5 Key Qualities of a Strong Social Media Strategy

Due to its rising popularity, social media has already become a powerful tool for the business of any industry to connect and interact with its audience. According to recent research, social media accounts for over 34% of the time people spend on the Internet, which stimulates more and more stores and brands to go online for the audience to widen and increase their awareness. That is why social media strategy is now a crucial part of digital marketing.

In this article, we will analyze the key points of applying the social media marketing strategy to the business and provide you with some useful tips on how to create an efficient social strategy for your business development plan. 

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Social Media Strategy: Why It Matters?

First of all, it is greatly important to find out the main reasons and benefits of creating the social media strategy, and the first one we would like to point out is that billions of people use it. Having created the correct plan for your social account or business development can significantly boost your business promotion. 

Secondly, planning all the steps in advance is easier to stay competitive in any industry. Also, it is a great method for interacting with your audience, improving website traffic, and sales revenue. Last but not least, it supplements your website by supplying a stable number of visitors and increasing the audience as well. 

Now, let’s talk in numbers: over 90% of the Instagram audience say that they start following the brand, going to its website, or make a purchase there. Over 90 million small businesses use Facebook for their e-commerce. And up to 69% of users watch a video about the product on YouTube to think over purchasing. 

Impressive, isn’t it?

Key Tips for Creating a Strong Social Strategy

1) Create S.M.A.R.T. Objectives

To make your strategy efficient, it should meet the criteria of being:

• S is for specific – targeted to a certain audience;
• M is for measurable – aimed at income increasing;
• A is for attainable – close to reality, those that can be actually achieved;
• R is for relevant – based on real information and statistics;
• T is for time-bound – measured with the deadlines so as to track the progress. 

If used properly, these S.M.A.R.T. goals can significantly help you to create a powerful strategy for your business. 

2) Know Your Audience

By knowing your audience it is much easier to understand the core idea of your strategy, as it is oriented at the final consumer of your business. That means that you can interact with your audience via social media accounts in the exact way they want you to do. In addition, it is an important point for turning your followers into customers for your business. 

For this purpose, the most common metrics analyzed are location, age, interests, occupation, and even average income. After pointing out the needs and wants of your audience, it would be much easier to get their attention on the Internet and boost your interaction. 

3) Analyze the Competitors

Sometimes when your mind is blank on what are the lack points of your social media strategy, it is quite useful to feel yourself in consumers’ shoes by going to your competitors’ pages. Point out the features you like and dislike about their account, which you would like to redo, and which one would be better to apply to your own account? Then make a short comparison of what are the strong and the lack sides of both your and competitors’, after what we strongly recommend to take a sheet of paper and write all these ideas, even the most unusual ones. 

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This list may become a huge booster for your improving strategy, so do not miss it!

4) Create Unique Content

One of the key points of the social strategy is to make enthralling and memorized content that will be catching the audience’s attention and help you to develop their interest in your product. Of course, it shouldn’t be too large and boring, so we recommend you to stick to the KISS principle (Keep It Short and Simple). Also, it is a great option to use some help from the Essay Writer Pro, so as to increase your content efficiency. 

According to Forbes, well-planned content is one of the keys to building successful strategies in social media, as in such a way you are more likely to meet all the requirements of your audience and establish a close connection with it. 

5) Promote Your Idea

However, it is now enough to make the points mentioned above, as it is also essential to make an effective promotion plan to make everything work out. That means you also have to mind the ads that can be applied to your business and how to operate it. For example, by knowing the preferences of your audience you can easily make a targeted ad on Facebook or Instagram because it is more likely to meet your consumer via advertising on social media. 

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For instance, make a short video of your product, its benefits, or cases where it can be helpful so to present it to the potential consumer. It is discovered that over 30% of people would like to watch the videos of the product before thinking over its purchase. Thus, applying the video content to your social media ads can be also a good point to include in your strategy.

Conclusion

All in all, the social media strategy nowadays is an irregular tool which can greatly boost your business and stay competitive in any industry. Here we have presented the main reasons for creating your own strategy and added 5 efficient ways for you to include while making it. These methods can be applied to any social network so there is no need for worrying.

Without any doubt, we recommend you to create your social media development plan immediately and check its efficiency on your own. 

Our team wishes you good luck with it!

6 Social Media Contest Ideas to Engage Your Audience

How do you keep your audience engaged on social media? Running social media contests is a great way to boost your brand online and increase engagement. In fact, social media contests have the potential to generate thousands of entries and reach millions of people. We’ve gathered six social media contest ideas to help you keep your audience interested and engaged.

#1 Create an exciting hook
Your hook must be exciting and intriguing enough to get your audience on board. However, before you rush to choose your hook, it’s crucial to choose the prize first. The award can consist of a pre-paid vacation, a gift card, your product, or another brand-related product.
Now, as you’ve figured out the prize, let’s determine the hook for your contest. Some prizes will sell themselves. Who doesn’t want to go on a fully paid vacation to the Bahamas? In this case, the prize itself can be the hook.
If you can’t afford to send the lucky winners to the Bahamas, there are other ways to hook your audience. For example, you can hype up the exclusivity of the prizes. Award the winners with the best-selling products or with the items in their wishlist.

#2 Encourage user-generated content
Encouraging entrants to create branded content is one of the best ways to engage your audience. User-generated content (UGC) is any content (e.g. pictures, reviews, posts, videos, etc.) that has been created and posted by users on social media. For many brands, UGC is the primary method of engaging their audience. Not only does UGC engage your audience, but it also has an impact on purchase decisions. Additionally, UGC contributes to building trust and credibility as customers display your products in their online “testimonials.”

How to encourage UGC in social media contests? You can require entrants to post a picture of your product on their Instagram or Facebook story with a particular hashtag to participate in the contest. For example, the world-famous brand Heinz launched a competition with prizes. According to the rules, users must take a photo of their holiday tables, leave a request on the website or hashtag under the publication on Twitter or Instagram. Among the participants, there will be a drawing of certificates for $ 100 or a trip to visit relatives. In this way, Heinz has stimulated the generation and distribution of user-generated content.

Important note: Always request permission before sharing UGC and credit the original content creator in the description.

#3 Put on a vote contest
Running a vote contest is another great way to boost user engagement on social media. Regardless of the size of your company and your budget, vote contests are easy to put on and can be used by all. Also, vote contests are a great way to show your followers that their opinion matters.
Provide your customers with more interactive opportunities as you post vote contests regularly. To increase engagement, make sure that the topic of the vote resonates with your audience. Vote contests that are fun and relate to audiences’ lifestyles are the best engagement boosters. For example, Mediacorp managed to put on a voting contest using Votigo customize contest platform.

You can also set up a simple guessing game to engage your audience and award the contestant whose answer is correct. For example, you can post a picture featuring a bunch of your products and ask how many of a particular product your followers see. Don’t be afraid to get creative on this one. Try to create a guessing game that will grab your followers’ attention.
Additionally, you can ask for the email of your voters as they submit their responses. This will help you build up your mailing list and reach a wider audience with your email marketing campaign.

#4 Run a sweepstake
Sweepstakes is an easy and fast way to engage your Facebook followers. A sweepstake is a lottery that rewards a prize to a randomly selected winner. Your followers enter their personal info, including their email, and click ‘Enter Sweepstakes.’ Once they’ve entered the competition, your followers can share the post and invite others to participate.
Alternatively, you can ask your participants to come out with a creative comment, follow your Facebook account, or like the post. Professionals from Ivory Research, an essay writing services company, suggest that running sweepstakes are a great way to boost engagement rates and generate more leads as participants must interact with your page and share their email to enter the competition.
This AccuWeather sweepstakes campaign created by Votigo is a great example.

#5 Run a daily prize contest
Running a daily prize contest is another effective way to keep your followers engaged and interested in your campaign. The main idea behind daily prize contests is that you have a series of prizes designated specifically for each day of the campaign. For example, you can give out your products to the winners of the sweepstake each day of the week.
Besides improved engagement rates, you’ll get a valuable insight on which products motivate contestants to participate more.

#6 Use contests to support a cause
Did you know that the majority of Americans are supporting socially responsible organizations? In fact, running a charity contest is an amazing way to keep your customers engaged. Use your social media contest to support a cause that aligns with your company’s values and social mission. For example, you can run a vote contest asking your participants to choose a non-profit for you to make a donation.

How to select a prize?
Now, let’s figure out how to select a prize worth participating in a contest. It’s best to have a prize that is somehow related to your industry or your product. For example, you can give out an exclusive gift card or some of your most popular products.
Many service providers fail to create social media contests as they can’t offer a tangible prize to the winner. If you’re a service provider struggling to come up with a prize, consider giving out your services.
Here is another great example by Votigo of how you can offer products and coupons as a prize. Notice how they include multiple prizes.

Conclusion
There are many ways you can employ contests to boost user engagement. Hopefully, this article has given you a better idea of the different types of social media contests.

Thinking about running a holiday sweepstakes? Read this first

Stockings hung with care on the fireplace mantel…

Gingerbread towels added to your kitchen decor….

Holiday trimmings added right down to Christmas pillows…

The holiday season has a lot of unforeseen expenses. That’s why so many people during this time of year are open to opportunities to offset some costs or, at the very least, for a few free goodies. There is a definite reason why Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals are so popular. It’s also the reason why so many companies choose to run sweepstakes (otherwise known as giveaways) this time of year.

As a sweepstakes management company, we like to consider ourselves optimists. If you’re thinking about conducting a sweepstakes this season, we urge you to go for it. However, it is really important that you take the time to carefully consider all of the possible pitfalls to conduct a smart giveaway that will have a positive, lasting impact on your business.

Here are 8 tips to keep in mind if your company is considering running a holiday sweepstakes:

#1. It’s important to establish your goals.
Holiday Sweepstakes can be great for your business, particularly in a year that has been challenging for many businesses to stay afloat. If you do it right, sweepstakes can help to: a) increase social media following and website traffic, b) raise brand awareness, c) deepen your relationship with existing customers and d) build the hype for new products. However, in order to accomplish any of these goals, it is critical that you outline the results that you want to see out of your giveaway before you begin.

Remember, since this giveaway will be happening in a limited time frame during the holidays, you need to be extra smart about setting your goals so you can achieve them by the end of the season. A great way to set smart goals? Use the S.M.A.R.T. acronym and set goals that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely. For more information on this tool, refer to this article.

#2. Have a plan to stand out from the competition.
This means investing in stellar graphics, engaging videos and solid copywriting. Also, have a plan to garner engagement, both paid and organic, right off the bat. If there is one tip we can offer in standing out, it’s this: be authentic. People relate to authenticity. Whether you’re funny or more sentimental, always make sure it is in line with your brand, both as it is now and where you would like it to be post-sweepstakes.

#3. Establish your audience.
If you’re a business that is just starting out or you’re a business on the verge of pivoting due to this pandemic, politics or any 2020-related shenanigans, ensure that you take the time to map out your ideal audience for this giveaway. Keep in mind that while you can have multiple target audiences for your company, that doesn’t mean that you need to have multiple targeted audiences for your giveaway. For example, while your product may appeal to both young moms looking for gifts for their 4-6 year olds and 80+ grandparents looking for gifts for their teenage grandchildren, you will have wildly different advertising approaches for both. You may not have the resources to develop campaigns appealing to both, so it’s critical that you tailor your marketing to one or the other. Once you’ve set your audience(s), make sure you figure out their pain points and talk directly to them through your marketing outreach.

#4. Consider if a sweepstakes is right for you or if a contest is a better option.
It’s important to know the difference between sweepstakes and contests. As a refresher, in contests, winners are not chosen at random but are chosen based on skill. Entry can be free or require purchase (in most states). This can be a great way to deepen a relationship with an already existing audience that uses your products or services to further a skill. For example, if you are a company that sells high-end art supplies, your audience may be more drawn to an opportunity to share their work and compete for potential prizes and public recognition.

In sweepstakes, winners are random and purchase cannot be required for entry (purchase can be monetary or non-monetary). A caveat to this is that you can have an option for purchase for entry if, and only if, you also provide a free Alternative Means of Entry (AMOE). Sweepstakes are great for promoting a brand or products unrelated to skill. It is also a great option for the holidays considering that people may be limited on their free time for competitions and some entrants might be attempting to transfer a potential prize as a gift.

#5. Choose the right marketing platform for your business.
Do research to find out where your audience hangs out. 18-22 year old college students? You better be on TikTok. 40 year olds with a mortgage and 2 kids? Facebook might be a better route for you. Wherever they are is where you should be. Also, since this is a holiday promotion, make sure you are sensitive to the holidays that they celebrate.

#6. Your prize really matters.
A few factors to consider when determining your prize: target audience, budget, shipping costs, desirability and whether you want to highlight new products or reinvigorate interest in older products. One more thing: consider that this year is different from any other year due to COVID-19. In previous years, you may have offered a prize related to experiences involving contact with other people such as travel. In 2020, however, you have to be absolutely sure that you are aware of current restrictions, limitations and risks that could impact a recipient claiming their prize.

#7. Consider that this year is different from any other year.
Not only does this impact the prizes, it impacts everything from what your audience wants right now to what platform you use to host your sweepstakes. Make sure you are viewing your sweepstakes through the lens of 2020. For example, consider that TikTok is more popular than ever and, particularly if you are appealing to a younger tech-savvy crowd, you may want to consider advertising your sweepstakes on this platform.

#8. Make sure you are following the rules.
From income taxes to restrictions on alcohol giveaways to prizes above a certain value needing to be registered and bonded, there are a lot of sweepstakes guidelines that are commonly overlooked and can lead to damaging legal consequences. For an example of some of these restrictions, read our recent article here. Due to the potential liability, we always recommend that you consult a sweepstakes management company before running any giveaway.

Planning on running a sweepstakes this holiday season?

We hope these tips have helped. If you need more guidance, we’re currently offering a free, 30 minute holiday sweepstakes consultation at Heyo. Contact us to schedule yours today.

6 Key Steps to a Run Successful Social Media Contest!

Did you know that running a social media contest is an amazing way to increase engagement and boost your brand online? In fact, over 70% of companies use some sort of gamification or contest in their engagement strategy. Social media contests are so popular because of their potential to reach millions of users and generate thousands of entries.

We’ve gathered a list of the most common reasons why social media contests fail. In addition, you’ll find advice and step-by-step instruction on how to prevent your contest from failing.

Why do social media contests fail?

Reason #1 Prize isn’t worth participating
Bad choice of a prize is the first and most common reason why social media contests fail. Irrelevant prizes have no value to the potential participants. Many users decide not to enter because they simply lack motivation.

Reason #2 Lack of instruction on how to enter the contest
Confusing instructions in another common reason why a contest can be ruined. If you don’t see any contest participants, it’s likely because they don’t know how to enter. Sometimes, the contest rules are poorly described. Other times, they are so complicated and confusing that no one wants to enter. Either way, lack of instruction is a major reason why your social media contest can fail.

Reason #3 No follow-up
Leaving your contest deprived of your attention after posting it is another reason why it may fail. Keep in mind that participants’ interest in the contest dies out eventually after they’ve entered. Many contest creators fail to follow up with the participants to keep them interested and encourage sharing.

Reason #4 Lack of visuals
Another common reason why a contest may fail is the lack of visuals. Did you know that human brains process visual information 60,000 times faster than text? That’s why it’s so important to present the rules and the contest itself in a visually appealing way. Otherwise, your contest can get lost in the feed and left unnoticed.

Reason #5 Poor marketing
Last but not least, poor marketing can keep your contest away from going viral. When you’re hosting a social media contest, you can’t just put out a couple of posts and expect them to do the advertising. A significant number of potential participants will pass your contest if it’s poorly marketed.

How do you prevent your social media contest from failing?

Now, as you’ve discovered the most common mistakes and reasons why your contest can fail, let’s dive deep and learn how to prevent them from happening.

1. Evaluate your purpose and resources
Evaluating your resources is the first step that’ll prevent your social media contest from failing. It’s important to identify the purpose of your contest during this stage. Do you want to increase social media engagement? Do you want to grow your email list? Or are you interested in encouraging user-generated content? Answering these questions will help you identify the contest entry structure and rules.

Also, you’ll need to set up the budget for your social media contest. Make sure to consider the cost of your prize, promotion, and any other services you’ll need.

2. Choose a prize
For your contest to be successful, the prize should be worth participating in. Offer something unique and exclusive. It’s important to choose a prize that is valuable and relevant to your audience. Speaking of value and relevance, you don’t want to give out free pizza if you own a yoga studio.

Not particularly sure how to choose your prize? Here are some ideas for contest prizes:

• Your brand’s gift card
• Your product or industry-related product
• A unique experience, like a pre-paid vacation
• Money

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If you consider a fairly expensive prize, determine whether the return of investment for growing a customer base or increasing an engagement rate is worth the investment.

3. Determine the contest entry structure
Once you’ve set your purpose, evaluated your resources, and chosen a prize, the next step is identifying your contest entry structure. This step includes determining which type of contest and which social media platform to use.

When it comes to choosing a medium, it’s better to pick a social media platform with the highest engagement rates. Even though it’s easier to use one social media platform, using multiple mediums can be more effective. This will help you increase user engagement throughout several platforms and reach a wider audience.

After choosing a medium for your contest, you’ll need to identify the type of contest and entry requirements. There are different types of contests, including a photo or video contest, vote contest, sweepstakes, and like & share. Each type of contest comes with its own requirements. You will need to consider the rules, length, and age appropriateness.

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Consider asking for an email as an entry requirement. This will help you build up your email list. However, don’t ask for too much personal information, it may divert your followers from participating.

4. Clearly communicate the contest rules
Once you’ve developed the contest requirements, it’s important to clearly communicate them to the audience. It’s useful to present the rules in steps, so they’re easier to follow. Also, you can present them in the form of visuals. Unlike plain text, visuals are better attention grabbers. The start and end dates of the contest should be clearly stated in the instruction.

Have someone proofread your contest rules before posting. Make sure the wording is easy to follow. The rules should be clear, understandable, and simple.

5. Promote your contest
You can’t just put out your contest on social media and expect crazy engagement. Contest promotion starts with the wording. For example, you can hype up the exclusivity of the prizes. If you’re struggling with writing your contest copy, use the help of professional grammar checking services, like Grammarly or Essay Tigers.

Send follow-up emails to keep the participants engaged and interested in your contest. Include a word of encouragement to facilitate reposts and sharing with family and friends.

6. Evaluate, analyze, and reflect
Evaluation is the final step that will help you avoid the failure of your social media contest. When your contest is finished, you announce the winner, award them, and thank everyone for participating. It might seem like the contest is over for the participants, but you still have got one last thing to do.

Running analytics on your social media contest is crucial because it helps you measure success and adjust future contest campaigns. Here are some questions to consider when measuring the return on social media contests:

• How many users entered your contest? How many voted? How many actively participated?
• How much time did users spend engaging?
• How much sharing took place?
• How many new followers on each platform?
• How many users opted into your email list?

Answering these questions will help you evaluate your success. Use the data to measure and improve your efforts.

Final thoughts
Before posting your contest, make sure to read the contest rules of the social media platforms you’re targeting. From Instagram to Facebook, each platform has its own rules and regulations. If you fail to comply with the rules, your contest and your social media page can be shut down.

The Power Of Hashtag In Marketing: Does It Still Work?

You probably heard about how great hashtags are, especially for social media marketing. But are they really worth it and do they still work? Here are all your questions answered in a simple and comprehensive guide.

What Are Hashtags & Why Do You Need Them?

To put it simply, hashtags are kind of like keywords, but for social media platforms. They help your posts get discovered easier providing you with extra exposure. If you use hashtags, you can connect with people who otherwise wouldn’t even consider you or your business as something they could relate to or find useful.

Moreover, hashtags can help you generate engagement on your posts. It’s much easier to get likes and comments from people who aren’t even following you if you use hashtags in your posts. They are like a trail that guides other users to find your posts. If you are still unconvinced, here are some hashtag statistics:

• By using at least one hashtag in your Instagram posts, you can increase engagement by 12.6%.
• Tweets that have hashtags generally get twice more clicks, favorites, retweets, and replies. However, only 24% of all tweets have hashtags.
• The fewer hashtags you use on Facebook, the better your engagement will be. But using one hashtag is still better than having none.

Where Should You Use Them?

To put it simply, using hashtags on every social media platform will bring you positive results. On the other hand, every platform has its own specifics and requires certain “rules” that can make your hashtags more efficient. Here are some things to keep in mind:

• Facebook has not disclosed much on how you can make hashtags effective on the social media site, but some users still add a few hashtags to their posts. As mentioned earlier, using one or two hashtags on Facebook is more than enough.
• Twitter allows you to add almost as many hashtags as you want, but using one hashtag like on Facebook is recommended. The best thing about Twitter is that you can easily find trending hashtags by looking at the sidebar.
• Instagram allows you to use up to thirty hashtags in one post. In addition to that, you can use up to ten hashtags on your Stories, which is also very useful. The best number of hashtags for usual posts is nine.
• YouTube’s hashtag power is limited, but you can still use them. Despite this, keep in mind that most of the engagement happens in comment threads.
• Pinterest is probably the worst platform for hashtag usage out of the ones mentioned. Hashtags work only in the pin description and the searchability is quite limited.

Which Hashtags Should You Use?

Using relevant hashtags is crucial for your post to take off. If you use the wrong hashtags, you may end up having less engagement. Of course, the best thing to do is to conduct hashtag research on your topic and see which hashtags get more engagement (more on this later).

But first, you have to understand the three types of hashtags that you can use in your social media marketing campaign:

• General Hashtags: These are the kind of hashtags used by everyone. Both regular users and business accounts use such hashtags promoting their posts. The most popular example is the #Love tag which is currently the most popular hashtag on Instagram. General hashtags can help you get your posts into the mass of many other posts without seeming too promotional.
• Industry Hashtags: These hashtags are related to your specific industry. For example, if you own a makeup brand, some of the hashtags that you can use along with #Makeup are #RedLipstick, #FakeEyelashes, and #PinkPowder among others. Such hashtags help you get into the more niche topics and get through to your audience looking for posts in specific subcategories.
• Branded Hashtags: These hashtags are the ones used by brands and include both brand names and slogans. For instance, Nike’s branded hashtags would be #Nike and #JustDoIt. Such hashtags are great for running campaigns and encouraging user-generated content. Your followers can reach you by using such hashtags in their posts and you can interact with them on such posts to establish a better relationship. There are also different tools such as Heyo that can help you create contests for social media to go along with your branded hashtags for generating UGC.

All of these hashtag types are amazing for improving your engagement. If used right, they can be a great way to get more exposure and even encourage UGC that you can interact with. Just remember to use all three types so that you don’t get caught only in one group.

How to Do Hashtag Research?
Before starting your social media campaign on any platform, do your research to ensure that you know which hashtags are the best for your content. You can do this in two ways:

1. Simply go to your chosen platform and start typing a hashtag in the search. You will instantly get suggestions for the most popular hashtags.
2. Use special tools such as Hashtagify or Tagboard to get the most out of hashtag data. Such tools can give you suggestions based on various factors.

After you find out which hashtags are the best for your topic, you can start using them to promote your posts. Remember to change them once in a while, so that a different audience gets to see your content rather than targeting only one particular group.

At the same time, try starting your own hashtag movements. Create your own hashtags and make them catchy and extremely relevant. Going viral with the help of hashtags is very possible, so you shouldn’t dismiss such an opportunity.

Try to participate in trending hashtags as much as possible. Holiday hashtags are also a great way to get the word out about your business. Check trending hashtags regularly, especially on Twitter. In fact, there is even a feature on this platform that allows you to set up what kind of trending hashtags you want to get depending on your location and interests.

Lastly, don’t overuse hashtags. There is absolutely no need in #tagging #every #word and you will only seem immature that way. On some social media platforms such as Instagram, you can post your hashtags in a comment under the post rather than including them into the caption – and they will still work.

Final Thoughts

All in all, hashtags are definitely worth using in your social media posts and other content as they help you get more exposure and get discovered easier. Take notes while reading this article and start implementing the hashtag technique in your online marketing campaign.

Secrets to Building a Social Media Content Strategy Like a Pro.

Are you reaching the right prospects? Are you spreading the news about your business? If so, congratulations! You have a well-functioning social media marketing strategy. If the answer is negative, chances are that you haven’t mastered the science of social media content creation yet.

Building a social media content strategy is the key to reaching the right people and making the most of your online presence. The task may seem intimidating at first but if you learn from the experience of the pros in the field, you’ll soon get good results.

So, what does it take to build a solid strategy that’s professional and adequate for your respective field? Keep on reading to discover some of the biggest secrets that social media marketing experts keep to themselves.

Know Your Audience, Know Your Audience, Know Your Audience!

We can’t stress the important of knowing your audience enough. Once again – learn about your audience before attempting to do anything else.

Social media marketing is all about addressing a specific group of people. The more niche and relatable your content is, the better your online reputation will become. When you have a good idea about your audience’s profile, you’ll know how to choose the right channels and how to put together a solid content plan.

Social media audience research is a task that requires time and effort. For a start, you may want to determine your market position. Are you addressing a current need or creating a brand new desire in buyers? What types of people will benefit from the products and services you have to sell? Where are these people located? Are they employed? How much money do they earn?

Doing competition research will give you some idea about the types of people you should be addressing. The same applies to doing paid social media promotion and setting the right demographic criteria. In fact, this is one of the simplest options for populating your communities with the right people and seeing a high return on investment.

Base the Content Strategy on Each Individual Channel

Here’s another essential to keep in mind – you can’t use the same content on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and the other social media profiles that you maintain. Each of these platforms has its specific audience and communication tools. Thus, you should have a separate content strategy for each of the channels that you’re on.

Multiple social media profiles require constant monitoring. You may start with a few of those but sooner or later, you’ll find out that your efforts should be focused on only a couple of channels that deliver the highest level of engagement for your brand.

You’ll learn a bit more about the content that’s best for each channel through experience. In the beginning, however, you may rely on the following tips to boost the relevance of your content strategies:

• Facebook posts: short texts, videos and images tend to benefit from the highest level of engagement. This social network offers quite a lot of versatility when it comes to the content that delivers the best results.
• Twitter: very brief sentences, slogans and images are ideal for the purpose of Twitter promotion. You can also post links to your website with brief captions.
• LinkedIn: opt for longer texts, as well as longer captions that lead to relevant links. When using LinkedIn, keep in mind that you’ll usually get best results by engaging in B2B promotion.
• Instagram: obviously, this channel is the one to use for the publication of photo and video content. Keep the captions short and look for good hashtags.
• Google+: images and links to your website accompanied by brief captions tend to see the highest level of engagement.

Make the Content Itself Good

This tip may seem like an obvious one but many companies ignore the importance of professionally created social media content.

If you don’t have the needed experience and the skills to push out consistent, good content on a regular basis, you should get professionals to do it. TopAussieWriters is just one example of a possibility that you can rely on.

Good posts have a hook, something that gets the audience eager to undertake a certain course of action. You may want to promise an answer to a pressing question, something funny or something that few people know.

When making such promises, you have to deliver. Clickbaiting is a bad strategy because it fools people into believing that you’ll give them something you simply can’t. It may work the first time around but sooner or later, you’ll start losing some of your audience.

Good content is also about regular scheduling. A good social media content strategy schedules updates for regular publication. There’s no need to make multiple updates across channels several times per day. If you only update your profiles once per month, however, it will simply be impossible to keep the audience engaged and coming back for more.

The final thing to remember is that you should constantly keep on checking the performance of your content strategy. Social media provides a lot of analytical information about your top posts, their reach and their engagement level. Find out which types of content gets the best response and which ones miss the mark. You can adjust the strategy on the basis of this information. Social media marketing is a real-time approach. If you’re not getting the return on investment that you desire, you can always modify the campaign to boost its relevance and see better results in the future.

Welcome To Heyo Platform 2.0!

We’re very pleased to announce the release of Heyo Platform 2.0!

This release represents the largest revamp of the Heyo platform to date and contains over a dozen new features, including:

32 new mobile responsive templates. Incorporating an elegant design into your promotion has never been easier. All of our new templates are responsive across all computers, tablets and mobile devices. Simply select your campaign type and choose one of our themed designs

Drag and drop design editor. Campaign customization made simple. Add videos, images, text and more with a simple click. New features such as countdown clocks and maps enhance the visual appeal while including all relevant campaign information.

Campaign Specific Analytics. All of your campaign information in one centralized location. View daily campaign engagement, detailed analytics and user location graphs.

If you’re new to Heyo, click here to try the new platform by signing up for a free 7 day trial.

Already have a Heyo account? We’ll be rolling out Platform 2.0 to all of our existing customers in the coming weeks. Stay tuned!