How to Drive Value into Your Social Marketing

Social marketing with social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter are not only social trends but are driving value into the marketing messages of small, medium, and global brands. Learning the latest trends – backed by solid stats – can help you spend your time, money, and effort is the best ways. The smartest way to drive value is with social marketing. Let's look at some stats and some ideas to implement them.

How social marketing is evolving

“Facemash, the Facebook’s predecessor, opened on October 28, 2003. Mark Zuckerberg wrote the software for the Facemash website when he was in his second year of college. The website was set up as a type of “hot or not” game for Harvard students.” [from Wikipedia]

Fast forward to June 2016 as Facebook reports an average of 1.71 billion people use Facebook each day and 1.57 billion are mobile monthly active users. Take a second to wrap your mind around those numbers.

Social media has evolved from social interaction to big business as advertising dollars are now diverted from traditional marketing to social media marketing campaigns and advertisements.

“Social is important today, but even more so tomorrow. 90% of young adults—ages 18 to 29—use social media (compared to just 35% of those over age 65). Fully a third of millennials say social media is one of their preferred channels for communicating with businesses.” from Tom Pick on Business to Community

Facebook Live video is hot

People spend 300% more time watching a Facebook Live video when it's broadcasted live compared to afterward. –Facebook Research

That's a very powerful argument to fire up your smartphone and shoot a Facebook Live video.

Hubspot published a great article, How to Use Facebook Live: A Complete Guide, if you need help getting started.

How to add value with Facebook Live video:

• Introduce your sales team to your clients and prospects
• Go behind the scenes and show how things are made or produced
• Share ways to use your product
• Introduce your services
• Say thank you!

Great visuals matter!

Visual content is more than 40x more likely to get shared on social media than other types of content.—Buffer

It’s important to create something unique and not copy the style of another blog, brand, or social media personal brand that you love.  You will not stand out and you will look like a jerk.

Need help with design? Find a professional designer to help you build your brand’s style. Don’t be a copycat.

Create unique social imagery to share. According to Twitter, tweets that contain images receive an average 35 percent boost in retweets.

How to add value with visuals:

• Create easy-to-read infographics
• Share tips for your industry
• Create quotes with helpful ideas from relevant thought leaders

This infographic was created for an article for creating perfect Pinterest images with all the essential elements.

More reading: How to Use Visual Marketing to Leave Your Competition in the Dust

We trust our friend's opinions

Only 33% of buyers believe what a brand says about itself. In contrast, the same study showed that 92% believe what their peers have to say about a brand. —Nielsen Survey on trust in advertising

How to add value with testimonials:

• Ask current customers to share their experiences on video
• Create graphics with testimonials
• Design social marketing campaigns with client testimonials
• Share social media posts from your happy clients

Emoji aren't just for teens

92% of the online population uses emojis, and those that do use them to help communicate their thoughts and build personal relationships.—2015 Emoji Report by Emogi

It can be hard to decipher meaning from words written on social media posts. Enter emoji which help show you think something is funny, sad, or that you love it. ???? ???? ????

It's easy to add emoji to your social media posts but make sure you know what they mean before you use them.

You can cut and paste emoji here, use your smartphone to add them, or use the keyboard shortcut CONROL, OPTION, SPACE BAR on Mac to pop up your emoji keyboard. ????

How to add value with emoji:

• Add context to your text
• Bake in some humor with emoji
• Throw in colorful emoji to help catch people's eye

I hope these ideas spark some new ways that you an add value into your social marketing and drive more people through your sales funnel.

To understand the value social media marketing offers your organization, look at how it helps marketers drive value across every stage of the customer lifecycle—from building awareness with your audience to driving revenue and engaging your advocates.