With the new year approaching, many brands and their agencies are finalizing their social media marketing strategy. Since social media provokes change by its very nature, you need to constantly adapt to keep your marketing strategy relevant in an ever-changing landscape. We’ve put together a short guide on adjusting your social media marketing efforts for 2015 to increase revenue and fan engagement, and feel free to participate in the discussion with your comments!
With the new year approaching, many of brands and their agencies are finalizing their social media marketing strategy. Since social media provokes change by its very nature, you need to constantly adapt to keep your marketing strategy relevant in an ever-changing landscape. We’ve put together a short guide on adjusting your social media marketing efforts for 2015 to increase revenue and fan engagement, and feel free to participate in the discussion with your comments!
Written Content Marketing
We posted about this earlier in the year, but content marketing warrants a mention here due to its sheer importance. According to a poll conducted by Social Media Examiner, 58% of surveyed marketers insisted that original, written content was the most important tool for social media marketing. This finding means that, despite the popularity of video and image-based formats, you still need valuable written content to engage your social media audience.
Instagram and yes, Google+
While it’s a given that Instagram will be important due to its ever-growing user base, what some marketers don’t realize is that Google+ could prove valuable for the industry. Yes, Instagram dominates social networks as the best tool for image-based social media marketing, but 65% of marketers surveyed reported that they want to learn more about Google+, while 60% said they want to increase their usage without further research. Google+ has the potential to be as strong of a marketing platform as Facebook, and marketers around the world are gearing up to make use of this social media frontier.
Fan Advocacy
Creating the right content and posting on the right social media platforms are great steps to improving your social media strategy for 2015. However, you should consider implementing a fan advocacy program to boost your social media marketing efforts. Basically, fan advocacy is the use of your brand’s supporters to market your content by sharing it as native advertising. For example, Perdue Chicken created a fan advocacy campaign in which fans share the company’s content, such as chicken recipes, over social media in exchange for discounts and other prizes.
But are fans only incentivized to share your content by prizes? According to aMarketingProfs study, 84% of users polled report that relationships, or being a good friend, was important to them when sharing content. So while it’s great to offer small treats for your fans’ loyalty, you really want to create content that is useful not just for your fans, but for people who may not know about your products or services.
Do you have questions about social media marketing or fan advocacy programs that could fit your brand? Feel free to comment below or to email our senior social strategist, Steve, at smahaney@socialtoaster.com. Happy New Year!
