Now that you’ve published all your content and created your brand’s social media accounts. What now? How do you start promoting your content, and what strategy do you focus your time on? Before you get into your marketing plans, we recommend that you try these simple steps to increase awareness for your brand.
These basics will help you take advantage of your social media platform’s unique features. Here are the 12 ways you can help your audience know who you are and what your brand represents.
Don’t ignore your Profile
This might seem obvious to some, but you don’t how many businesses tend to leave their profile blank, and they just don’t know what they’re missing. Unless your brand’s theme is one of those minimalistic looks, you need to fill out your brand’s page and make use of that space for extra promotion. You can add check-ins monthly on Facebook and take advantage of other promotional features.
The About section should be the place where you add links to your website and other social platforms. The Story tab gives you space to share what your company is about through a story format.
Add Branded Hashtags For Your IG Bio
Instagram now lets you add links to different accounts and use hashtags for your bio. Back then, people had to incorporate hashtags into the post itself, which might be tedious after a while. With this new feature, you now have extra space to promote other accounts and incorporate our hashtags.
You can make hashtags that are specific for your brand or special ones that are related to a limited event, like a promotion or a contest.
Pro Tip: Track your hashtag’s performance using the Sprout application
If you want your hashtags to be optimized as much as possible, you can use Sprout’s performance report to give you a clearer picture of the effectiveness of your current hashtags. With this app, you can discover your frequently used hashtags that generate a lot of engagement.
You can test out Sprout and its features for free by taking advantage of their limited trial or by requesting demos for your business.
Use All Of Your Channels To Cross-Promote With Other Platforms
The easiest way you can go about this is by giving your followers the occasional nudge to check out the rest of your social accounts aside from the one they generally visit. You can create links on different platforms and a call-to-action (CTA) that encourages viewers to check it out.
If you prefer something a bit more subtle, you can use your bio to introduce these links to allow better access for those who are interested. Profile pic changes for a Snapchat user base (into their Snapcode) is another good idea. You can use your code to promote your Snapchat account to other platforms like twitter.
Create Unique Social Icons For Your Brand’s Website
If interested consumers are looking for you online, the first thing they usually find in their search results is your brand’s website. We recommend that you look for ways to give them a more relaxed time looking for the rest of your social networks. A lot of website themes will have different icons for social media platforms, and they won’t take a lot of time to fill out.
You can take it up a notch by integrating your brand’s theme and colors into these icons. Some websites will use banners while a few others just go with a color change.
Use Email Signatures And Newsletters To Promote Your Brand’s Social Accounts
If you already send newsletters regularly, you can add social icons near the base. This is another subtle way to let your recipients know the different ways they can interact with you.
If you want something a little more direct, you can add fan sections for your newsletter, showcasing photos from your community. A lot of newsletter services give you the option of using embeds. If not, you can just upload pictures with account links.
Maybe your company also frequently sends emails to potential clients or partners. You could add links for your brand’s email signature, acting as an extra branding opportunity that uses the email platform to optimum potential.
Sales-Driven Promotions
For this section, we’ll be focusing on the ways you can drive sales through your social media accounts. Depending on what kind of business you have, you can capture these sales directly or passively using referral links.
Use Targeted Ads
There are multiple ways you can capture your target audience on social media. On Facebook, for example, you can use the feature “Facebook Pixel” that will let you create ads that automatically target the visitors of your website.
Make use of Facebook’s available audience data to narrow down your target group. You might have witnessed this firsthand. If you love going online to buy a specific product (gadgets, clothes, etc.), you’ve probably noticed a rise in the ads that direct you to more of these items. This is Facebook’s algorithm at work, taking note of your online buying habits, and adding to a specific interest category.
Use Your Posts To Tag Products
This feature is available for Facebook and Instagram. If you’re part of a retail brand, you’ll greatly benefit from using shoppable tags. They allow your customers to identify your services and products and easily buy them from your site using the tags.
Regularly Use Social-Only Promotions
In the past, people advertised weekly deals using newspaper ads or emails. But now, social media lets you do the same thing for free and allow you to reach a wider audience. These discounts let you segment your consumer base to target an even more specific buyer.
The easiest way to do this is to offer codes in your posts. Try using flash deals that are only provided for a limited time using Facebook or Instagram Stories.
Final Word
This is by no means the only list you can integrate into your promotions. You need to do your research regularly if you want to survive in the competitive online platforms. Update yourself in the new features offered by popular platforms because you can often take advantage of them to improve your business promotions.