4 Social Media Marketing Hacks That You Should Start Using Right Away

We know that social media marketing is a powerful tool, and we have been told how essential these platforms are for targeting new and engaging the existing audience of our business. But when it comes to truly engaging the audience, we never try to be subtle; in fact, our content is too promotional and it hardly focuses on providing answers to people’s real problems or queries that they may have about the products and services that they may be using.

 

Successful businesses have been creating valuable content and taking their social media marketing campaigns to another level, and not to forget that there is a world beyond Facebook too, as increasing number of people are resorting to websites like Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Periscope, Meerkat, etc.

 

While this isn’t news, fact is that you may be undermining the real capabilities of your social media marketing. The competition is ferocious. There are tons of companies who are striving to produce better and unique content, because they know the value of capturing their audience’s attention. If you think you have been successfully capturing the full potential of your business’s social media accounts, check out how these 4 under-used techniques for building a better brand on social media.

 

1. Try an online open house

Facebook is that one social media platform that offers you to add a full-fledge online store to your page, but still, many

businesses don’t bother to use it correctly. Your business’s social media accounts are actually an open house where anyone can come and experience your products or services. Use social media to showcase the best features of your product. For instance, many realtors have been conducting an online open house to sell real estate and the success rate of doing so is quite high. This is because we, as customers, feel quite groggy nowadays, nor do we have enough time and energy to walk through every available property. Use this idea and make it your own.

 

When you do it, focus on the visual experience to add a human dimension to your brand. Connect with your target audience by showing them how your company looks and operates. Through images, let your audience know about your business’s culture and belief system. This will really appeal to your potential audience, including those who are looking forward to do business with you, and those seeking out a job.

 

2. Let your staff and customers interact

Businesses do conduct online contests and competitions to improve customer interaction.  But these contests don’t really go well as they turn out to be one-sided and fail to engage the audience. To improve a two-way dialogue and to take your competitions to another level, let your staff and followers compete together against other teams. This way, your staff can directly interact with your business customers and make them feel to be contributing to something bigger and better. Your customers will be understanding everything better and it will be more fun too.

 

When you run a contest, it could be anything like a quiz related to geography, sports or culture or a game like word search, Hangman or Pictionary, but with a few questions related to your company. This will encourage both your employees and customer to put some thinking about your brand. Your competition needs to have tons of interaction with team members and a definite and worthy reward at the end. The end result: Your audience will be better connected to your brand, emotionally, and it will always stay on the top of their mind that they did something engaging and fun with you.

 

3. Have an online talk show

Podcasts are a normality now, as they are quite useful with demonstrating the product dimensions, quality, etc. Again,

same issue. These videos are just speaking to the audience but aren’t creating a two-way communication. It’s true that these videos have a comment section where potential customers can interact, but the issue is that the content itself isn’t very interactive. You need to tell your audience that you aren’t just trying to sell your product but also trying to help and solve their problems. So have a talk show where your customers can interact and ask about their individual problems and issues, that could either be related to your company’s product or a general query.

 

4. Try an online trade show

Just like panel interviews or online talk shows offer your followers something valuable, similarly, an online trade show can give them access to something that they may not have, otherwise. This is an intense strategy that involves different activities, but normally includes showcasing your product through a set of videos in a live show, together with a host and some guests to improve the customer engagement. The guests should be relevant so that they are able to answer the field questions of your social media followers. By collaborating with other strategic partners, you can create a more powerful online platform where people can communicate and inquire.

 

But before you put these four aforementioned social media hacks into practice, try doing the following:

 

• Plan your tactic carefully, including the quality and timing of your content.
• Assess any possible risk of using a certain tactic and how it could go wrong in your company’s case. Also, you may want to be prepared for any issue like power outage, negative feedback or technical glitch.
• Test your social media campaign and see how your team handles it. This way, you will be able to point out any potential problems and can also devise a plan to solve them out.

 

When your purpose is to excel at social media, try something that your customers will truly find unique. This is the only way out.