Learning how to leverage the power of social media can increase subscribers and an audience in a huge way. But tapping into that power is challenging without a lot of experience. That's where our free webinar training comes in handy. Take the time to attend and come away with social media tips that'll help build a foundation. Serving customers and a brand will improve the bottom line. The 10 laws of social media marketing that we discuss in this article will help develop an online site and prep it for online success.
Cleverism starts us out by discussing the law of empathetic listening. You can't push out content and products expecting an audience to bite right away. You have to earn their trust and learn what they like and dislike. Listen and pay attention, and you're more likely to secure a strong customer base.
The Law of Empathetic Listening
Social media is a two-way street. If you want great self-outreach, you must allow for the outreach of others too! Try to pick out sometimes going through online social media discussions in order to learn what is truly acceptable for your target audience. Success in this field desires greater listening and less expressing. Only in this way will you be able to produce sharp content and meaningful conversations that shall shine on your customers’ wish lists.Consider what type of content is the most popular and hits the hot trends at that specific time. Be sure to look also into what the people prefer or dislike. Embrace discussion forums, feedbacks, and you will be ready to go!
The Law of One-point Focus
It is always wise to specialize. You cannot be the Jack-Of-All-Trades to people and neither can your social media status. You need to give the time to establish a focused and persistent brand message and marketing content through social media platforms you prefer.If you fail to do so, this will fragment your purpose; confuse your consumers and water down your brand image. Note that a strong brand has a better chance of success than a branched strategy that fails to provide clear guidelines about the content it publishes and spreads.
TIP: To operate according to your ideal customers and these ideal customers need to be identified by you and you alone. You can also get external help if you do not have the right skill set to work in a particular niche. Simply put aside your ego, and collect the right expertise.
Another way to connect with your audience is by collaborating with other people in your industry. Social Media Examiner elaborates on the importance of this below:
Connect and Collaborate
Top marketers are in a perpetual state of learning. You need to be an education sponge when it comes to your niche or industry, poring through case studies, data and trends.Work tirelessly to identify what matters most to your market and be eager to share your experiences, ideas and expertise with other like-minded business professionals.
How You Can Establish This Habit
To make better connections that generate trust and establish credibility, you need to make personalized interactions.
Use a tool like Sprout Social to actively engage in conversations with people who share your same purpose.
Here’s how to get started:
Research your keywords. What are the terms or phrases other industry professionals are using? Ian Cleary suggests using SEMrush to identify the top keywords your peers are using.
This “law” may seem obvious, but you'd be surprised how many online businesses don't take the time to set some goals. By identifying your goals, Lyfe Marketing says you're more likely to succeed. So put a social media plan in action so you can improve the outcome for success.
Identify Your Goals
It’s a smart business practice to start with goal setting before all new plans, and social media marketing’s no different. After all, you can be the best bicycle salesperson in the state, but still fail if you are supposed to be selling ice cream.
Use the SMART goal setting strategy to create the foundation for successful social media marketing.
Specific. Vague goals like “get more business” doesn’t help companies pinpoint their objective and create measures of success. Goals must nail down exactly what is expected of the initiative.
Measurable. Being able to definitively answer “yes, we hit the goal” or “we missed the goal by 20%” is a good goal standard.
Attainable. Out of reach goals are demoralizing and frustrating. Having to stretch to hit a goal is productive, but don’t go overboard with expectations.
Relevant. A social media marketing goal needs to tie in to marketing’s overall goal. Is it to build an audience? Increase website traffic? Strengthen branding? Make sure the goal relates to the bigger picture.
Timely. Dates and times keep companies accountable to their goals. Stay on track by breaking up a large project like this into mini-goals that each have their own deadline.
Once companies set the goal, which is basically the “why”, they need to decide on the “who”.
Buildfire discusses another law, which is always to be human. That means staying genuine and not straying from your brand's message. The last thing you want to be is “fake,” so be truthful with your audience and build a relationship with them. Pay attention to their needs, and the rest will follow.
Always Be Human
There’s nothing worse than a social media channel that looks like it’s being operated by an autobot. The key word is in the name – it is ‘social’ media, after all. Make sure that your interactions on accounts such as Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest, are personable and genuine. Say hello to people in the morning, update them on your work day and share stories that will be of interest to your target audience. Yes, you should advertise your brand/product – but this is an essential part of doing that.Customers (both existing and potential) want to know that when they are asking a question, complaining or praising, that a real person is on the other end interacting with them.
Your social media channels should always feel like they’re being operated by an interesting, intelligent, and funny human being. Be real.
Look The Part
Many businesses have no problem with budgeting for marketing and content creation, but they tend to skimp on design costs. Visuals are important. There’s a common phrase – ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’ – and it’s something we all do. A poorly designed social media channel will be an instant turn-off for customers, if you wouldn’t put it on your shop front – why put it on your social media page? You can use your visual branding to your advantage by hiring a quality designer to create headers/icons for your social media and changing it up on a regular basis (i.e. seasonal).
Are you coming up with share-worthy content? ThriveHive provides an excellent description of what sharing worthy content is all about, which is taking the time to push out unique content. In other words, don't only share content that's been written time and time again. Come up with new ideas to get a reader's attention.
Create share-worthy content
Let’s face it, most people are on social media looking for something that piques their interest just enough to share with friends and family. If you keep pumping out run-of-the-mill content that news feeds are already littered with, your brand is going to keep getting scrolled over.Everything you publish and every advertising campaign you run needs to have a healthy combination of visual flair and unquestionable value. These are the essential elements that not only get potential customers to stop scrolling, but that ultimately get them to take some kind of action.
Get interactive with your followers
Since social media users are regularly bombarded with all kinds of “consumable” content, why not turn the tables? Instead of giving them something to stare at, read, or watch, deliver content that inspires some form of interaction. Whether it be simply sharing their opinion about a new product idea or putting their name in for an online raffle, interactive content provides a nice change of pace while helping you get noticed. When customers start connecting with your business more, you’ll also get a nice visibility boost since brand interaction is usually an important algorithm factor for most social media platforms.Abide by the 80/20 rule
Just like superheroes, with great advertising power comes great responsibility. Social media pretty much allows you to promote your brand 24 hours a day, 7 days a week…but should you? No. One of the worst things you can do is overwhelm your followers and potential customers with too much self-promotional content. Following the rule, 80% of your posts should provide a high level of value and only 20% should push promotional content. Remember, your ads don’t have to be for a direct purchase.
Come to our next free webinar training to discover how you can improve your online business by applying these social media laws. Abide by these laws, and you're sure to align yourself for online business growth and success!
Sources: Cleverism, Lyfe Marketing, Buildfire, ThriveHive, Social Media Examiner
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