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Is social media part of your marketing strategy?

If it is, you know how hard it can be to keep up with all of the latest news from the different social platforms. Things changing constantly can make it difficult to craft a cohesive social media marketing strategy for your business.

Have no fear Ive put together 50 amazing social media marketing ideas, strategies & tips to help you put together a successful social media marketing plan. Ill cover 10 takeaways each for Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and YouTube.

Lets get started!

1. Run Facebook Ads to content

Running Facebook Ads is commonplace for social media marketing now. Oftentimes, however, running these ads straight to products can make them stick out like a sore thumb on a Facebook users News Feed. Running ads to content can make them feel more native to the Facebook platform. If all goes well, people wont even notice theyre ads, and before you know it, theyve visited your website and subscribed to your email list.

2. Run a Photo contest

Use an app like Wishpond to run a contest in a tab on your Facebook page, and prompt your fans to submit photos related to your brand and product. Running a contest is one of the best ways to increase engagement and spread awareness of your Facebook page, all while generating leads for sales and collecting user-generated content that you can use in future marketing campaigns.

3. Run a sweepstakes

Just like running a photo contest, running a sweepstakes is a great way to quickly grow your following and spread brand awareness. Because sweepstakes are so easy to enter, its simple to get people interested in your products. Make sure your prize is a product related to your brand, so you can connect with non-winners in the future with the purpose of turning them into sales. Add a Like this page popup box to your contest as well, to ensure contest entrants become connected with your brand.

4. Run a Facebook Live campaign

Interacting with your fans in real-time adds a layer of honesty and realness to your social media marketing. Running, for example, a live interview to answer fan questions or to preview your newest line of products adds to the fan experience by creating a channel where you can engage your audiences right away, driving interest in your brand.

5. Use videos and photos to preview content

Content marketing is a big marketing strategy for brands everywhere and social media is a great outlet to share your content. Though you could just link straight to your content, previewing some of the content youre sharing in a short video or picture (like an infographic) can help to pull viewers in and drive traffic from social channels (like Facebook) to your blog.

6. Post relatable tag a friend content

If youve been on Facebook recently, chances are memes have been taking your News Feed by storm. Youll also notice that most of the comments are people tagging friends they think would like the post kind of the modern-day equivalent to forwarding a chain email to friends. Post a funny, relatable picture thats relevant to your product or brand and encourage fans to tag their friends this helps to spread brand awareness without feeling overly promotional.

7. Post coupons on Facebook

Providing value in the form of discounts or coupons on your page keeps current fans interested, and can convince others to interact with and Like your page. Though your regular content can be exciting, remember that your end goal is likely to drive sales introducing Facebook-only coupons can help to increase social engagement and turn passive Facebook fans into customers. Theres also the added possibility that fans may share the discount with their friends, spreading awareness and raising sales even further.

8. Respond to customers concerns

As marketers, we know by now that social media isnt just a platform we can use as a content megaphone. Were responsible for using it to create and maintain connections with your customers to strengthen our brand and keep fans around. Its also happens to be a popular place for customers with complaints to vent their frustrations. Respond to your customers complaints and concerns on Facebook. Avoid being defensive use it to listen to and solve their problems, and youll see you can turn a bad situation into a brand-building opportunity.

9. Run reaction campaigns

Something Facebook subtly introduced this year was an added array of reactions that people could use in place of the standard Like, including love, haha, angry, sad, and wow. Get users engaged by posting an image asking fans to vote for an option using the reaction buttons. For example, a protein bar company might ask fans what their favorite flavor is by saying press Like for peanut butter or Love for chocolate. This not only increases engagement, but also helps you gain insight into the minds of your consumers.

10. Post infographics

Though Facebook isnt usually the best place to post dense or numbers-heavy content, you can circumvent this by creating and posting visually-appealing infographics. Take interesting statistics and turn them into easily-digestible and shareable visual content. This is a great way to inform customers about your product and industry in a way thats not overbearing. Use this tactic sparingly, for information you know your customers will be surprised by or particularly interested in.

11. Schedule your posts with a tool like Buffer

Tweeting constantly is the best way to ensure you remain relevant by increasing the likelihood that youll show up on your followers Twitter feeds. It also shows people that youre active on the platform, and allows you to space out your content easily without running into periods of content overload (or drought). Using a tool like Buffer also allows you to track metrics for your links, so you can see which of your Tweets are receiving the most engagement.

12. Use BuzzSumo to curate content relevant to your account

If you like to share content from other places, use a service like BuzzSumo to find content with proven engagement. Use keywords relevant to your brand or product to look for content your followers will enjoy, and share the top posts. Because BuzzSumo has metrics on the most engaging posts for each keyword, it gives you a foolproof way to share content thats interesting to readers.

13. Reach out to other accounts to share your content

Tools like BuzzSumo (or other analytics platforms) also allow you to identify influencers people with large followings. If you have a high-value piece of content you want to share with the world, its a good practice to reach out to influencers who follow you (or share content like yours) and ask them to give yours a share. More often than not, theyll be willing to do it, helping to disseminate your content in different social media circles.

14. Host a Twitter round table

Twitter can be a great medium to hold discussions with your social media circles. If it fits your brand, hosting a live chat or round table is an awesome way to learn more about your consumers. Companies like Buffer host weekly chats, with different questions and discussion topics for each chat. These chats are all linked by a hashtag, making it easy for participants to follow along.

15. Create Moments

Twitter recently made their Moments feature available to all users, meaning its easy to compile a selection of Tweets, photos and videos to create a seamless experience for viewers. If theres a specific campaign youre running, take Tweets from your various accounts (and followers if they send you content) to create a Moment that summaries the campaign. Share this Moment with your followers to easily share the entire experience with them.

16. Run a poll

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One of Twitters less-used features is Twitter Polls. Theyre engaging and easy for followers to interact with, meaning running a poll is a good way to drive engagement and start a discussion with your customers. Though the options are endless, some creative uses include letting followers make decisions for you or vote on an item to go on sale. Play around with Polls and see if they have a positive effect on your engagement.

17. Leverage other media when interacting with customers

One of the most common things I see from brands replying to users on Twitter is a tone thats a bit too customer service-y. Mix it up a bit when interacting with fans on social medias by responding with funny images or GIFs. Not only does this make your brand feel more personable, it also increases the chance that theyll retweet your Tweet, leading to increased brand awareness.

18. Host a live Q&A

Twitter owns Periscope arguably the most popular livestreaming app which means you can embed Periscope streams right in your Twitter feed. Make sure you host your livestreams on Twitter in addition to other platforms like Facebook Live to increase their reach to your other social platforms. Twitters feed algorithm also seems to prioritize videos from Periscope, which can help your account out a bit.

19. Share user-generated content

Add some flair to your content strategy by retweeting or re-uploading content that your users have sent to you about your brand or product on your Twitter account. Though it wont do much in terms of sending traffic to your website or driving sales, it shows that you care about your fans and followers and helps to strengthen your brand.

20. Reply to/engage with fan tweets

One common thread linking the best brands on Twitter is that they take the time to engage with their followers and fans, even if some of them have millions of followers. Though you dont need to reply to every Tweet you receive, retweeting brand-related content from fans or answering questions from followers is a great way to show your social media audience that you care about what they have to say.

21. Create a partnered post with an influencer

Instagram is the palace of the influencer its users religiously follow high-profile grammers for inspiration in areas like fashion, food, and lifestyle. Partnering up with an influencer that has a large following in your target market to created a sponsored post is one of the best ways to share your brand and product with new potential customers. Reach out to influencers and send products to those who are interested, so they can share their thoughts with their followers.

22. Host an influencer takeover

Once youve cultivated a strong enough relationship with some influencers, you might want to move to the next step: a takeover. Get your chosen influencer to take over your Instagram account, posting pictures as theyre at an event or throughout the course of their day (a day in the life). Make sure your influencer teases the takeover on their own profile so their fans follow your brand as well.

23. Run a giveaway with another brand in your industry

Weve touched on the effect giveaways can have on your social media engagement and brand awareness, and Instagram is another great platform to run contests on. Partner up with a another (non-competing) brand in your industry to offer a prize package of your best products. You can run a few types of contests Id recommend a photo contest, to help you collect user-generated content that you can share on your profile in the future.

24. Tag influential accounts in your photos

Tagging big accounts in your Instagram posts (the photo itself, not just the caption) is an effective way to get your account noticed by others. Find high-profile accounts in your industry and tag them directly in your photos. This puts your photo on the feed of photos theyve been tagged in, increasing the likelihood that someone who doesnt currently follow you will stumble upon your account. Because youre only tagging accounts related to yours, people who come across it will be more likely to be interested in your brand.

25. Use an analytics platform

Though Instagram Business accounts get access to some analytics, you might want to consider using a platform like Iconosquare to drill down on your Instagram performance. In addition to helping you manage your content output with scheduling, you can use these analytics platforms to measure follower growth, post engagement, and optimal post timing.

26. Host a livestream on your Instagram Story

Instagram recently made their Live video broadcasting feature available to all users. You might be inclined to ask what sets it apart from Facebook Live or Periscope the primary difference is that Instagram videos arent stored anywhere, meaning your viewers can only watch when youre truly live. Use Instagrams live video broadcasting to run quick Q&As or share information on a flash discount get creative with it and see how your followers respond!

27. Use a monetization platform

If youve got an e-commerce shop, consider using a platform like Like2Buy Have2Have.It to make it easier to link your Instagram posts to product pages. Using one of these means you can have a single link in your bio that brings followers to a shoppable replica of your feed. Put a CTA in each of your product posts saying check out the link in our bio to get [product]! These platforms also have analytics, helping you measure the effectiveness of your Instagram marketing.

28. Use your Story to promote flash discounts

I love when brands use their Instagram Stories as an extension of their marketing strategy. There are tons of great ways to utilize your Story one of the best ways is to share flash coupon codes with your followers. You can even be creative about it hide it in the background of a Story post or post a riddle for viewers to solve.

29. Run Instagram ads

Instagram ads are incredibly powerful because they look native besides the small Sponsored text above the image, Instagram ads look just like theyre part of a users feed. Theyre also great because you can add CTAs to them so even though they look like photos, you can link them to landing pages, content, and more.

30. Create creative product videos demonstrating your product

With the introduction of longer videos on Instagram, the number of things you can achieve with your Instagram video marketing is through the roof. One great way to leverage video on Instagram is to create a product demonstration video. Show people the best (or the most unique) ways to use your product these kinds of videos are engaging and helpful to your followers.

31. Post your Snapcode on your other social platforms

Snapchat is a unique social platform because its really not easy for your followers to find you. Make it easy to connect with them on Snapchat by posting your Snapcode (that QR-looking code) on your other social platforms with a CTA like add us on Snapchat to keep up to date with our latest products! to drive traffic from other platforms to your Snapchat profile.

32. Preview content in your Story

If creating content (like blog articles or videos) is part of your digital marketing strategy, you can push Snapchat followers towards it and build hype by previewing it on your Snapchat Story. Post a short video or photo of a piece of content to get people interested in it, and post a CTA like visit [website link] to see the rest!

33. Buy a Geofilter for company events

One thing that Snapchat has made available to all of its users is its Geofilters feature. Purchasing an On-Demand Geofilter is a great way to spread brand awareness, particularly if youre hosting a company event or your company is attending another event. Design a filter featuring your brand and encourage attendees to post to their Snapchat Story using the geofilter youve created.

34. Partner with an influencer to host a Story takeover

Similar to an Instagram takeover, getting an influencer to take over your Snapchat Story for a day can do a lot to build your following. Get the influencer to post about it on their social platforms in the days leading up to the takeover, so users can make sure to add you before it begins. Because users need to add you to see your Story, youll be adding a large amount of users to your Snapchat following that you can market to in the future.

35. Run a Snapchat Q&A

The great thing about Snapchat is it makes it easy for fans to reach the brands they love. Host a Q&A with your followers by asking them to send you Snaps with their questions. Restate these questions on your Story and then answer them in a video featuring your employees. This strengthens the connection between your brand and fans, and is a great way to add unique content to your Snapchat Story.

Original post:
50 Amazing Social Media Marketing Ideas, Strategies & Tips - Business 2 Community

Kristina: So, you are not just adding up the social mentions as a measure of brand performance?

Sree Nagarajan, CEO, Affinity Answers: No, in fact Affinity Answers pioneered a brand interaction metric that indicates the strength of active, mutual engagement between two brands' audiences over time and approaches the concept of social-affinity uniquely, recognizing that only mutual affinity - your brand's fans liking a TV show, for example, and in turn, enough of that TV show's fans liking your brand - as the key to identifying a brand's most qualified addressable audiences. We do this by measuring the level of reciprocal, highly interactive social media activities (such as commenting, posting photos, retweeting, hash tagging or replying) between two brand audiences showing which fans of one brand have the highest affinity for the other brand. In doing this we track 60,000 brands across 400 million users worldwide.

Kristina: What is a typical use case?

Nagarajan: Our data can be used for activation, planning and measurement applications. Activation provides addressable, brand-specific audience data in programmatic platforms. Planning enables the matching of contextually relevant media with brands, as well as insight-driven strategies based on brand affinities. Quite often, audience extensions are built off of demo-based lookalike models, which tend to underperform compared to audience extensions built off of social affinities or what we refer to as "act-alike" modeling. By scoring any cookie- or device ID-based audience according to social engagement (aka "act-alike" modeling) we can predict which audiences will be receptive to your brand and are therefore more likely to respond favorably than the average consumer. We enable branding at scale through these high-performing "act-alike" segments for programmatic video and display, social, or TV advertising.

Kristina: Can you identify a brand's best "influencers" in social media?

Nagarajan: Our BrandPlanner app allows users to observe changes in brand affinities and gain a quick understanding of the strongest and weakest affinities across all 60,000 brands. So we can help brands clearly identify which social influencer (or music performer, celebrity, athlete, etc.) has the strongest relationship with their brand. We rank them by the strength of their affinity scores providing a roadmap for brands to ID who to hire for promotions or perhaps sponsor in their athletic endeavors. Moreover, our dataset is a cross-channel recommendation engine that informs marketers about their audiences' preference for thousands of TV shows, websites, apps, movies, and other consumer brands. This is actionable data that goes well beyond demographic targeting.

Tags: Affinity Answers, social marketing, social marketing ROI, social marketing trends

See the original post:
Expert: 'Likes' aren't the value of social - BizReport

At first a way for families and friends to stay in touch, social networks have become a place for consumers to also stay in touch with brands, find new products, and share favorite items from birthdays and other holidays. All that use is making social media a must-have for brands. One of the more recent social additions is video-based SnapChat, which is showing steady growth not only with teens, but in the Millennial demographic, as well.

In the SnapChat infrastructure, more than half of branded content (61%) is in video format, that is a 5% increase since Q1 2016.

"Snapchat is unique because it allows businesses to connect with people in the moment and offer a different brand experience," said Thomas Cilius, founder and CEO, Snaplytics. "It's the only social network where marketers aren't seeing a decline in reach. With 161M daily active users on Snapchat, brands are quickly learning this is the go-to outlet because it allows them to engage their brand ambassadors and deliver content that really resonates with people, in real-time."

Other interesting findings from the report include:

Snapchat stories average 11 snaps each On average, brands post to Snapchat 2x/week 88% of Snapchat users are completing videos/snaps, up 4% QoQ

The full report can be found here.

Tags: SnapChat, SnapChat tips, Snaplytics, social marketing, social marketing tips

Go here to read the rest:
Study IDs best practices for brands entering SnapChat - BizReport

Many marketing executives at IT service companies will tell you that marketing strategy development is a lot more complicated than it used to be.

Download our latest guide to the top strategies solution providers can leverage for starting up and securing a cloud practice, successful approaches to selling and marketing cloud, and why it is urgent for partners to transition now.

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As IT service providers make plans to prioritize their marketing efforts in 2017, they are finding that not only has the explosion of social media created more channels to broadcast their message, but some say the variety of platforms being offered has complicated their decision to find the right place to air their message effectively.

The growing use of YouTube, Facebook and other social media marketing outlets, along with the rising importance of blogs, content marketing, case studies and webinars have joined the more traditional marketing approaches such as networking at trade shows, lunch and learns, telemarketing campaigns and direct mail outreach as formidable ways to reach new clients.

"I am seeing the best-of-breed service providers using a combination of everything to get their marketing message across," said Stuart Crawford, CEO at Ulistic LP, a Buffalo, N.Y.-based marketing firm that represents managed service providers (MSPs). "Companies are using lunch and learns, virtual seminars, trade show and speaking engagements with executives in various vertical sectors, but they are also getting engaged on social media sites like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter to get their message across."

Crawford's observations reflect the findings of The CMO Survey's research which found that spending on social media has more than tripled, from 3.5% to 11.7% of marketing budgets from 2009 to 2016.

One company that has made the decision to use social media marketing platforms as the main delivery mechanism for its communications strategy this year is Foursys Ltd., an IT security servicescompany based in the United Kingdom. Still, Andy Wool, marketing manager at Foursys, told SearchITChannel that his company will continue to invest in traditional activities that have yielded results in previous years, such as events, webinars and outbound marketing.

"In 2017 we'll be spending equal amounts of resources, and more than we have ever invested before, on content marketing, specifically video, search engine optimization and paid content promotion across social platforms," Wool said. "YouTube is now the second largest search engine in the world and we plan on utilizing that platform in the coming 12 months."

While companies are deciding what tools they'll use to get their message across, marketing executives also have to contend with the dynamics that come with the introduction of new technology and the trickle-down impact that forces channel companies to offer new products and services to stay competitive. This, in turn, affects how they'll market themselves for future growth.

Whether they are providing platforms for the internet of things market, offering cybersecurity offerings in the age of ransomware, scouting for potential clients looking for artificial intelligence solutions, hoping to win new customers with cloud computing or exploring blockchain technology, convincing clients that their company is the best IT service provider to do the job can be a tough sell in a crowded market.

The biggest challenge a value-added reseller faces is the breadth of products they have available to market. Andy Woolmarketing manager, Foursys Ltd.

For many IT providers that offer a variety of technologies, developing a message that clearly states how all the products and services being offered will work to solve a customer's business needs adds another layer of complexity to marketing strategy development.

"The biggest challenge a value-added reseller faces is the breadth of products they have available to market," Wool said. "They could literally send a marketing message a day and that still won't be enough to cover all areas of service. Devising a VAR marketing strategy that's most optimal for the goals of the business and minimizes opportunity cost is a challenge even the most experienced channel marketer will struggle with -- unless they're very specialized."

The ability to convey what an IT provider can offer has given rise to what Crawford describes as educational marketing, which calls for IT service companies to educate the business community on how to cost effectively implement technology, how the technology will align with their business goals and what they can expect the return on investment to be in the months after a technology implementation is completed.

"It's not a sales approach, it's an educational approach and that takes longer," Crawford explained. "Sometimes it takes three to six to eight months for a business to understand how the technology will improve their operations. The immature managed service company will throw in the towel long before they start realizing the true benefit of an effective educational marketing strategy because their patience runs out or they just run out of cash."

For Stanley Louissaint, president of Fluid Designs Inc., who is also the sole marketing executive at the IT service provider based in Union, N.J., the top item on the agenda this year is face-to-face networking events and speaking engagements, which will allow him to convey his message to smaller audiences.

But there's also a social media component to Fluid Designs' marketing strategy development effort. This year, Louissaint said he'll continue to use Facebook's advertising platform, which can locate companies in the vertical markets he wants to reach, identify the names of executives he wants to connect with and geographically locate businesses that are in close proximity to his office.

Facebook will be particularly helpful, Louissaint said, in supporting his plan to target law offices that have between five to 100 employees.

"With Facebookyou can drill down and select the audience you want to target and that gives you the ability to control how your marketing dollars are spent because you are not casting a wide net," Louissaint said. "Facebook also provides helpful metrics. For example, if somebody views or clicks on my Facebook ad that activity is tracked."

Louissaint added that looking for an easy way to market his company is important and one of the reasons why he hasn't approached manufacturers for market development funds (MDF). He added that while securing MDF should be helpful in supporting marketing strategy development, the process required to secure these funds take a lot of time and effort and the money is tied to a set of requirements that may not always be beneficial to his company.

"Having to go out there and find marketing development funds takes a lot of work," Louissaint said. "Another problem is once you find MDF dollars you discover a lot of manufacturers have limitations on what you can do. They don't necessarily support every marketing idea you have to use those funds."

Crawford, who once ran an MSP, said scouting for MDF dollars often means that in order to demonstrate that you can sell their technology, vendors want to see that your company's IT staff possesses the technical skills to understand the applications and services vendors offer.

"That's a challenge for a lot of smaller MSPs that just don't have a sales volume," Crawford said. "Another hurdle is that many vendors want you to be an advocate for them and commit to saying that you won't sell any other solution but theirs. A lot of vendors have reservations that they are going to distribute marketing funds to solution providers and then they're going to shift that money to assist with implementing another solution."

As IT service providers seek the best way to fund their marketing plans, and drive an effective marketing message, one thing is constant -- all the marketing channels are not going away, Crawford said.

"Different people respond to different messages that are presented in different ways," Crawford said. "Marketing has to be painted with a very broad brush to hit all the senses. Some people like to read, some people like to visualize and some people like to hear your voice. But at the end of the day, no matter what tools you use to convey your message, effective marketing still involves talking to the client about how to achieve their business objectives and business targets and that hasn't changed."

Read our Essential Guide on partner marketing

Learn why channel marketing strategy development is important for partners

Find out how a SaaS vendor tapped channel partners for international marketing

Read more here:
Marketing strategy development: Partners ply social, traditional ways - TechTarget

Forbes

How To Target Three Generations With Social Marketing, Not Stereotypes Forbes Millennials don't exist, and neither do Baby Boomers or Gen Xers -- at least, not the way Time Magazine, CNN or any major news outlet depicts them. Generations, after all, are just groups of people. How they respond to historical events is how you once ... and more »

Link:
How To Target Three Generations With Social Marketing, Not Stereotypes - Forbes