Thinking about marketing your brand on social media?

If you aren’t, you’re doing your brand a disservice. Today, activating social media and beginning your content marketing journey are vital ways to be competitive, stay relevant, and gain consumer trust. Other benefits include user engagement, providing support, brand awareness, and improved reach. From 2015-2016, an estimated total of $118.4 billion will be spent on content marketing alone. But you don’t need to spend a dime to amp up your social media efforts…

Let’s talk about activating social media. Instagram, Vine, Twitter, Facebook, and Snapchat should be your marketing strategy priorities for 2016, if they aren’t already. If you’re already using these sites, let’s talk about ways to improve and get the most from your efforts.

There are 27 million pieces of content shared every day. (AOL/Nielsen, 2013)

Starting to market yourself or your brand on any of these sites may seem daunting, but we can walk you through it. Brands who engage on social media empower their reach and word-of-mouth influence. If you are not meeting the consumer at the social media level, you are either not a part of the conversation at all or missing out on great opportunities to help elevate your brand.

Another reason to activate through social media is to publish content. This is a great way to share stories and photos of your product or create an image around your brand if your product isn’t tangible. Being present on social media can be a two way street, as well. If you are actively engaging online you’re able to see what people are talking about in reference to your brand. At other times people will create content themselves with images and posts that include your brand. Why not utilize the conversations? This user-generated content can be repurposed for your own marketing gain and is a great way to spread your influence through the words and praises of others.

61% of customers say they feel better about a company that delivers custom content, and are more likely to buy from them. (Custom Content Council, 2011)

After signing up for one of these social media platforms, you can monitor these types of discussions and posts involving your brand. Hashtags are used on multiple social media platforms and are an easy way to discover content. While exploring with hashtags, make sure you’re following people and engaging in your online social media community.

While building your community in each social media platform, you want to make sure you keep people interested and engaged. Don’t forget about your followers. Make sure you’re engaging in their posts and comment back when someone comments on your posts (if applicable as each platform has it’s own unique norms).

Looking to get more in depth?

Stay tuned as we will be posting more blogs on how to activate some of these popular social media platforms. These blog posts will offer helpful advice and examples from other brands. Let’s create a social media marketing program and enable you to improve what you’ve already started.