Digital and social media marketing evolves rapidly. I have identified the top six digital strategies B2C and B2B marketers should focus on to grow their businesses.
Leverage influencers
“Influencer marketing” refers to brands and businesses contracting with individuals who have large, engaged followings on social media to create content that improves the visibility of the brand”™s products and services among the influencers”™ followers. There are four categories of social media influencers: mega-celebrities and platform stars (1 million-plus followers), macro-influencers (10,000 to 1 million followers), micro-influencers who are popular with a niche market of 5,000 to 10,000 followers and nano-influencers who are alpha-fans of a brand and are active on social media but have less than 5,000 followers.
Most consumer brands have worked with macro-influencers. A post or series of branded posts from a macro-influencer may cost $5,000 to $100,000. Talent agents represent many of them.
Micro-influencers are often bloggers whose followers represent specific demographic audiences. They can be found through influencer platforms such as Mention, BuzzSumo, TapFusion, Revfluencer, Neoreach, and Traackr.
Small businesses find great success in partnering with micro- and nano-influencers. These are popular individuals in a local market or industry niche who often reach a highly engaged, small group of followers. They work for lower rates and can help a company generate and test content ideas.
Pro tip: Companies should identify influencers who have obtained strong engagement and conversions to purchase. Expect to promote influencer content with paid advertising.
Experiment with chatbots and messaging apps
The term “chatbot” refers to a computer program that simulates human conversation through voice commands or text chat. Chatbots can be embedded for use in any major messaging application. Marketers are experimenting with ways to use bots to reduce the cost and friction of providing service to customers online. Facebook introduced bots on Messenger in April 2016 for brands to customize and interact with customers on their Facebook pages.
Despite the fact that chatbots are still in early stages of development, their substantial promise lies in their ability to easily deliver interactive messaging that answers frequently asked questions and enables users to receive alerts on offers and deals.
Pro Tip: Invite customers to interact with your business through Facebook Messenger before you create a bot.
Increase paid advertising on social media platforms
Social media marketing now requires paid media buys for most content from businesses to be seen on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Advertising platforms change their features frequently. Therefore, I recommend hiring a specialist to manage your social media advertising when your monthly budget reaches several thousand dollars. Be sure to test audience segments, offers and creative executions frequently when developing social media advertising campaigns. The test results will yield valuable data to improve your entire marketing plan.
Pro Tip: Businesses drive more traffic and revenue by growing their email lists and using them as a custom audience for Facebook and Instagram advertising. Remarketing to website visitors through ads in social media home feeds is an extremely effective strategy.
Produce more video content
According to Mark Zuckerberg, all content will be in a video format by 2020. Human beings process images over 60,000 times faster than text. Clearly, your New Year”™s resolutions should include hiring a videographer or skilled video editor along with obtaining basic training in the use of video editing software and easy-to-use video apps such as Animoto and Adobe Spark.
Most Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat stories are shot on mobile phones. They are designed to convey excitement and information so work on engaging the audience.
Pro Tip: Keep your videos short and be sure to add text overlays that relate a story if the audio is muted. Also, you need at least two staff members with cameras or mobile devices to shoot effective video for social media.
Make email marketing more personal
By now all of us have received those templated email messages with our name inserted after the salutation, “Dear” ___. On the other hand, B2C and B2B brands that understand the value of “relationship marketing” actually adjust the content of emails to reflect essential personal details about our purchase behavior or professional positions. This customization requires a company to have a system capture relevant data. They use the information to personalize communications designed to effectively build trust rather than to sell.
Marketing automation platforms offer many functions that can improve the communications in each sales funnel. Automation alone however, can lead to stiff, robotic communication rather than human interactions. People want to feel as though they are communicating with other people. This is why live-streaming video content and even podcasting is so popular. They allow us to interact with the producer in real time.
Pro Tip: Most companies use software platforms to manage email communications aligned with behavior triggers and to create sales funnels with lead magnets. Many digital marketers use Infusionsoft or Ontraport to manage the email sales funnels. I recommend trying the platform Drip as a first step when you are ready to move beyond MailChimp or Constant Contact.
Expand social selling activities, they work better than cold calling
Professional service providers should ramp up their production of useful premium content to provide prospects with valuable insights rather than blatant sales pitches. A case study or e-book can be repurposed in numerous ways and distributed through social media platforms and employee ambassadors.
Pro Tip: 2018 will be known as the year of the customer. Successful businesses will collect and analyze data from digital channels to create authentic, personal messaging aimed at enhancing relationships with customers, clients and prospects.
Robin Colner is CEO of Digistar Media, a social media and digital marketing agency in Harrison, and director of the Digital and Social Media Professional Certificate Program at Fordham University”™s School of Professional and Continuing Studies in West Harrison. She can be reached at 914-826-5512 or at Rcolner@DigiStarMedia.com, and on Twitter: @RobinColner.
Great tips, these tips definitely helps in improving social media engagement. Pro tips are most effective.
Thank you. Best of luck on your marketing activities.
I take your suggestions and hold them as my gps towards success. They save me time and cause me to look at each project from a different point of view. I look forward to sharing with you what works for me. The year of the customer, yet on another level in 2018. If the point is to get their attention, we must show we care enough to listen. For me, data is a techy way of listening, learning and understanding who they are. THANKS again for this invaluable info., and sharing it in a way that I completely understand. YOU ROCK!!!!
Thank you Robin and Congratulations on your many successes! You rock too!