Although it’s easy to lose sight of the bigger picture with the festive season fast approaching, it’s important that businesses start to plan their marketing strategies for the coming year. Nowhere is this more critical than with social media. It’s hard to believe that not too long ago most businesses looked on the likes of Facebook and Twitter as irrelevancies: many paid lip service to social platforms, but most questioned their effectiveness. How times have changed. Social media is now regarded as essential for all online businesses. If you want to connect with your audience, engage and build brand loyalty then a Facebook, Twitter and Instagram presence is now regarded as vitally important.
The problem with social media marketing is it’s only truly effective if you know what you’re doing. The same applies to SEO. How so? Well, Google constantly changes its search algorithm, so users have to keep up to speed with the changes if they want to stay relevant and connected. The same thing happens with social media. Facebook and Instagram are constantly changing their algorithms, so if businesses want to use their social reach to stay connected with potential customers they have to adapt to these changes. So what can your business do to stay socially connected in 2017? What social tactics can you employ to ensure that 2017 will be a successful year?
Don’t be afraid to re-use content
One of the biggest casualties of the growing popularity of social media has been content. Everyone seems to be posting everywhere and at every hour of the day. Amidst all the online noise, content can easily get lost. You might post what you consider to be an insightful piece of content, but because of the sheer volume of traffic it doesn’t get picked up or fails to gain any traction. If that happens, then don’t despair. Redistribution is the key. Connect with your audience by using the content again at a later date when it might get more notice.
Add video to your social marketing mix
Video is king at the moment, not just on YouTube, but also on platforms like Facebook which has fully embraced video over the last year or so. Video is here and here to stay, so if you want to stay relevant you’ll have to embrace it. So get posting and sharing videos in 2017.
Engage with followers
Social media marketing shouldn’t only focus on increasing sales. The top-performing businesses on social media concentrate on engagement. They find ways to connect with your audience and interact, and that builds brand loyalty and advocacy. Once you’ve managed to build a loyal following, increased sales will follow naturally. So make engagement a top priory in 2017.
Work with, rather than against, influencers
Every industry and niche sector has its influencers. They are the ones people turn to for information and the ones people follow socially. They have the audience in the palm of their hands, so working against them is pointless. You simply won’t be able to compete. What’s the alternative then? Well, find ways of working with them. If you can cooperate and collaborate with the influencers who already hold sway the social media audience you’re trying to reach, you’ll be able to fast track your own social efforts and that bodes well for 2017.
