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How to leverage social media for marketing

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Introduction

This is the era of digital engagement and marketing has not remained limited just to promotions but ongoing engagement of customers and followers is equally critical to maintaining a friendly and customer oriented image. Apart from digital promotions, and their own business websites, most companies are using social media heavily for promotions and user engagement. Currently, social media is considered one of the best tools for connecting with and engaging fans and followers and to run marketing campaigns. Apart from enormous reach that social media offers at near zero prices, social media can help you manage your fans and followers and engage them using various techniques and strategies. Social media is for promotions and customer service but to generate best results, you need to understand how its power can be leveraged in other ways to engage followers and create demand.

Companies have mostly seen social media as a channel for promotions and customer service. However, if properly utilized, it can help you grow your audience as well as build brand loyalty by being heard from within the crowd of brands. Every brand wants to win loyal customers. This requires managing customer experiences and creating opportunities to engage the customer better. Due to the immense benefits it offers in terms of customer engagement, social media is now not an option but an essential in terms of marketing. However, you cannot approach it without a strategy either because despite its enormous reach, your social media efforts may fail for lack of planning.

On the contrary, if you successfully utilise its power then apart from growth in sales, there are also potential chances you could drive brand loyalty higher and grow your audience size as well. Effectively leveraging your social media account definitely requires some planning. Here is more on how to leverage social media to build brand loyalty and achieve superior customer engagement and maintain a stronger image.

Create a social media strategy:

Brands have a marketing strategy but when it comes to social media, they miss this critical part. Social media is the tool that will not yield results without a strategy. It is however an efficient tool but if you just post and post, results will not come automatically. You can use social media for promotions, consumer engagement and for advertising as well as communications. However, whether you intend to drive sales, customer engagement, or generate leads and grow the conversion rate, you need to formulate a strategy first. Even if your sole purpose is SEO, you still need to have a social media strategy.

Moreover, if you want to beat the competition and get ahead of your competitors, then you cannot do without a strategy. Interacting and connecting with customers is essential. You must form a strategy that helps you focus on your objectives and accordingly run your social media campaigns.

Align your social strategy with your marketing strategy:-

Focus on what kind of results you are trying to derive from your social media campaigns. Then align your social media strategy with your marketing strategy. Your social media campaigns must not deviate from your core marketing strategy and other marketing communications. If you want to create a fun and friendly image, your social media campaigns must reflect that. Check if your social media strategy reflects your culture and if it conveys the right image in a  professional tone.

Check out your entire marketing strategy and how your brand uses other forms of communications for marketing. Consistency is absolutely essential in marketing. Speaking in different voices on different platforms will only lead to confusion and ruin your entire image and the results of your advertising and marketing campaign as well. Whether it’s your email campaigns, your video contents, your blog or your social media campaign, all your communication must speak in the same voice.

Engage your followers with interactions :- Make it a rewarding experience

Social media is meant to facilitate socialization. It will include comments, replies, complains and compliments. So, being silent on a social media platform would be the wrong approach. When you are on social media, you must be willing to  interact, share and reply. Fear of negative comments must not hold you back. You learn to engage through interactions. Just ignoring the comments and responses of people who are trying to engage with your company will not help you build brand loyalty or achieve results. However, communicating with them and responding to their queries can definitely help you achieve your goals.

As a part of this journey, you also get to learn how interactions drive follower engagement on any social media platform. Moreover, being responsive helps you strengthen the connection between your brands and your followers. It also helps you minimize dissatisfaction and drive conversion rates higher. You can also create rewards for your loyal followers. Contest, rewards and special promotions will help you engage your existing followers and encourage them while also let you have chances to win more followers.

Optimize your content :-

Brands also need to optimize their content for the relevant social media networks. Whether it is Youtube, Facebook, Instagram or Pinterest, you need to optimize your content for each of these platforms. You cannot just add any content to any platform. Form a video promotions strategy before sharing on YouTube. Likewise Instagram and Pinterest are best for promotions through image content whereas Facebook for curated content and videos. Twitter on the other hand is for news, blog posts and more real time campaigning. In this way, the same content does not suit every platform and you need to manage and optimize your content to win on each one of the social media networks.

Focus on customer service :-

This is one part that  you must never neglect on social media platforms. Whenever, people have  a good or bad experience with your brand, they will turn to social media to voice their opinion or express their concerns. You must remain willing to listen and resolve these issues and to respond to customer queries. Ignoring them will produce the worst results. You must train your staff to engage followers whenever there is a complain and resolve issues amicably. So, even if a customer had a poor experience, you can perk him up through right customer service. If the customer service experience is pleasant for a customer, it is good for your brand image and strengthens your brand equity. The quality of your customer service affects your brand image directly.

Just ensure that your customers get to have a good experience on social media as well as offline. The importance of brand loyalty has grown and by engaging your followers on social media, you can truly make it stronger. If you communicate with your customers and engage them using the right content and strategy, the results start pouring in soon. Just never let a chance to engage your followers go.