Estimated reading time: 17 minutes
Today we are going to discuss 12 Social Media Marketing Tips To Help Your Brand Stand Out and how. In today’s shifting cultures, claiming that we’re inundated with too much information, photos, videos, and everything in between, would be an understatement.
It’s unimaginable to think of a world without Facebook, Instagram, and every other social media platform and the massive amount of time people spend online. It’s like the world before the 21st century didn’t exist.
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People wake up and go to sleep with their phones in their hands, scrolling through reels and viral TikTok videos, soaking in all that data like a good old sponge. If you’re running a business, you’re shooting yourself in the foot by missing the chance to hop on the train to the land of social media marketing opportunities.
But, as social media has become oversaturated, standing out and differentiating your brand may be challenging. With so many brands doing the very least on social media, focusing on some fundamental strategies may be beneficial in setting your brand apart and distinguishing it from the competition.
With that in mind, we’ve compiled these six basic tips and tricks that will help you get started on your social media journey and help your brand triumph.
1. Identify The Right Social Media Platforms
There is no point in spending hours on end trying to master Twitter if what you should really be doing is devising a strategy for how to get more views on TikTok. You really need to hone in on the platforms that make the most sense for your business.
You may think that there are only around six or seven social media networks but there are actually way more than 100. It is impossible to focus on all of them. However, if you join as many of these networks as possible, you will end up spreading yourself too thin, which will dilute your marketing efforts.
It is definitely better to concentrate on quality as opposed to quantity in terms of social media. To determine what sort of channels you should be targeting, here are some key questions to ask:
- Where is your target audience?
- What sort of channels are your competitors using?
- What channels match up with your industry and your brand?
- What sort of content does your audience interact with?
Do not forget to consider audience demographics. Start with your existing consumer base and then search through your data on Google Analytics to gather this information. You will then be able to use it to narrow down your selection to just a couple of platforms that make the most sense for your business.
2. Make Sure Your Brand Is Consistent Across Social Media And Online In General
It is important to make sure your brand has the same tone across all of your online marketing efforts. If you have a witty and fun tone on Twitter but your website is very serious and mundane, it’s not going to gel or create the right impression, is it?
This is why it is imperative to establish clear guidelines that are easy to follow so you can make sure that your message is on-brand.
What sort of tone do you want your contact to reflect? You may want to have a professional tone if you are operating in the B2B sphere, for instance.
Brand guidelines can be a great help here. Whenever someone is writing a tweet or putting together a blog post, they will be able to refer to the brand guidelines so that they know what sort of tone to take.
Do not forget about your visuals as well. Using the same images and color palette on every platform is essential.
3. Work With A Marketing Agency
Of course, the best way to develop a growth-oriented brand is to work with a marketing agency. A professional agency is going to have the tools and experience needed to create an amazing brand for your business on social media.
It is up to you whether you want to entirely outsource this part of your marketing strategy or you want to have some in-house team members working on it. However, one thing is for sure; social media marketing is simply too much for one person to handle.
This is because social media has evolved considerably in recent times, meaning there are many responsibilities. Not only are you going to be engaging with prospects but you need to monitor brand mentions, analyze metrics, and work with influencers as well. This is a task too big for just one person.
This is why it makes sense to hire a team that has the experience and know-how to put together an effective social media strategy. They will have access to social media managers, data analysts, advertisers, community managers, and content creators, ensuring you have everything you need to give your brand a voice on social media.
4. Create Premium Quality And Eye-Catching Visuals
It is not easy to capture the attention of your audience on social media. If you do not generate interest, though, the vast majority of users will simply scroll past your content, failing to give it a second thought.
One of the best ways to boost engagement and get more views on social media is with eye-catching, high-quality visuals. In fact, HubSpot recently published a report about Instagram Stories, where they found that users were much more likely to go through to the end of a story that contained a mix of text, videos, and photos.
If you do not already add videos and images to your posts, you are going to be missing out on a massive amount of engagement. There are great tools like Piktochart and Canva that make it incredibly easy for you to create engaging infographics and visuals that you can use across social media.
Even if you are covering a topic that is rather dull (yet essential for your audience), adding images makes a huge amount of sense.
If you are dealing with data, infographics never fail to impress. A quality infographic can make the most complex data easy to understand.
And, do not simply stop at videos and images! Podcasts have also become a highly popular way of spreading the word via social media.
People have different preferences in terms of how they consume content. Therefore, using a range of different formats will help you in terms of making your posts stand out from the crowd and ensure you reach an even broader audience.
5. Get Your Audience Involved
The majority of brands today use social media to share and post their content. While there is nothing incorrect about doing this, it is wise to make sure that this is not all that you are doing on social media, as it tends to be very one-sided.
Instead, you need to look for ways to involve your audience so that you can increase your reach and drive measurable results.
Not only is this beneficial in terms of engagement levels and keeping people interested but it also gives you the ability to generate user-generated content. As the name indicates, this is any sort of content that is created by your users.
This sort of content will typically give your brand more credibility. After all, we are more likely to value the word of a customer or a user in comparison o a brand’s own marketing rhetoric.
6. Run Social Media Competitions
Last but not least, another piece of advice for you when it comes to making your business stand out from the crowd is to run social media competitions.
You could give the winner a year’s subscription to your software, for example, or you could give away a prize that is related to your industry. Either way, make sure the prize is a decent one that is going to prompt people to enter.
Social media competitions are highly effective because they really have a snowball effect, helping you to reach more and more people. This is because users are going to need to share, comment, and like your post in order to enter, i.e. they need to engage with you on social media.
Not only will your users be engaging with you, but they will share your competition post with all of their followers as well. It is likely that a number of these followers will see the competition post, follow your account, and enter the competition as well. And so the cycle continues…
This is a great way for you to reach more and more people and make a bigger impact on social media.
7. Integrate with Your Content Marketing Efforts
Integrating your social media and content marketing efforts is like peanut butter and jelly – they just go so well together! This tactic is great for your brand because it amplifies the reach and impact of your content.
For example, when you publish a blog post, it’s not enough to just sit back and wait for the readers to come to you. You need to roll up your sleeves and get out there and promote it, and what’s a better place to do that than social media?
However, posting just the article is a wasted opportunity. By crafting a good social media post with an engaging caption, captivating visuals, and a clear and concise call-to-action (CTA), you can seize the attention of your followers and urge them to click through to your blog post.
But that’s not all. While you integrate your content marketing efforts, you can also use the power of influencer marketing. Simply reach out to social media influencers or brand advocates, and use their capacity to reach even further and gain a new audience. Instead of offering your content in a textual format, you can have an influencer “narrate” it to your audience.
And let’s not forget about the power of CTA. By including clear and compelling CTAs along your blog posts, you can drive traffic back to your website and encourage your readers to take a specific action, such as signing up for your email list.
So, don’t be a lone wolf, team up your content marketing with social media and everything we pointed out, and maximize the impact of your brand to reach a wider audience.
Here, we can see how Thankbox, an online greeting card service, shared one of their blog posts on their Facebook profile. Pretty smooth, right?
8. Give Your Followers A Voice
Oftentimes, brands fail to connect with their audience and get their message heard. Using sales jargon and fancy words alienates you from your potential customers, who may not understand what you’re actually saying at first. It makes them feel silly and dense. And your goal is to make your brand approachable and relatable. And what’s the best way to help you reach that? Giving your followers a voice, of course!
Incorporating UGC (User-Generated Content) and customer feedback is an excellent method to make your brand more engaging and cordial. Encouraging your followers to create and share UGC can help build a stronger sense of community around your brand.
Including UGC also serves as social proof that your product or service is valuable and worth investing in. You can do this by running a social media contest, asking followers to tag your brand in their posts, or using branded hashtags to encourage sharing.
Another way to give your followers a voice is by sharing customer success stories. It highlights the customers and their positive experience with your brand. By incorporating this into your social media marketing efforts, you can manage to give your followers a relatable face and show them how your brand is positively impacting people’s lives. It’s a tactic that humanizes you and gives your brand much more authenticity.
Eagles Nest Outfitters, a hammocks and camping accessories brand, regularly shares photos their customers take and post on their Instagram pages. Here’s an example of an Instagram post that proves how engaging UGC can be.
9. Leverage Your Team’s Social Media Presences
Another powerful way to promote your brand and build credibility is by utilizing the social media presence of your team. This is especially important for brands that offer professional services where their staff’s expertise is of particular importance to the brand’s product and reliability.
An effective way to leverage your team’s media presence is by encouraging them to share content related to their work or the industry you’re in. This could include blog posts, articles, or other types of content that they find interesting or informative. It could help position themselves and your brand as authoritative figures in your field.
In addition to encouraging your team members to share content, you could also consider highlighting their expertise and experience on your brand’s social media accounts. You can do this by sharing posts that showcase their work or accomplishments, as well as featuring them in social media content or campaigns.
You could also create a social media policy that outlines guidelines for your team to follow when posting about your brand on their social media accounts. Include some rules about what they can or cannot say and the best practices for promoting the brand positively and professionally.
All of these tactics can help in attracting new clients or customers, as well as retaining existing ones, by demonstrating the value and expertise that your brand and your team offer.
Take a look at the Menlo Coaching Linkedin profile. This professional MBA admissions consulting firm lists its employees in a very well-populated section, where everyone can see their titles and the fields in which they’re experts.
10. Post Videos As Often As Possible
As we all know, content marketing is an effective tool for improving your brand perception and reaching your target audience. One branch of content marketing that has widely grown these last few years, and it’s still growing, is video content marketing.
According to recent research done by Wyzowl, 51% of people are more likely to share videos with their friends than any other type of content. Also, according to this research,91% of marketers say that video marketing has helped them increase traffic.
Videos can be a powerful tool to get your brand’s message and captivate your audience. They’re also very effective in driving engagement on social media, which is essential in building stronger relationships with your audience.
Incorporating videos on your social media pages is invaluable, so do it as often as possible on all of them. Your ultimate goal should be to educate your audience and build your brand’s integrity and thought leadership in your field.
Keep in mind our dwindling attention spans, though. So, when implementing video content on your social channels, make sure to hook your audience quickly and assure them that watching your videos is worth their time. Make note that your videos should be short, simple, and clear.
Here’s an example of the Glossier Instagram page, where they frequently post short videos and reels about their products to educate their audience and show them how to use them effectively. This cosmetics and beauty brand has hundreds of thousands of views on each video, with engagement and share rates that go through the roof.
11. Repost Intelligently
Reposting content that’s not created by you but is relevant to your brand and niche should be a major part of your social media marketing strategy.
Reposting and retweeting are very beneficial in building relationships with other brands and showing your audience that your brand is part of a larger community. It can also help in driving engagement and reach by tapping into the existing audience of the brands you are sharing from.
However, it’s important to do it effectively to make the most out of it and avoid potential pitfalls. Retweeting, sharing, or reposting other brands’ social media posts is okay as long as you do it right.
Some of the best practices for reposting and retweeting successfully include:
- Give Credit Where Credit Is Due. Make sure to tag the original source in your post or include a mention in the captions. This is not only good etiquette, but it also helps in avoiding any potential issues with copyright or intellectual property.
- Add Your Own Voice. When you share content from another brand, it’s a good idea to add your own commentary or perspective. This helps to show your audience why you’re sharing the content and adds value to the conversation.
- Be Selective. Choose content that is relevant to your audience and aligns with your brand’s integrity and values. Random stuff will only make your followers react with the confused emoji.
When following these practices when sharing or retweeting other brands’ content, make sure to make yourself familiar with all the terms and conditions and follow all the platform guidelines to avoid any potential issues or violations.
Here, we can take a look at the Anytime Baseball Supply Instagram page, where they often repost cool baseball content posted from other accounts. While that’s not the only tactic they implement, it’s still a significant part of their social media marketing efforts.
12. Use Social Media To Provide Visible Customer Support
One of the great uses of social media is that it can bring you closer to your audience, humanize you, and make you more approachable. It allows you to interact with your followers and help them whenever they run into a problem regarding your product or service.
Connecting with your customers on social media can also be a compelling opportunity to build trust and loyalty for your brand. By enabling your social media team to give great technical or customer support, you can show your followers that your brand is committed to providing excellent customer service and that you care about their needs and concerns.
When a customer has a problem or question, they may turn to social media to get a quick response. By responding promptly and publicly to these inquiries, you can show that you are actively listening and willing to go the extra mile to help.
Providing visible customer support proves that your company is willing to engage with its audience on a personal level and solve their problems. This will make people more likely to feel connected to your brand and recommend it to others. This can ultimately lead to increased customer retention and word-of-mouth marketing.
Here’s an example where Wendy’s, the famous fast food chain, is quick to help a customer who had a bad experience in one of their restaurant locations.
Final Thoughts
We’ve covered all the basics you need to have in mind when starting your brand’s social media voyage.
Trying to stand out from the crowd and getting your brand out there is a challenging feat in any case, but it’s impossible without being active on social media. Social media marketing is a crucial part of business success. It’s an ongoing process and requires a dedicated effort to keep up with the ever-changing trends and algorithms.
But, you get what you give. So don’t be afraid to experiment and take risks with new approaches. If you’re ready to try new things and push some boundaries, you’ll likely succeed in the long run. With the right mindset, you can establish a strong presence with your brand on social media and distinguish yourself from the competition.
We hope these 6 Tips To Help Your Brand Stand Out by using social media marketing will help you in the future. If you would like to start a project with Matchbox Design Group in St. Louis, MO, use the contact form below or call us today.
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