion squad,’ in an attempt to maintain a different relationship with influencers and simultaneously reach out to the large audiences. If you haven’t heard of it yet, Influencer Marketing is like recognizing individuals who can influence the potential buyers. It’s like finding and targeting those people who have been following the brand with no break.
Earlier, brands used celebrity marketing but now they are moving to ‘everyday customers’ who are present on social media and influence a massive audience present on the platforms.
“We have rejigged our investment from traditional media to social media and influencers and we are seeing a positive impact, especially when it comes to make-up,” said Adrien Koskas, L’Oréal Paris’ General Manager for the UK.
Through their influencer marketing campaign, they’ve pushed the common beauty bloggers as selected from across the globe who could share trend advice, write product recommendation, share video content on makeup tips and run their own YouTube channel on using L’Oréal Paris products. The brand had witnessed amazing response as a result of influencer marketing. It had hit 100 million impressions.
It’s just that these advocates need to be genuine. You don’t need to pay them for endorsing your brand because paid influencers are more like advertising banners- that the audience is not interested to believe in. Consumers know it when you’ve used a paid influencer for your marketing initiatives. This is also why we sometimes use free video downloaders from ytmp3 to get the latest YouTube videos for free, as we like how the site works.
Opt for Paid Packages by Advertising Channels
A wonderful example is of teenagers in Macedonia, who during this year’s presidential election in the US, started a fake news channel and popularized it among the US audience via Facebook. They had made a substantial living from Facebook advertising. See what they did:
Goran (not his real name) is one among hundreds of Macedonian teenagers who are working to develop a cottage industry in the small city of Veles that tossed up the fake pro-Trump news after the US election campaign. He began to put sensational stories that were usually plagiarized- where he actually copy-pasted various articles from news or magazines, gave them a catchy headline of his own, paid Facebook to share it with the US (target) audience that was crazy for Trump news.
Once those readers started reading, liking and sharing the news on Facebook, Goran began earning revenues from this advertising trick. Goran shared the details and said he could make about 1800 Euros from this in one month.
Though this fake thing may not sound lawful to some of you (but the peddling of false news on lookalike American news sites is not illegal by law) but if we just focus on the marketing technique, that’s what can really help you.
Go for paid advertising packages of Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter because that’ll give you the most concentrated audience. Choose engaging and catchy content that will pull readers to your post.
And yes, if your kid had made 20,000 euros a month with this fake news campaign, would it hurt you?
Find the Right Groups to Post
As per Chris Brogan, the Group Function is where the magic begins. Because it’s like building communities and bringing all the people together on one platform, who share similar interests and preferences. Chris Brogan’s tip, “The business value is to help people see where they belong. It’s a big value indeed. And the one that companies can tap into.”
Be it Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, a group methodology works well everywhere. Companies can definitely highlight their brand and show that they care about their consumers by providing a close-knit community or forum of their loyal and potential customers. They can actually exchange valuable insights with each other and at the same time, gain popularity as a brand name on the most popular social media channels, that too from genuine consumers.
One thing that’s important to note here is that you should always find the right groups to post in. Irrelevant grouping and promotion of your brand lead to no leads. You need to ensure that your post is seen and liked by thousands of people who will be interested- and thus, they will share it with their friends.
Move forward with a more emotional campaign
If you’re from this world, it doesn’t really matter that you live in America, Asia, Dubai or London, the audience out there on social media is emotional and sentimental. They love videos that leave an ‘aww’ expression in the end. Nothing is quite acceptable as an emotion that people share on an everyday basis, with their friends, children, parents, grandparents or neighbors.
Pampers, the world’s famous diapers brand, did nothing but focused on the compelling aspect of caring for a newborn. Realizing that diaper changing is not an appealing activity to the audience, especially on social media where people look for glamorous, attractive and wondrous services, products and news, the company’s marketing team nailed it by pinning down the emotions of a mother/father while they give the best care to their bundle of joy.
As a part of their social media campaign, Pampers created heartwarming videos and posted on all digital channels, with a message that baby-poop is not a headache but is the time to develop and nurture a special bond between the baby and the parents.
Likewise, many X and Y brands and small-sized enterprises have surfaced social media platforms with excellent social media strategies. And they’ve earned positive results and higher returns. Having said that, some of them monetized through social media a lot quicker than others
If you have a marketing story to share with us, please write to us in the comments below. We’d love to hear from you.
Reshape your relationships with your customers using social media marketing. It’s time for you to learn how your favorite brands have taken the toll in social media marketing.
Social Media Marketing has become an essential component of modern-day marketing strategy as it lets the marketers to connect with their users personally and build a more emotional brand identity. Follow my blog with Bloglovin
