The way people are interacting with social media is changing. Don’t get left in the dust.
Advertising and consumer reach made a permanent shift in 2020. The normal methods for reaching consumers had to pivot to meet consumers where they were, which was at home and online.
So how did this change marketing strategies?
Last year, the number of people who used social media passed the 3.8 billion mark. TikTok took the social media world by storm with virtual crowds of new users signing up and time spent on the platform growing significantly. The way people interacted with social media became more involved, as video and Instagram story usage increased, helping people share their day-to-day moments.
But while social media use is growing, user habits are changing. Facebook usage is down, as well as users and overall time spent on Instagram. But social media’s marketing influence isn’t going anywhere. According to eMarketer, more than 5 percent of all Gen-Z internet users in the U.S. say their recent fashion purchases were inspired by social media content. Its e-commerce and community-building potential still has immense power. Amid the virtual crowds, companies have the same goal: Find your target demographic; communicate with them; convert a consumer to a customer. But this is shifting from broad-based to niche platforms.
So how are companies equipped to adjust? What new strategies need to take place in a digital world that’s just as saturated with users, messages, products, and noise?
Why Niche Platforms Are On the Rise
Many people are taking a break from larger platforms like Facebook and Instagram because of the increased amount of negativity across these major platforms. Brands that stick to traditional platforms like Facebook can spend thousands of dollars in advertising and miss being seen by their target audience. And there is always the risk of marketing campaigns simply getting lost in the mess of these broad-scale platforms that are rife with users and companies competing for attention.
People are shifting from broad social platforms to niche networks where they can connect with specific, like-minded audiences. This reduces the noise and allows users to see the kind of content they want to interact with. Niche platforms present a significant opportunity for brands to create a community and sell their products to people who are genuinely interested.
For example, entertainment industry production essentially halted in March of last year, leaving content creators without work or pay. One niche platform helped cull the stall by offering a place for creation to continue–Stage 32, a social media network for the entertainment industry. This platform connects executives and creatives at every level to bring competitive content to big-box producers and streaming platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime, and more.
And, as the entertainment industry dealt with shutdowns, another niche platform came to prominence for an industry that became overwhelmed with work–Figure 1. This platform connects medical professionals from around the world, letting them learn from one another while being HIPAA compliant.
Trading Simple Marketing for Specific Marketing
By seeking out niche platforms that consolidate users in a similar field or with a similar interest, marketers and advertisers can easily target their key audience. Marketing to users who are already inclined to want your product or service seems easy, but there is more to it. The users on a niche platform that aligns with your company are likely more knowledgeable about the products or services in their industry. In some cases, they might be experts. A simple sales pitch or marketing campaign isn’t going to cut it.
Marketing to someone who has a lot of knowledge about your industry or product requires education. This is a two-way street. Marketers can learn a lot about how to bring their message to audiences by listening to their audiences’ concerns. Discussion forums on industry, hobby, or interest-specific platforms create easy market research gold mines.
On the other hand, you need to bring something to the conversation. To engage a knowledgeable audience, you need to bring the knowledge. It isn’t enough to make niche consumers aware of your product; they need to know what makes it different, better, and specific to their needs. You are no longer marketing the item or service as a concept. Instead, your message has to pinpoint the details.
The future of marketing is clear. In a world overwhelmed with digital messaging, brands must find their focus and craft something specific to their audience. Instead of trying to be everything to everyone, find where you excel and craft opportunities for your audience to connect.
The last few years have seen a huge increase in internet penetration and web technologies worldwide. Consequently, the marketing landscape has evolved to give us bigger and better marketing channels to reach the right audience at the right time.
However, not all marketing channels are well-suited for a small business. For example, if you’re a local eatery, you wouldn’t want to spend thousands of dollars on a nationwide TV commercial.
As such, you must be aware of the small business marketing channels most likely to make a positive impact on your specific product or service.
Best marketing channels for small business
Here’s my list of the best channels to consider when promoting your small business. I’ll walk you through a brief explanation of each channel, why it matters, and how to get started.
#1. Email Marketing
Despite being an old channel in terms of internet years, email still has the potential to reach 3.9 billion people as of 2020, and this number is expected to touch 4.3 billion users in 2023.
Email marketing can not just reach a wide audience, but also delivers the best returns. As per an industry census, 73% of people ranked email as an excellent marketing channel.
Plus, DMA states that every $1 spent on email marketing leads to a $42 average return on investment.
Writing a series of emails and sending it to potential customers based on a carefully planned timeline can help you establish a relationship, build trust and make them interested in your product or service.
It will allow you to capture email addresses through your website, social media accounts, marketing events, and other avenues. In addition, you’ll be able to create a series of emails, along with an automation workflow, to send these emails to your contact list.
Whether it’s for research, entertainment, or shopping, a search engine is the first place most people start with. And then they’ll click one of the top results that show up on the first page of organic search engine results.
This is what makes organic search another effective marketing channel for a small business.
When a customer searches for a query related to your product or service, the goal is to get the pages from your website to rank higher than those of competitors. Doing this will ensure a consistent stream of traffic and leads into your sales funnel.
The process of getting listed and strengthening your website’s presence in organic search engine result pages (SERPs) is known as SEO. It will involve researching the best keywords you want to rank for, and then optimizing the pages on your website for your selected keywords.
#3. Mobile Devices
Mobile usage has been on the rise for many years now, and it’s not showing any signs of slowing down. 50.88% of online traffic in 2020 came from mobile devices.
Customers prefer businesses that can provide the information and communication they need through SMS, WhatsApp, and other mobile apps.
So it only makes sense to promote your small business to users of mobile and tablet devices.
There are a number of ways to capitalize on the mobile trend, the most prominent of which is having a mobile-responsive website. It’s no longer acceptable to have an outdated website that doesn’t adapt to different screen sizes.
#4. Word-of-Mouth Marketing
It’s no surprise that people trust other customers over you and your marketing team.
Marketers usually have an agenda, but a customer will spread the word about a brand, whether online or offline, only if the brand has truly delighted them. That’s why 9 out of 10 customers read reviews when considering a purchase.
There’s no shortcut to using this marketing channel for your benefit. You will really need to put in the work to ensure a great customer experience throughout the buyer’s journey.
Then set up email automation to reach out to customers to ask for feedback on their experience, and if they’re happy with your product or service, request a testimonial.
#5. Video Marketing
If you haven’t yet jumped on the video bandwagon, there’s no better time to do so.
When asked how they prefer to learn more about a product or service, 69% of people in a survey mentioned watching a video.
If you run a small business, you don’t need a big production team to start video marketing. It’s possible to create videos affordably. For instance, you use a camcorder to record videos that answer customer questions, introduce your team, or showcase customer testimonials.
These videos may not be as polished, but they can still win over your audience with their authentic look and feel.
#6. Business Blog
A blog is a must-have marketing channel for your small business. With a business blog, you get a dedicated platform to educate current and potential customers on the topics related to your niche.
Six out of ten buyers say that blog posts are valuable at the start of their purchase journey.
A business blog is like a central content hub that attracts prospects, helps you turn visitors into leads, and strengthens your online presence on other marketing channels.
With several intuitive blogging platforms available online, starting a business blog these days is relatively easy. All you need is a domain name, hosting, and content management system, the most popular being WordPress.
#7. Social Media
Next up on our list is Social Media. 72% of US adults say that they use at least one social media website.
Social platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and more allow your small business to build rapport with your audience.
When you interact with your customers at the same place where their friends are, your business becomes a part of their personal network.
Plus, social media posts are easy to share, leading to word-of-mouth opportunities.
To get started with social media marketing, pick the social media platforms where your target customers are the most active and work on building an active presence.
#8. Paid Search (Pay-Per-Click Ads)
Paid Search refers to advertising your website near the top of search engine result pages, instead of getting found organically.
You are required to pay only when a user clicks on your ad, which is why another name for paid search is PPC (Pay Per Click) advertising.
This is a drastically different model from traditional outdoor advertising, in which you pay for your ads to be displayed, regardless of whether they trigger any action from the viewer.
Paid search ads may cost more than some of the other marketing channels on our list. However, they offer a unique benefit that no other channel can – the potential to generate results fast. In fact, 66% of CMOs expect to increase spend on paid search in 2021.
Display ads allow you to use image banners and videos to show an offer to your target audience on the websites they are likely to visit. Here’s an example:
Google’s Display Network, for instance, allows you to create display ads with the potential to reach 90% of internet users worldwide.
These ads can also be shown on email platforms, social media, and other digital channels that provide ad placements.
You can use them in isolation, but the real game-changer with these types of ads is targeting people who have already visited your website or opted into your email newsletter. This is referred to as remarketing.
Final thoughts
Each marketing channel is unique, with its own quirks, strengths, and weaknesses. And so is each business.
However, the most common mistake small business owners make is trying to focus on every channel available.
While you go through this list, pick only two or three channels at a time that seem the best fit for our business and customers.
Define goals and key metrics to measure the performance for each channel. This way, you can increase investment in high-performing channels and boost ROI.
Keep adjusting your strategy to make room for new channels and drop the non-profitable channels to cut costs as required. The more adaptable your small business is to the changes in the marketing space, the more stable your growth and prosperity will be.
Guest author: Hitesh Sahni is a content strategy consultant, editor, and founder of Smemark, an upscale content marketing studio helping brands and agencies in multiple niches accelerate growth with superior, scalable content writing for 10+ years.
It’s easy to get lost in the hustle and bustle of social media. So much so, that we sometimes forget how to do something as simple as to be ourselves. And if you’re a creator or business owner, the basics, such as consistency, can just as easily fall by the wayside. We recently asked some of our VOTY 100 honorees to share the best piece of social media advice they’ve ever received and their responses may ease some of the anxiety you have around sharing content. Alternatively, these tips may be confirmation that you’re already headed in the right direction.
Whatever the case, read on for advice you’ll want to commit to memory.
“It’s essential to be intentional about social media and to know your ‘why’ before starting to spend any time on it. Given how externally visible social media is, it’s easy to get caught up on vanity metrics that will cost you a lot of time, energy, money and can even jeopardize your mental health while not doing anything (or at least not enough) for you business or personal development and relationships.” –Gesche Haas, Founder & CEO of Dreamers & Doers
“I was once told that the best missions are in the present leading to the future and are meaningful to all audiences. I not only try to apply this to social media but to all of our work at Remake. Whether launching a new advocacy campaign or sharing a breaking story, it’s a really good reminder to always make sure that what we put out there is not only in line with what we want the future of fashion to look like but that it resonates with those who follow us.” –Ayesha Barenblat, CEO & Founder of Remake
“Unfollow accounts that make you feel like sh*t! I think we often forget that we’ve curated our entire experience on social, and we can cut anyone or any accounts out who don’t serve us and our mental health.” –Ali Kriegsman, Author & Co-Founder/COO of Bulletin
“Don’t get caught up with the numbers. Engage with the followers who found you and love your content. I am grateful that people take time out of their life to check out what I’m doing or saying. I send a Thank You video to every single new follower. Why? Because a Follow is free and so is a Thank You!” –LA Dunn, Owner of Black Girls Eat
“Don’t focus on vanity metrics (likes, followers). Evaluate what your true desire is and create a clear call to action to bring your audience to the destination you’re creating. And whenever possible capture the data so that you have a direct line of communication to your audience.” –Rhonesha Byng, Founder & CEO of Her Agenda
“Done is better than perfect.” –Monica Stevens, Owner of MoKnowsHair LLC
“Everybody starts at zero, and the only way to grow is to show up consistently, and people will start to expect you. It’s hard at first, but if you are consistent that will offset almost anything.” –Tiffany Aliche, The Budgetnista
“I know this seems counter-intuitive but don’t worry about the numbers. They are an ok metric for how you are doing overall and maybe from time to time but they are not what really matters. What matters is the impact that you are making and the lives you are able to touch. Even if that is ONE person on any given day, that is a blessing.” –Nitika Chopra, Founder of Chronicon
“Never, ever get into a fight on social media. The world is too complex to be argued via 280 characters.” –Kathryn Finney, Founder & CEO of Genius Guild
“The best piece of social media advice I ever received was to be more present. Pre-pandemic, I wasn’t as present on our social media but learned quickly that our followers wanted to see the face behind our small business. Once I overcame my insecurities with being on camera, video content became much easier to churn out. My ability to showcase my personality and our struggles resonated with people and we reached organic growth so quickly after that.” –Aurea Sanabria Molaei, Founder & Creative Director at Flower Bodega
“Tell YOUR story. Not someone else’s.” –Denise Woodard, Founder & CEO of Partake Foods
“Be honest (from my brilliant friend and partner in I am a voter, Raina Penchansky).” –Mandana Dayani, Creator & Co-Founder of I am a voter.
“[Don’t] compare yourself and your journey to anyone else’s.” –Candace Junée, Digital Marketing Maven & CEO of Epic Fab Girl
“I can’t remember who, but I remember early on, someone told me to shoe the entirety of myself in my advocacy. It’s taken a lot to get to this place, but I worried a lot in the beginning that the version of myself I presented online had to follow strict guidelines in order to serve the mission, but it has been through being seen as a person that I have fostered the most impactful community. I am grateful for those who have accepted me as I am.” –Imani Barbarin, Digital Disability Advocate & Communications Director
“If you want people to be invested in you and stick around to hear what you have to say, remember the 3 Es of content creation: Entertainment, Education, or Enrichment. If your content doesn’t entertain them, educate them, or enrich their lives in some way, why would they continue following you?” –Ashley Renne, Environmental Activist & Influencer
“TAKE A BREAK! Don’t let it run you and that was given to me by Denzel Washington!” –Danielle Young, Journalist, Producer, Host & Content Queen
“If it’s not fun, you’re not doing it right. It should always feel fun. And when it feels like a marketing device, or it feels like a platform that you’re standing on, it’s not what it needs to be: your honest perspective of the world. And we’re all brands. Your brand is the truth, and if you live in the truth, what you do will be what it needs to be. All that said, take as much time away from it as you can. (I say you, but I need to tell this to myself.) Don’t always be on there, just be in your life, and when you feel called to be on there, go.” –Jessamyn Stanley, Author & Body Liberation Advocate
“Capture in the moment and share after the moment. I see so many influencers spending precious bonding moments trying to capture the perfect IG moment. Which is fine. That is our job. But your audience doesn’t need that RIGHT now. It’s ok to share after you’ve enjoyed the moment.” –Ty Ålexander, Wellness Educator & DJ
“Don’t be impressed with your social media presence unless your bank account exceeds your follower count.” –Karama Horne, Culture Journalist & Content Creator
“Be yourself and be intentional and know your purpose on the platform. When you’re clear about why you’re using social media you can tell your story more clearly. There’s so much content being pushed out every day that it can be overwhelming or make you feel like you’re not doing enough, but the key is to always stay true to your who and why and the rest works itself out.” –Briana Thompson, Founder & CEO of Spiked Spin
“It’s better to get a small group of people to love you than a big group of people to like you.” –Polly Rodriguez, CEO & Co-Founder of Unbound
“Creating content is a lot easier when you stay true to your voice. Topics in the skincare world always evolve and sometimes it’s in a realm that’s hard for us to write about. We’ve found that sticking to our personality, quirky humor, and general viewpoint makes it way easier.” –Gloria Lu and Victoria Fu, Co-Founders of Chemist Confessions
“You’re a being, not a gadget, your community will honor your humanity for taking a break from social to reset, in turn, it will reinforce their permission to do the same.” –Tracy G., Wellness Artist, Podcaster & Radio Host
“Just be yourself! And put yourself in your viewers’ shoes—ask ‘what would I want to see?’” –Trinity Mouzon Wofford, CEO & Co-Founder of Golde
“I just remember balance…let the good and bad hold the same weight…and I don’t get caught up in praise or negative feedback, I remember that it can go away at any minute…so I don’t let it consume me, and I don’t read the comments.” –Marsai Martin, Artist, Executive & Producer
The often overlooked tactic enhances reach, raises brand awareness and drives new customers and clients to your business.
Picture the scene: It’s 2021, and the enormity and popularity of digital marketing is providing entrepreneurs with a plethora of opportunities and the ability to tap into an audience of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of potential customers, all at the push of a button.
When Facebook first launched back in 2004, it really was the first of its kind. Before that, we had MySpace and a few other platforms I’ve never heard of (Friendster or Hi5, anyone?), but none of them had managed to make the impact that Facebook did, and still does.
Since Facebook, we’ve seen the launch of Instagram in 2010 and TikTok in 2016, plus the addition of Instagram Reels in 2020. Not to mention other platforms such as Snapchat and Clubhouse, all giving us access to a wider audience.
In the past 19 years, we’ve all had the luxury of being able to communicate directly with our fans, customers and potential customers in a way that has never been possible before. But before the advent of social media, businesses and brands were built the “old fashioned” way, using more traditional marketing techniques, such as advertising and face-to-face networking.
Social media seems like the Holy Grail
When the world became more digitized, tools such as online advertising, pay-per-click and email marketing grew in popularity and gave entrepreneurs and brands alike the chance to reach an even wider audience. Data was easier to track and metrics and insights enabled you to calculate your return on investment.
For many entrepreneurs and startup businesses, social media seems like the Holy Grail. Not only do you get to build an audience and interact and engage with your followers, but it’s also completely free at the point of entry. Of course, you can now invest in adverts across all social-media channels, but for someone completely new to the business world, social media is a sensible place to start.
Yet there’s a missing piece of the puzzle here. A modality that’s as old as time, but a powerful force when it comes to sharing messages, raising brand awareness and building on the know-like-trust factor. And that’s public relations.
Everything you say and do is PR
Public relations exists so that you can communicate with your audience. If you Google “public relations,” you will find Wikipedia’s definition: “Public Relations is the practice of deliberately managing the release and spread of information between an individual or organisation and the public, in order to affect the public perception.”
So, essentially, everything you say and do is PR, but the platform in which you share your message changes. The tools you use to share your message changes. But the message remains the same. Your audience, generally, stays the same, yet where they hang out may change, based on the launch of new platforms, or the increased popularity of existing platforms, such as YouTube and podcasts.
YouTube first launched back in 2005 and podcasts launched a year earlier in 2004, yet they’ve only really exploded as a business tool over the past few years, giving entrepreneurs and startups the chance to create easy-to-share and easy-to-digest content that their ideal clients will love — content that can then be repurposed across social-media channels.
Back in 2004, when I first started my career in PR, there were really only three types of media outlets to pitch to: print titles, TV and radio. Online titles were seen as the poor relation to print, so we rarely bothered pitching to them as clients didn’t see the value in them — oh how times have changed!
However, because there was less choice, it made it easier to build relationships with journalists and work on features and content ideas with them. Over time, the media landscape has changed, and online started to make a huge impact and podcasts and YouTube channels became prime real estate.
Now, there is way more choice when it comes to gaining exposure, so while you may not consider social media, YouTube or podcasts your typical media outlets, they’re still consumed by your ideal clients, still covering topics that complement what you do, and they still have a ready-made audience of loyal fans that you could (and should) be tapping into. How? Quite simply, by pitching.
One piece of content can be shared and shared again
The way you’d pitch yourself to a podcast host is the exact same way that you’d pitch yourself to a journalist. That is a PR tactic and a skill that publicists have been honing for decades. Now, one of the utterly brilliant, yet often overlooked, powers of PR is that you can take one piece of content and deliver it to millions of people in one go. No other form of communication enables you to do that.
It may take time to build and execute your PR plan. You may not see anything published or broadcast for three to four months, but when it lands, it’s well worth the wait, as your content has the potential to be seen or heard by hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of potential ideal clients and customers. Just think about the circulation of a print publication, then triple it to get an average reach.
Think about the audience size of a podcast, then think how many extra people you can reach by sharing it across your social-media channels. And then think about how many extra people you will reach when the host shares it across their social-media channels. All of a sudden, one piece of content can be shared and shared again, leaving behind a digital footprint and breadcrumbs that can lead even more people to your business.
This is another reason why PR is such a powerful and influential tool — because what you do now is searchable forever. PR isn’t always easy to measure, which potentially adds to its downfall in the ROI stakes, but it’s still a tactic that should be employed, and a muscle that should be flexed, as part of your communications strategy.
PR is yet another way of transporting your business and your expertise to a wider audience, an audience that has been built up and cultivated for decades, that already knows, likes and trusts the outlet and the content they produce.
So, next time you decide to put all your eggs in one basket and focus all of your attention on one particular marketing tool, or one particular platform, ask if there’s a more efficient, more effective way of sharing your message to drive hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of new customers to your business. The answer, in case you missed it, is PR.
Social media offers new brands an incredible opportunity to launch a new product to a highly targeted, engaged, wallet-out audience.
Social media provides new brands with an incredible opportunity to launch a new product to a highly targeted, engaged, wallet-out audience. You have access to consumers located all over the world along with the ability to target them based on very specific parameters.
Brands today have such a massive advantage over brands that got their start just ten years ago. While this all sounds great, it’s not as simple as making a few posts on launch day and watching the sales snowball.
It takes a lot of preparation and planning, along with a great product, to have a successful launch on social media. Here are the seven steps required to expertly launch a new brand on social media, regardless of the niche.
1. Establish a clear set of goals
You need to identify your KPIs and goals before anything else. What is going to make your particular launch successful? This will be drastically different for every brand. It might be based on sales, email-list growth or just the generation of buzz that translates into long-term brand awareness.
If it’s sales- and revenue-based, be specific. How many sales? How much revenue? You need to have all of this figured out ahead of time. Determine how much money you are going to invest in the launch and be sure that whatever your goals are, you break even, at the very least.
2. Develop a timeline
When you have your launch date set, you will need to back up and map out the timeline from the current date to the launch date. Then, break that window of time into blocks. Every step of creating a launch will require time. If you feel that your timeline is too tight, push it back.
The last thing you want to do is commit to a launch date and then a week prior have to push it back. That can be a death sentence for a brand, especially if you have already hyped up the date to a social audience that’s waiting in anticipation.
3. Select the best social-media platforms
This is where your strategy starts to play out. What social-media platforms are you going to want to focus on to reach your target audience? While you may think going super wide and launching on every platform available is the correct play, it’s the opposite.
Focus on the two to three best platforms for your launch. This allows you to put more effort into each one, which will greatly impact the return on investment. Pick the social-media platforms that best match your brand and its target audience.
Going after a younger 18- to 20-year-old demographic? TikTok is the place to be. Interested in connecting with a 32- to 45-year-old homeowning demographic? Then Facebook should be your number one platform. Don’t worry about what social platform is the most popular: Select based on where your target audience is active.
4. Map out an influencer-marketing strategy
Aligning with the right influencers to help give your launch a boost can give you momentum unobtainable elsewhere. Try to work out deals with influencers who have engaged audiences that match your target market.
From a flat fee per post to a revenue-sharing agreement, work out something that makes sense and allows you to tap into those followings. If you break even or even take a slight hit, consider the upside, which is gaining a large customer base on day one that can be marketed to down the line multiple times.
And here’s a pro tip: Let the influencer introduce and announce your brand and product to his or her audience as he or she sees fit. The response will be much better if this is done naturally and not something that feels staged and planned. Giving influencers total creative control will yield the best results.
5. Design launch-campaign assets
You’re going to need a wide variety of content assets and formats. On launch day, you will need to have several campaigns loaded up and ready to go that you will closely monitor and optimize in real time.
If one format or image is performing better, you will need to adjust. Will a meme outperform a GIF? What about a video? You need variety to collect as much data as possible. Some examples of campaign assets include high-quality product images; lifestyle images; videos, both long and short; GIFs and memes.
It’s also important to design each content asset specifically for the platform it will be used on. This includes formatting video run times for the specific social channel and making images the correct size to ensure proper display.
6. Schedule your social-media content
Once you have your social platforms identified and all of your content assets created, you now have to schedule it. You have your official launch date, but don’t forget the days leading up to it. This is a perfect time to build anticipation with teaser content.
You can schedule your entire organic campaign in one of the SaaS tools like Hootsuite, which helps you organize the launch as well as reply and engage during the launch. You are going to want to be available to answer questions and reply in real time.
Participating in the discussion will drive more sales, and the engagement boost will help further your organic reach. Even if your launch strategy revolves around paid social-media ads, you still want to have an organic campaign scheduled.
7. Launch your campaign
If you planned for enough time to get everything mapped out and situated, you will be ready to go on launch day. Be sure to have extra hands on deck to handle customer-service issues, answer pre-sales questions and ensure everything goes smoothly.
A poorly executed launch can sink a brand before it even has a chance to thrive. Be sure to plan for every possible mishap because a launch without some hiccups is unheard of. Be prepared for the unexpected and ready to make adjustments as you go.
Over the past few years, social media has grown exponentially from something only the geeky boys and girls in college spent time on to something that’s now a ubiquitous aspect of life across the world.
For businesses, it’s clear that social media can be a goldmine of leads and conversions, if handled correctly. That’s why many companies have focused their marketing budgets on social media, trying to build a following and cultivate customer loyalty as well as new buyers. Here are a few tips you can implement to make your social media marketing much more effective in bringing in sales.
1. Focus on your audience
One of the easiest ways to burn a lot of money on social media marketing without achieving much is to attempt to appeal to everyone. What you need to do is to narrow down your audience, create a customer profile and then target your marketing toward that persona’s needs and motivations. It will make your marketing much more effective than if you were taking a more general approach.
You might also need to segment your audience by different parameters to be able to target them more effectively. Essentially, segmentation will allow you to work with multiple customer profiles and tailor your marketing based on their specific characteristics.
2. Pick your platforms and optimize for them
Attempting to maintain an active presence on all the social media platforms available is going to stretch most businesses too much. Whoever is handling your social media will likely be overwhelmed and your efforts across all the platforms will not be effective. Instead, analyse your buyer persona and decide which platforms are best for engaging your target market. Two or three are good, and you shouldn’t undertake more than that unless you have multiple staff to handle them.
When you’ve selected your content, you will be able to optimize your content for that platform and thus get much more engagement. If you’re focusing on Instagram, for instance, you’ll be able to focus your resources on making quality images, since that’s what gets the most traction on the platform. On Twitter, conversely, making highly informative threads will likely see more engagement and get the word out about your brand more.
3. Create and share content
Content marketing is not just a buzzword. It actually works and the effects are visible on social media too. Publish content that’s short and entertaining or informative and you can be sure you’ll get some social media engagement. Over time, you’ll have some content (whether it’s text posts, photos, infographics etc.) that’ll go viral and bring tons of traffic to your website. Be sure to work with content creation professionals to be sure your website is up to par.
Putting your content out there is the first step to building a formidable brand, and one easy hack is to tweak your content strategy continually, so it’s aligned with topical issues. By creating quality content and using interesting captions for Instagram, Twitter and other platforms, you’ll be able to plug into trends and get your content in front of many more people, such as what brands like Vape4Ever achieved by providing timely information on marijuana laws at a time when there’s a lot of confusion and public discourse about them.
4. Promote user-generated content
People trust their friends more than they trust a company, no matter how loyal they are to the brand. You can take advantage of that by encouraging people to post content on social media that validates and promotes your products or services. One popular instance of this was the “Share a Coke with…” Coca-Cola campaign where users posted pictures of themselves with their soda bottles. You don’t have to start at that level either; with creative marketing or a small giveaway, you can incentivize people to post positive info about your product or service. For a travel service, for example, getting customers to write about their trips in a way that’s authentic and fun will provide solid social proof and encourage FOMO among your target audience, thus increasing the likelihood of conversion drastically.
5. Provide stellar customer service
Positive reviews are great, but many of your customers will also likely reach out via social media when they’ve had unsatisfactory experiences with your products or services. The solution is to be ready to engage with them and find fixes for their issues in a timely manner. Give opportunities for feedback, resolve any concerns they have and encourage them to share their thoughts with their network.
Over time, that will boost your customer loyalty, encourage referrals and the influx of new customers and also help to build a positive reputation on social media. As your followership grows and validates your products or services, your social proof will increase and more people will be attracted to your brand, thereby boosting sales and your bottom line.
Founder of Tech Law Info. Kunbi is a lawyer based in Lagos and is focused on the tech industry, advising startups on regulatory compliance, market-entry and investment (PE and VC). He is also the founder of Tech Law Info, a website to provide founders with essential legal information and resources. https://www.techlawinfo.com
Marketing used to be a thing on the street. Marketers would jump from block to block, convincing prospective customers to try their products and services.
While this traditional procedure achieved a lot of results, there’s something better and easier in town.
Social media marketing has eased the pressure of moving about searching for that customer that needs your product.
Since everyone is now on popular social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc., you can quickly reach them with your products and services.
Of course, you are not the only one using this medium. As such, it is not just about engaging in social media marketing, but about doing it the right way.
Without increasing and converting your leads, clicks, sales, and followers on these platforms, you are not engaging in social media marketing the right way.
This article will help you improve your sales and convert more leads with social media marketing.
Why worry about social media leads?
As a marketer, your goal is beyond creating awareness about your product. Yes, you need engagements, but these are just the basics for the final destination.
Only when you collect leads can you truly find individuals interested in using your company’s products or services.
When you collect leads, it will be easier to communicate and stay in touch with individuals that are ready to use your services.
Introduction to social media lead marketing
Here is some of the essential information you need to know about lead marketing before you commence:
Social media lead generation
Lead generation refers to all activities you undergo to accumulate leads on social media.
Social media lead nurturing
After generating leads on social media, the deal is not complete. There is a need to always follow up and nurture the lead. You need to walk them through your company’s process or the sales funnel.
Social media lead conversion
Having nurtured a lead, you can then turn a prospect into a customer.
What platform can I use for social media lead generation?
Use platforms that contain prospects that need the products or services you are selling. One of the most popular options you have is Facebook. This platform offers you diverse means for successful social media lead generation.
Facebook has more than 2.45 billion users every month. This population means that you have a higher chance of meeting your desired audience within the shortest time.
Most B2B marketers have also enjoyed rich results from LinkedIn. The record shows that around 80-90% of B2B marketers make use of this platform.
Hence, you need to consider the type of products and services you offer. You can then target the right audience that will help you reach your desired goal.
Understanding all platforms’ demographics will make it easier for you to pick the right one for your business.
Now, let’s get to the details!
Tips to increase and convert leads with social media marketing
These detailed tips are designed to help you with your lead generation and conversions:
Hone your profile
The first step to reaching your desired destination of generating leads is to improve your social media profile. Collecting more leads organically depends on the details in your social media profile.
The basic standard is to include a medium where your prospects can contact you or gain access to your newsletter. If you sell products, you can also include a link for shopping.
Providing your contact information will ensure that customers can get support from you when needed. Valuable options include your email, your phone number, your WhatsApp contact, Messenger, etc.
Adding a call-to-action button to your website will increase your chances of generating leads. Most platforms have more than one call-to-action button. Try exploring the one that works best for your industry.
If you want to move your leads to your company’s website, consider adding a direct link to your profile.
Develop a strategy
Without having the right strategy, you can only achieve little results. You need to consider how you will reach your audience, who your audience is, and how you will get them engaged with your posts.
Before you post, be sure that you have the right content that your prospects are expecting. The sort of message sent can motivate or demotivate the reader.
Carefully pick the right platform to meet your audience, then prepare your posts with your audience in mind.
Your message cannot reach all users on these platforms. Even if it does, the chances are high that many will not pay attention to these posts. Hence, you need to be specific to your audience.
You need to know: What gender needs the service you are selling? Is your product age-specific? Who are your competitors targeting? Is your offer seasonal? When you find answers to questions like this, you can then work on reaching your desired customer.
Additionally, you can speak privately with some of your customers and seek their opinion on your products or services. Ensure that you are selecting the right audience, and the result will be optimal.
Work with clickable content
If your content is not compelling enough, lead generation will be impossible. Your business is not the only thing competing for an audience in the social media space. Your prospects are all searching for attention too.
Distractions will always come in the way of your customers. Unless you have valuable content to tie them down, they will be off in a split second.
You might need to seek the help of a professional at the onset. Make sure that your content is well-tailored and detailed to touch the mind of your prospect.
Your clickable content will yield no result if it does not hold values that compel a customer to click it. Hence, work on the details of your content.
Then add links with calls-to-action like, click here for more, learn more here, discover the secrets here, etc.
You can get the right call-to-action on most platforms. Make use of these options.
Try social lead ads
You can only achieve minimal results on your own. As such, when your organic content has generated all possible results, at least at the moment, switch attention.
Most social media platforms provide social lead ads to help you reach more audiences.
To make your ads stand out, you need to communicate in a clear and simple pattern. Viewers should understand why they see your ads.
Providing too much information for viewers who are not patient and attentive to details will do you no good. Hence, let your point be brief and stand out.
Asking a few questions and providing a clear and straightforward answer will result in generating leads easily.
Let’s talk about some of the platforms you can use:
Facebook lead ads
Lead ads provided by Facebook are delivered in several forms. You can then analyze them easily and evaluate the results. It also comes with retargeting tools that make nurturing a lead possible.
Instagram lead ads
Instagram lead ads allow you to collect information from your prospects. You can also use forms to seek their opinions and answer their burning/crucial questions.
LinkedIn lead gen forms
You can also engage in lead generation with the LinkedIn lead generator form. User profiles are used for pre-filling sections of the ads. Ads are presented in the form of sponsored InMail or Message Ads.
Make your landing page user friendly
If your content and call-to-action are detailed and catchy and distinct, you are likely to get frequent visitors to your company’s website.
Converting leads will be impossible if your landing page is not user-friendly. Hence, your ability to convince a prospect to click your content must also be used in designing your landing page.
The landing page needs a lot of valuable and useful content. If the details are irrelevant, people will close the page. Since other resources battle for attention, they may never consider you again.
Have you brought them to your website to see the products you are offering? If yes, ensure the landing page provides information on getting the product or leading them to the product directly.
By merely scanning your landing page, they should be able to grasp the idea you are painting. The content should not be vague. It should be as detailed as possible for your audience to benefit from.
Will they need to fill in forms upon reaching your landing page? Then make it snappy and straight to the point. Please don’t go too personal on the details. Basic information is sufficient.
A unique landing page will help you get more results from the prospects you attract to the page.
Deliver mouth watering incentives
Who doesn’t love a box of ice cream added as an incentive for buying small chops from their favourite eatery?
When your prospect sees what they stand to gain from you, they end up sharing your services with others. You need to be careful and pay attention to the type of lead you want to generate.
You can go the contest way on social media. When you host a contest, you generate leads effortlessly. You might give them a simple and essential task before they can join the contest. You can also seek their opinions on why they are joining your company’s contest.
Work with influencers and brand partners. Influencers on social media have thousands/millions of followers. They can be the key to reaching more audiences that need your product and services.
Do you know providing a prospect with a discount code for signing up for your newsletter can help you generate more leads on social media? But make sure leads generated can be nurtured and converted with follow-up emails.
Other forms of incentives include giving out whitepapers, webinar invitations, or granting them free access to closed groups. When they can see how beneficial the incentives are, the engagement improves.
Personalize your offers
A key to generating more leads through social media is by personalizing your offers. Personalizing makes reaching your target easier.
Most social media platforms offer tools that make targeting the desired audience easier. You can target them by age, occupation, gender, or social status.
Ensure that your offers are designed for each individual that comes in contact with the ads. As such, they will be able to interact and subscribe to your service.
Monitor your progress
It is best to monitor your lead generation process. There are numerous analytics tools provided by social media platforms. Do your research and find the one that works well for you and your brand.
One of the most popular options is Google Analytics. It makes tracking your leads easier and detailed. From your website, you can easily track where your leads are coming from.
It is best to start with multiple platforms. When you detect the one bringing more results, you can then focus on using that platform.
Wrapping up
Generating leads is a continuous process. Your skills and effectiveness will improve over time. The details provided in this guide will help you better understand how to get good results from your social media marketing endeavors.
Remember, your posts must be detailed and clear. They should be straight to the point. Your audience should see how it is relevant and what they stand to gain.
It’s up to you to decide the results you want. Digest the information in this guide, and you will see massive improvements.
Social media lead generation works, but it must be done the right way.
Michael is an Online Marketing Consultant, Tech Pr Expert, and also the COO of Visible Links Pro. He shares actionable content which assists businesses to thrive online. He can be reached on Twitter, and Linkedln.
Get the word out about your blog with these strategies.
Writing high-quality content is only a small part of creating and maintaining a successful blog. To further increase site traffic and attract more readers to your site, you’ll need to work on blog promotion.
Luckily, there are plenty of strategies that are cost-effective and easy to implement.
Read on to discover how to promote your blog effectively in ten different ways – start experimenting with any of these solutions and watch the traffic roll into your site.
Before learning how to promote your blog, the first step you should take is optimizing your site for search engines. With good SEO, it will be much easier for a blog to rank high on search engine result pages (SERPs) and attract more traffic.
Many factors impact a site’s SEO performance, including the website platform and hosting service you choose to create a blog. These two aspects determine the overall consistency of the site experience you offer to visitors.
When choosing a platform to build a blog, consider starting with a content management system (CMS). This tool makes it easy for non-technical users to create and manage a website. It also offers complete control over a site’s design, functionality, and SEO.
One of the best CMSs to get started with is WordPress. It comes built-in with many SEO features, including meta descriptions, a customizable URL structure, and the ability to use page titles.
Keep in mind that there are two different versions of WordPress – WordPress.com and WordPress.org. Although both platforms provide the same quality of SEO performance, the latter gives users more freedom to utilize plugins to further improve their SEO.
Make sure to also pick a web hosting service that’s reliable, fast, and secure. Some of the top hosting providers to consider are:
Hostinger – has excellent performance and comes with an SEO toolkit to evaluate technical SEO issues on a website. Their hosting prices start at $1.39/month.
Bluehost – offers several SEO tools to increase site traffic. The cost of starting a WordPress blog with their shared hosting plans startsfrom $3.95/month.
HostGator – provides great uptime and speed. The fee of creating a blog with this web host’s shared hosting solutions starting at $2.75/month.
Aside from choosing the right platform and hosting service, there are other blog SEO practices to keep in mind in order to increase blog traffic:
Choose a mobile-friendly theme – Mobile page load speed is a key metric that Google uses when determining a site’s search ranking. That’s why it’s crucial to make a blog responsive to any device.
Internal linking – Internal links can boost a blog’s traffic since they help Google understand and rank the site better. Internal linking also allows visitors to navigate a blog easily.
Use a CDN provider – A content delivery network (CDN) can boost the speed and reduce the resource usage of a website.
Link out to other sites – Including links to some high-quality and authoritative websites can help search engine crawlers understand what a post is about.
Compress images – Reducing the file size of blog posts’ images can speed up a site and improve page loading times.
To manage and monitor your blog’s search engine rankings, make sure to use the best SEO tools for the job, such as SEMRush or Ahrefs.
Additionally, take advantage of free Google SEO tools such as Google Analytics to see the in-depth breakdown of your blog traffic, helping you identify how well your SEO efforts are working.
Knowing the important keywords to use on your blog posts can also improve the blog’s ranking on SERPs and generate valuable traffic. These terms can be discovered by doing keyword research.
Keyword research helps bloggers to create content their visitors are searching for. This process also reveals how many people are searching for a specific keyword and how high the competition is.
(Image credit: SpyFu)
There are plenty of keyword research tools such as KWFinder and SpyFu that can be used to discover keywords, common questions, and topics for content.
When doing keyword research, consider these aspects to decide the best keywords for your blog:
Searcher’s intent – This refers to website users’ intention when searching Google for a specific term. To attract qualified traffic, be sure to choose keywords that match your target audience’s user intent.
Search volume – A keyword’s search volume shows how competitive the term is. Try to target keywords with great search volume since they can increase a blog’s chance to generate significant organic traffic. Keep in mind, however, that it requires more effort to rank for terms with high search volume.
Traffic potential – To identify the keyword’s traffic potential of a topic, use tools like Ahrefs and see how much traffic the current top-ranking pages get and what other keywords they rank for. This process can help you prioritize your keywords and find related terms that users are searching for.
Keyword difficulty – Many SEO analytics tools provide this metric to show how difficult it is to rank for a specific keyword. The higher the score of the term, the more competitive it is.
(Image credit: Pixabay)
Once you have a list of terms to rank for, it’s time to use them for on-page SEO. Here are some key places on a blog to use these keywords:
Page titles – A blog page title is the first element of a site page that people notice in the SERPs. Make sure to use a target keyword at the start of the page title to have both Google and your audience recognize the main subject of the page.
Subheadings – The purpose of subheadings is to make content scannable. Using target keywords in subheadings can increase a content’s relevance for the readers.
Content – It’s one of the most important search ranking factors. Thus, try to include keywords naturally throughout the content and avoid keyword stuffing.
URLs – Using a clean URL with a keyword can improve a site’s architecture, make a blog easier to navigate, and help it rank higher in relevant search results.
Meta descriptions – A meta description is a short explanation that shows up on SERPs under the page title. To boost a page’s click-through rate, try to create a compelling description using target keywords.
Images – Always use alt text for pictures to help search engine crawlers understand your images. Additionally, alt text is vital to a blog’s accessibility since it allows visually impaired users better understand an on-page image.
Remember to use Google Search Console to track your current keyword positioning and analyse which pages drive traffic to your blog.
(Image credit: Geralt / Pixabay)
3. Use email marketing
Email marketing can be one of the most effective ways of promoting your blog and converting visitors if done correctly. This blog promotion strategy helps you notify readers of new blog posts or share any good news with ease.
Sending personalized messages to blog visitors can also help create meaningful relationships with them, keep the audience hooked with high-quality content, and boost engagement on a blog.
The first step to take before getting started with email marketing is to build an email list, a collection of email addresses used to send promotional material.
Here are a few ways to build an email list:
Offer an incentive – Consider giving readers an incentive like a free course, eBook, or cheat sheet in exchange for their email address.
Collect emails directly from the blog – Create a signup form and place it on your home page. Make it stand out and attract readers’ attention with a strong and compelling call to action (CTA).
Create content upgrades – A content upgrade is a valuable offer that complements an article that the reader is already interested in, created to get a visitor’s email address.
Once you have a mailing list, look for email marketing software like Constant Contact or MailChimp. Using an email marketing tool makes it easier to create attractive email templates, deliver emails to large groups of contacts, track messages, and view analytics.
The next step is to craft email content that can lead visitors back to your blog. Here are some tips on how to promote your blog with the use of effective promotional emails:
(Image credit: Darius Foroux)
Provide valuable insight for readers – Use your email to convince readers that your blog post can solve their problems. This email newsletter from Darius Foroux is a great example:
Highlight the content value in the email subject – Readers might receive dozens of promotions every day, so try to capture their attention by creating a short, compelling email subject that clearly states the value of your content.
Create personalized subject lines – Including recipient names in the email’s subject can lead to a 21.2 percent open rate. It can also make the subscribers feel like the email is crafted specifically for them, which helps to build relationships and establish trust.
Make it easy to read – Keep the email clean and easy to digest by using appealing pictures and paragraph breaks.
Use links – Avoid adding attachments to a message since it can affect email deliverability, making it more likely to get lost in spam filters. Instead, use call-to-action links to grab subscriber’s attention and encourage them to act.
Proofreading – To make your emails look more professional, be sure to check for any grammar errors before sending them out.
To get more exposure quickly and efficiently, try sharing your blog post on popular social networks such as Facebook, Instagram, or Pinterest.
Here are some of the benefits of using social media sites to promote your blog:
Increase blog traffic – Sharing content on different social networks helps bloggers reach a wider audience. Additionally, if the content provides value to the users, they might share it further and recommend it to others.
Cost-effective – With social media channels, bloggers can make their site visible to a targeted audience for free.
Improve engagement with the audience – A blogger can also have a personal and meaningful conversation with their readers through social networks. Devoting time to communicate with the audience will help to build trust.
Social media platforms aren’t all created the same, so try to focus on the most relevant social networks that suit your target audience. For instance, if you’re targeting female readers, then Pinterest might be the right social media for you.
Here are other tips for leveraging social media and bringing more traffic to your blog:
Add a blog link to the bio – A social media bio is the first thing people see on an account. Make sure to use it to drive traffic to your site or blog content.
Share engaging content using existing posts – Use a free tool like Canva to convert your top blog articles into appealing graphics.
Integrate social media icons into the site – Adding social media icons to a blog makes it easier for visitors to share blog content with their audience.
Post regularly – Be sure to know how often you should share in a specific social network. For example, Twitter users should share at least one tweet a day.
Use hashtags – Utilizing a hashtag is a great way to expand the reach of a post and connect it to a specific conversation, topic, or event. Hashtags also make it easier to locate other relevant content around particular terms.
Join online groups – Become part of a social community such as the ones found in LinkedIn, or a Facebook group to share content and increase the visibility of your blog.
Find the optimal time for posting – Knowing the optimum time to post on your chosen channel can help you get more clicks and engagements. Thankfully, most social platforms have an analytics or insights tool that provides this information. Once you know the best times to post, start planning and preparing your content in advance using social media management tools like Buffer.
Remember that social media is a two-way engagement platform that requires actual interaction. Don’t just reappear whenever you have a new blog post – instead, maintain a regular presence on a social network by starting conversations, responding to comments, and answering questions.
5. Promote your blog with online paid advertising
If you have a budget you’re willing to spend, consider using online paid advertising to promote your blog content. This strategy refers to a marketing method where you pay for ad spots to attract internet traffic.
With the paid promotion, your page can appear right in front of your target audience in no time. It’s also possible to see the results as soon as your ads go live.
Online paid marketing can feature one or more digital channels, including search engine results pages (SERPs) and social media platforms.
The process of increasing blog visibility on SERPs through paid advertising is usually known as search engine marketing (SEM). This method relies on keywords to target users when they’re performing searches in a search engine.
Here’s an example of how advertisements appear for the keywords “how to boost your SEO”:
(Image credit: Google)
To promote a blog with search advertising, try using a popular online marketing service like Google Ads.
Also, consider the following suggestions before getting started with paid search ads:
Be clear on budget and expectations – Make sure to have a specific budget to avoid overspending and clear goals in order to analyse whether a campaign works or not.
Keep the quality score up – A quality score rates the relevance of both your ads and keywords. Having a great quality score can help to keep your ad costs low.
Bid on competitive blog keywords – If your competitors have a lot of traffic for their brand name, try to target those keywords with your ads. This way, searchers will see your relevant content and go to your blog post instead of those of the competitors.
Another form of paid advertising is social media ads. This blog promotion method lets you target users based on their locations, specific interests, and buying behaviours.
Some of the best social media sites for advertising are Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
Here are a few tips on how to promote your blog with social media advertising:
Design the ads with mobile in mind – Since 91 percent of users access social channels via mobile devices, ensure your ads incorporate easy-to-view images on the small screen.
Use videos – A video is more engaging and has a better return on investment (ROI) than other media types.
Test your ads – Try A/B testing your ads to see what works best for your campaign and make the most of your spending.
(Image credit: Pixabay)
6. Guest post on popular blogs
Guest posting on other blogs is an excellent way to promote your blog since it lets you expose your brand to other bloggers’ loyal audiences. This method also helps to establish yourself as an authority figure and connect with other thought leaders in a niche.
(Image credit: OnTopList)
To find guest blogging opportunities, go to blog directories like AllTop, Bloglovin, and OnTopList. These websites can help people discover relevant blogs in a niche that might accept guest posting.
Once you have a list of potential blogs to guest post on, use a backlink analysis tool like Moz to check the domain authority for each of the sites you’re considering – the higher a blog’s domain authority, the easier it can rank in search engines. Doing this also showcases whether these sites provide good value in terms of links.
Keep the following tips and tricks in mind to get started with guest blogging:
Form a genuine relationship with the site owners – Many website owners only take guest content from bloggers they already know and trust. Thus, try to connect with them first before sending a pitch by subscribing to their newsletter, leaving comments on their blog posts, and commenting on their social content.
Keep the pitch short and straight to the point – Since most site owners don’t have the time to read long emails, keep your email as brief and direct as possible.
Link to your blog articles – Some sites might let guest bloggers backlink to their site, helping to drive referral traffic and lead to better search visibility for the blog. Bloggers can use Google Analytics to track traffic from this guest posting effort.
Ask the audience to leave comments – Encourage readers to post their opinions and share the content. This helps to have the content rank for different keywords that are naturally mentioned in the comments.
Take advantage of the author’s profile – Guest bloggers can also include their blog’s link in the author’s bio, which helps to drive people to their site.
7. Reach out to other bloggers
Another viable blog promotion solution is the conduction of blogger outreach. It’s a marketing strategy that involves getting the help of well-known bloggers or influencers to improve a blog’s exposure by offering something in return, such as a fee, backlink, product, or service.
With this blog promotion method, new bloggers can acquire high-quality backlinks, attract quality traffic, and expand their network.
(Image credit: Lumanu)
To get started with blogger outreach, look for influencers in your niche using tools like GroupHigh, Influencity, and Lumanu.
Then, refer to these tips on how to promote your blog by leveraging the loyal audience of others:
Get the influencers to notice you – Mention influencers on social media and promote their relevant content to make them recognize you.
Interview professionals – Aside from asking for an inbound link from influencers, bloggers can also invite them for an interview. When the interview is published, the influencers might also share it with their audiences.
Try broken link building – A great tip to get backlinks from influencers without paying a dime is to identify broken links on their blogs and present your content as an alternative replacement.
Track the results – Use a backlink checker like Majestic to see which influencers are giving you the best coverage and the most leads.
Cultivate relationships – After getting blog coverage from an influencer, make sure to maintain your relationship with them. The stronger the relationship, the longer the benefits can last for your blog.
8. Get your blog on social bookmarking sites
A social bookmarking site is a platform to read and save a specific web page or article. With this tool, users can access their bookmarks from any device at any time.
Social bookmarking sites are great places to share blog posts with new readers. When your content is listed on or shared through a bookmarking site, it can result in massive increases in traffic back to your blog.
To begin with this blog promotion method, bloggers need to choose a platform to participate in and submit their content to that site. Some of the most popular bookmarking websites are Digg, Flipboard, and Pocket.
(Image credit: DZone)
Bloggers can also share their blog posts on niche social bookmarking sites like GrowthHackers and DZone to generate more relevant shares and traffic.
Here are a few tips on how to promote your blog content on a social bookmarking site:
Make the headlines count – Some social bookmarking platforms might only display the article’s title. Thus, compel potential readers to click on your link by using a catchy, captivating headline.
Add a featured image – Make the article stand out on the news feeds by using attractive graphics.
Keep the description length in mind – Some sites might limit the description space to 150 characters, so try to make the description short and match the content.
Utilize social bookmarking buttons on the blog – Consider adding a social bookmarking button on your site to let readers bookmark content with ease.
9. Promote your blog in online forums
Another excellent method of blog promotion is to join online forums. Being part of online communities lets you interact, contribute, and bring value to a niche group of people.
Joining online forums also allows bloggers to share their knowledge, which can help establish their expertise in a field.
However, finding niche forums can be overwhelming, especially in some of the biggest online communities like Reddit.
(Image credit: FindAForum)
To discover a forum that matches your field faster, try using an internet resource like FindAForum. Simply go to its categories section or enter your niche in the search bar to find a list of discussion forums.
Here are some suggestions on how to promote your blog via online forums:
Participate – To develop trust and make people more willing to engage in a blog, be prepared to contribute to the forum regularly. Try to answer questions, provide quality responses, and link to helpful resources.
Start a thread – Another way to prove that you’re a valuable member is to create your own threads. Begin by making a shorter and different version of your blog content and use it to start a new thread.
Create a signature – Some forums let users create a signature or a text that appears below a post or thread. Take advantage of this signature to make a call to action to bring traffic to your site.
10. Try reciprocal sharing sites
Bloggers can also use a reciprocal sharing site to promote their blog. Using this method, they need to share other users’ content on their social media accounts to get their blog posts promoted.
(Image credit: Triberr)
One of the most popular reciprocal sharing websites is Triberr. This tool makes it simple and easy to grow your audience, find great posts to share with readers, and network with other bloggers.
When using a reciprocal sharing site, make sure to share content that is editorial in line with the type of post you want to be known for curating – it helps increase your credibility and exposure in a specific niche.
Also, remember to include relevant images, graphics, or relevant stock photos to make your content stand out.
Another tip is to be consistent and make it a habit to regularly share posts or respond to comments. The more consistent you post and interact with other users, the more reliable you seem to be.
(Image credit: Pixabay)
Promoting your blog
Aside from publishing awesome content, bloggers must also spend time and effort promoting their blogs. Without a promotion strategy, it can be difficult for a blog to grow and generate a steady stream of readers coming to check the site out.
The most effective strategy for you also depends on the resources at your disposal, such as the budget, skill set, and timeframe.
Here are ten strategies on how to promote your blog and get more qualified visitors:
Utilize SEO for your blog
Do proper keyword research
Use email marketing
Share your blog on social media
Promote your blog with online paid advertising
Guest post on popular blogs
Reach out to other blogs
Get your blog on social bookmarking sites
Promote your blog in online forums
Try reciprocal sharing sites
Keep in mind that it may take a few weeks or months before you notice a significant increase in your traffic and online ranking.
Also check out our complete list of the best web hosting services
Désiré has been musing and writing about technology in a career spanning four decades. Following an eight-year stint at ITProPortal.com where he discovered the joys of global techfests, Désiré now heads up TechRadar Pro. He has an affinity for anything hardware and staunchly refuses to stop writing reviews of obscure products or cover niche B2B software-as-a-service providers.
Email isn’t going anywhere, and it cannot be ignored.
Millions of consumers worldwide use email and its use continues to increase throughout the years. Email is one of the most popular communication channels, and the majority of emails sent daily are business related.
Think of how many emails you receive on a daily and weekly basis — they consume a large part of our life. From notifications to paperless billing — we rely heavily on emails every single day.
Email marketing has continued to be one of the most effective ways for a business to market to its customers. Email is personal and the open rates put your message in front of its intended recipients more than any other channel.
Email isn’t going anywhere, and while SMS marketing may be experiencing industry-high open rates, specifically in the e-commerce industry, email cannot be ignored. Here is why brands need to be all-in on email marketing.
More customizable and personal than social media
E-commerce brands, especially direct-to-consumer brands, love social media. While social media offers a great platform to market to your customers, it isn’t highly customizable or personal.
If a brand has 100,000 followers on Instagram, for example, every Post or Story is broadcast to that entire audience. What if a D2C apparel brand has both men’s and women’s lines? A post highlighting the women’s spring collection is going to be seen by all followers — male and female.
Email, however, allows an e-commerce brand to segment its list based on data. An apparel brand can have a main list that includes all customers, and then segment that into lists according to purchase behaviour.
Sending an email announcing a new women’s line to customers that have previously purchased women’s apparel is going to perform much better than an offer broadcast to the entire list. The same applies to men’s drops.
Email personalization also helps to create a stronger relationship. A post on social media feels generic, whereas an email addressed to the recipient feels more personal.
Highly measurable data
When you take all of the data available to you and break it down, you can make incredible improvements in your future email deployments. You can further segment your list, identifying your best customers and you can also use data to determine the best days of the week and time of day to send messages.
Numbers don’t lie, and when you take the time to analyse your email data, you will find new opportunities and optimize them to improve your overall results. For example, you might find that general newsletters have a significantly higher open rate on Tuesday afternoon, while special offers convert better on Friday mornings.
Access to this data also allows you to send dynamic content within your emails, tailored to each recipient. When you place an offer for a product they were recently viewing on your website in front of them, they are more likely to convert than they would be if it was just a generic blanket offer designed to appeal to the masses.
Consumers have instant access to their email via mobile devices
Mobile devices have the majority of consumers’ email at the tip of their fingers. You don’t have to wait for them to get home or to login to their email on a desktop or laptop. They are notified as soon as that email hits their device.
Whether or not they open your email immediately depends on several factors. If they are busy, they are going to ignore their email until they have time to dive in. A strong Call to Action in the email subject, however, can potentially get your emails opened very quickly.
Most consumers are glued to their mobile phones all day and all night — from the morning when they wake up until it’s time to go to sleep. Even while working or preoccupied, most will at least glance at their notifications.
Email gives you instant access to the majority of your customer base. Remember, you aren’t the only brand vying for their attention. Strong email subjects to draw high click-through rates are important, as is conveying your message within the first few sentences.
The right offer can trigger an immediate action, which is the beauty of email marketing. A consumer could have no intention of making a purchase, but they become intrigued with your offer, and the next thing they know, their credit card is out and they are completing a transaction on your website from their mobile device.
Cost-effective
Online marketing costs are skyrocketing for e-commerce brands. Facebook ads are becoming increasingly popular, therefore driving costs so high that it’s forcing many brands to look for additional channels that provide a more affordable acquisition cost.
Email is hands-down the most cost-effective, as the hard costs to deploy messages are minimal. Customer emails are collected when they make a purchase and via opt-ins on-site. While there is a cost associated with every email address added to a list, that is a one-time cost.
That email list turns into an asset that becomes more valuable as it grows. Large e-commerce brands can send email marketing offers weekly or bi-weekly and generate a substantial amount of revenue each time without the customer acquisition costs that come with Google Ads and Facebook ads.
Why media companies need to put social media at the centre of their content and distribution strategies
The attention and support of younger readers is critical for the survival and sustained growth of publishers. However, “the millennial audience strategy honed over the better part of a decade will not work on Gen Z (born between 1997 to 2012)” says Kayleigh Barber, Senior Reporter, Digiday. This is because their media consumption habits are vastly different from the preceding generations.
57% of Gen Zers’ first interaction with news is on social media
“Despite being a significant portion and growing force on the internet for over a decade now Gen Z remains an enigma for many media companies and brands,” writes Barber in a recently published Digiday guide, “Everything you need to know about Gen Z’s media consumption habits.” It offers a comprehensive look at Gen Zers’ media consumption habits and shares actionable insights for publishers and marketers.
Whether or not Gen Z is currently a target demographic in your business strategy, creating a positive connection with this generation and beginning to build brand affinity now is important to ensure the longevity of your brand or publication in a decade or two down the road.
Kayleigh Barber, Author, Everything you need to know about Gen Z’s media consumption habits
41% of US adults, including both young millennials and Gen Zers (18-29 years), say they primarily get their political news from social media, according to a Pew research study of more than 12,000 individuals. A 2019 Reuters Institute study had 57% of Gen Zers reporting that their first interaction with news in the morning is on social media platforms and messaging apps.
Brie D’Elia, 20, a fashion student who is building her personal brand on TikTok, tells Barber that Twitter is her go-to platform for news. “When I want a specific trending piece of information, I always go there because you can see the hashtags and what’s going viral. I just want that [information] fast,” she says.
“Social media at the centre of their content and distribution strategies”
Publishers targeting Gen Z “have put social media at the centre of their content and distribution strategies,” Barber writes. They include Group Nine, Yahoo’s In the Know and Overtime. Legacy publications including The Washington Post have embraced newer platforms like TikTok, frequented by Gen Z. Video is critical for engaging this generation and the Post’s success with TikTok offers valuable lessons for other publishers.
The unique thing about Gen Z is that while millennials have grown up with social media, Gen Z has grown up with video-first social media.
Nick Cicero, VP of Strategy, Conviva
Dave Jorgenson, video producer for the Post, has been creating content for the platform since 2019. His often quirky videos tailored for TikTok have helped the publisher notch 1M followers and 40M likes on the platform. It looks at TikTok as a tool for building relationships with younger readers.
“With our focus on reader revenue at the bottom of the funnel, loyalty is incredibly important to us. But in order to get to a place of loyalty, it starts with a relationship at the top of the funnel,” says Kat Downs Mulder, Managing Editor at the Post.
A lot of what we’re doing is exposing people to The Washington Post [and] getting them to start to develop that affinity to trust in our brand.
Kat Downs Mulder, Managing Editor, The Washington Post
“Inherently a publisher that talks to Gen Z is going to have positive things to say about climate change, and pushing innovation and progression,” Clair Bergam, Associate Media Director, Media Kitchen told Digiday earlier this year. “Brands generally are realizing that they have to get behind these larger social issues or they will quickly become irrelevant.”
In the Know was launched to produce evergreen video content for younger audiences across Yahoo’s suite of sites and channels. It became popular enough to get its standalone site in February 2020. The site notched 25M monthly unique visitors in March, according to Comscore.
The brand had also been experimenting with affiliate shopping since 2019 and moved on to producing shoppable video. It’s gross merchandise value increased by 125% over the past year, according to Andrea Wasserman, Head of Global Commerce, Verizon Media.
The brand also uses Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook to distribute its videos. A single video on Snapchat is able to drive over 1M unique views from the 13-to-24 years group, Wasserman tells Barber.
“Consumption behaviour is driving them towards these platforms”
Digital video sports publisher Overtime has reached 16.6M followers on its main TikTok account—it joined in March of 2019. The publisher has also achieved over 1B likes across the 2,000-plus videos it’s posted during this period. It has 5M followers on Instagram and 3M subscribers to its Snapchat show Overtime Now.
The publisher’s distributed content strategy across social media platforms has been its bread and butter since its launch in 2016, according to its CRO Rich Calacci. “Quite frankly, we don’t see that changing,” he says. “That’s going to be a very critical part of our growth and development, especially as it relates to Gen Z and millennials.”
Gen Z’s “consumption behaviour is driving them towards these platforms and it’s creating digital daily habits, and those digital daily habits are where we want to be.”
