40 tips on How to Advertise Successfully on Social Media in 2018 Part Four!
21) Engage in real-time and capitalize on micro-moments to delight your Social Media followers
“Personal, deeper connections between brands and social media users. Less automation and repetition, more real-time engagement and capitalisation on micro-moments with the aim to delight your social media followers. The popular adoption of live video and the Snapchat/Instagram Stories type of content will push marketers to create and publish content as they go.” — Veronika Baranovska, Content Marketing Specialist, Sendible
22) Content marketing will remain the heart of social media marketing
“Content Marketing Strategy will be at the heart of effective social media marketing. Your hear the HiPPOs say “We need a social media strategy”, but actually what they want is a way of engaging different personas and it’s the content that fuels this and you need a strategy to compete now that everyone knows about the importance of quality content.” — Dave Chaffey, CEO & Co-Founder, Smart Insights
23) Vary the content form you deliver — from blog posts, to infographics, to videos
Changing up the format will draw in different eyes and different types of visitors. Adding videos, pictures, comics or infographics will appeal to new readers (and spread differently on social networks) than your bread-and-butter articles. Even your loyal followers will appreciate your changing it up by using different ways to communicate the message.
When was the last time you used, carousel or a live video as a content. They are there for a reason, use them in ads and the research proved your engagement will be higher. Cinemagraphs are the new go to trend, make sure to try them out.
24) Add value to your content
There is no point in posting content for content’s sake — it has to be engaging, interesting or helpful in the eyes of your target audience. To provide content that can attract and retain interest, you need to add value to them in a variety of ways. You can provide them with a useful resource, for example, a link to a tool they can use in their day to day life. It could be a piece of expert advice in the area they specialize in or are interested in your company for. Lastly, the content could entertain them, so long as it is in some way related to your business and not a “funny cats” video.
25) Don’t forget the CTA
Your Social Media post may be as amazing as you intended, but if you’ve forgotten to add the Call-to-Action, what’s the point? If you haven’t specified what you wanted your followers to do, your attempt at communication leads nowhere. A strategic CTA adds value because it makes the post do more than show your followers something, it gives them a next step to take or a direction to go in with their new-found information you provided in the post.
If you have found that your content is falling flat or your daily traffic is plateauing, try adding one or a few of these ideas to your content. Your added value could result in added engagement.
26) Evoke an emotion or reaction
There are first line sentences that can really grip your audience: interesting, unusual, shocking, or emotional. Viral content is consumed because it meets these human emotional needs.
For example, emotional content can either be historically emotional, personally emotional or topically emotion (current affairs).
27) Allow your followers to get to know you — the employees, the brand, company values
Photos and other types of visual content are highly shareable on social networks and give you an opportunity to share memorable and funny behind-the-scene moments in your company. When you post photos of your team showcasing a particular campaign or process, it helps to show your business as a human brand and build relationships with your community.
28) Produce high quality, colorful and unique visual content
National Geographic is known for producing high quality, colorful and unique visual content — this is the first step in getting users to stop scrolling. The ‘wow’ element of the image makes the user stop and wonder where/who it is — wanting more information and letting them escape from their current location and situation.
29) Tell a story — add a point to a posted picture, set the context for the image
The power of telling your audience a story is a technique that must not be overlooked, because when done correctly with strategic planning — knowing who your audience is, where they are and what story they want to know — will provide great engagement with your content and brand.
Similar to that of NatGeo’s strategy, Humans of New York a social and now printed book of media and stories — owned and ran by Brandon Stanton — uses the same techniques to achieve success. In under 7 years, the Facebook page has managed to gain almost 20 million followers on the social platform he started it all from. The use of large descriptive stories supplements his portraiture photography — much like NatGeo.
30) Don’t be over promotional — give credit to the author of the picture or article instead of the company
At National Geographic, each photograph is credited to individual photographers instead of being a branded asset. This makes the content much more personal and less corporate, tapping into the psychology of personal interaction between brand and consumer. Being over promotional is a common mistake for content marketing — this can be really off-putting to your audience, which is why National Geographic’s images are credited to the photographer instead. Personalized ads will evoke emotions much more than the traditional ones.
