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4 Ways to Make Social Media Work for You in 2019
Any comprehensive
online marketing plan should include social media. But unlike days of yore, not
just any—or every—social media platform will do. To effectively use social
media to market your business in 2019, there are some new strategies you may
need to employ.
#1: Messaging Apps—They’re Where You Need
to be to Connect
There are some
industry influencers who believe that giant social media platforms have seen
their peak. In other words, active daily use of social media channels like
Facebook and Twitter will (slowly) decline.
Contributing to
the abandonment of platforms that have been household names for years (and
that’s a long time in the Digital Age) is users’ lack of trust. Users no longer
have confidence that social media giants are keeping their data private or
their best interests at the fore. Still, users want to digitally connect to
their family, friends, interest-based communities and brands they like. So
where are they going? Messaging apps like WhatsApp and Messenger.
Messaging apps
have the potential for more genuine engagement with your existing and potential
customers because the interaction can be one-on-one rather than publicly
broadcast posts. Both the messaging platform and the more personalized
interaction facilitate a higher level of trust in and with your brand, and
that’s crucial to sustainability.
#2: Be Highly Selective in Your Choice of
Social Media Platforms
For any social
media marketing to work, you need to maintain an active and engaging presence;
otherwise, you’re just wasting your time. And, you only have to maintain an
active social media account for a minute to know that it’s a lot of work:
- Taking/selecting/editing
images for visually appealing posts - Posting
frequently enough (but not too much) - Posting
on a variety of topics - Responding
to comments, commenting on others’ posts - Building
your following - Managing
your networks
…and the list just
goes on.
To ensure that you
get the best return for your investment of time (and time is money), you may
need to scale back on where you are present online so that your social media
presence is a valuable one.
The decision to
launch a new social media account or let one die should not be guesswork. Look
at your performance metrics to find out where your target audience are spending
their time and which platform(s) are generating useful activity—e.g., traffic
to your website, online mentions, shares and links, conversions, etc. Those are the accounts worth the effort
to maintain.
#3: Increase Social Ad Spend Cautiously
Increasingly, to
get visibility by new social media users, you need to invest in ads on the
platform. Not surprisingly, social media ad spend is expected to continue to
rise for the next few years. But, an increase in ad spend is also an indicator
of an increase in ad saturation and competition for users’ attention.
Social media ads
can deliver good ROI, but only if you take care to analyze which platforms
offer the best visibility to your target market.
#4: Make Your Brand More Engaging with
Podcasts and Videos
Social media users
visit their favorite platforms to get informed, be entertained and connect. It
takes more than text and static images to meet their expectations.
2019 will continue
to see an increase in video content, so consider making your brand video-visible
through:
- Short
captioned videos - Longer
videos that reside on popular video-based platforms like YouTube and IGTV - Livestream
events
Podcasts are also
growing in popularity as they provide users the opportunity to stay current on
topics they care about virtually anywhere (even behind the wheel of a car or
during a jog).
Online software
allows just about anyone to record and edit video productions, making it a
realistic social media strategy for nearly any budget.
The first step to
improving your social media marketing performance in 2019 is to take stock of
what’s working and what’s not. If you find that you need help to maintain the
engaging presence your users expect, call in the pros. Contact
SonicSEO.com for a social media
marketing consultation.