With more than 3 billion people using social media every day, it’s really important to stay ahead of the curve and social media strategy of your brand. Strategizing social media activities is not easy as the platform changes very quickly. There are a lot of new trends that affect how users engage on these platforms. Each of these changes has been catalyst for businesses to adjust their social media strategies and tactics. In order to stay competitive, you need to adjust your strategy. Here are seven tactics that your social media strategy needs in 2019.
- Target True Engagement
Cheating the system to encourage engagement has been a popular social tactic for some time. Brands simply put ‘tag a friend’ in the comment section to show as a conversation. But algorithms are getting smarter. You can’t get engagement through spammy ways to garner likes and shares.
With organic reach declining and more business are increasing their social ad spend, content needs to be truly interesting and engaging so that followers, wider audiences can’t get involved.
- Work With Micro Influencers
On the theme of true engagements, micro-influencers continue to win ground over their more celebrity-like counterparts. Micro-influencers often work on a gifting basis or charge lower fees than big names. Audiences of micro-influencers are more engaged. Micro-influencers are also niche specific than the social media stars. Some research has shown than profile with thousands followers, engagement rates on sites like Instagram start to rapidly decline. Collaborating with digital socialites who have between 1,000 and 10,000 followers comes at a fraction of the usual influencer cost, but with likelihood that genuine engagement will be much greater.
- Get Rid of Fake Followers
If you’re planning for a genuine engagement and influencer marketing, it is advisable to first get rid of fake social followers. Fake and spam accounts have been since the drawn of social media. You can find ‘influencer’ with million followers, but in reality isn’t quite what it seems.
So it is important to check engagement rates before connecting with an influencer is that audience size doesn’t equal views or activity. Fake profiles can make a profile popular but collaborating could be a waste of time and money.
- Make Sure Your Social Profile Shoppable
Shoppable social has already made waves from Pinterest’s buying pins to the Checkout on Instagram. The Shoppable socials have become is now clearer and shorter than ever. Pinterest has upgraded ad pins to ‘Product Pins’ a tool that takes shoppers straight to the checkout page for a selected item on a retailer’s site, while Instagram gives users a route from discovery to checkout without leaving the app. Invest in shoppable social adverts where it is relevant. Test out which platform & CTAs work for audience best.
- Include Dark Social In Your Strategy
Dark social refers to the kind of social networking that marketers can’t track – sharing information over WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger. Content you engage online forms part of your own online presence. Facebook Messenger app sees 1.3 billion users send 8 billion messages every month and the total once you include WhatsApp, WeChat, and Skype is around 5 billion active monthly users.
- Capitalize on FOMO With Live Video
You need to understand the mindset of millennials. This age group suffers from FOMO – fear of missing out. Consider this to inspire experiential marketing experiences and user-generated content campaigns. Live videos, super-shorts, time-sensitive competitions are just a few of the ways to instill FOMO on a waiting audience. Fine-tune and implement a live-video strategy. Research what your audience wants.
- Test Out Augmented Reality Ads
AR is making waves in customer experience already, used in apps that help customers try on sunglasses and makeup, or imagine what a paint color might look like on their living room wall. Facebook has already testing AR-ready advertising, which allows users to tap a product ad and try the item without leaving their newsfeed. Augmented reality has been hailed by some as the future of digital marketing. Beauty and fashion brands are naturally the early adopters with NYX, Sephora, and Michael Kors already testing out the new Facebook function. If your budget stretches as far as AR ads and apps, it’s the time to develop them.
Social media isn’t just a tool to increase brand awareness. It can increase in revenue, customer retention, and help to build an engaging customer experience. But every platform is so noisy, it can feel an impossible task, but with niche targeting and a trustworthy, relatable approach, it can be done. The core of a social media strategy isn’t the numbers. They are humans with a range of emotions and interests.