5 Ways to Improve Your Social Media Marketing

This blog post has been written in collaboration with Grace College’s Writing for Publication Class (Spring Semester 2020). Students were assigned topics to cover. Their blog posts were then assessed for publication by their professor and 1Eighty Digital. This blog post was written by Nichole Cochran.

Ineffective marketing is a waste of valuable resources, so it’s important to understand the best way to approach every type of marketing strategy. Social media marketing is a method that requires intentionality and careful planning.

5 Social Media Marketing Tips

Stand Out 

There will be countless advertisements and marketing campaigns competing for your customer’s attention. Social media users are quickly skimming through their newsfeeds and don’t have time to study every post they see. 

There are many ways you can make your social media ad stand out from the crowd. Keep in mind that you want to create unique ad designs for your marketing. Clearly identify the message you want to communicate, and how you can represent that message in a different way from the common, everyday way of representing it.

Use unique symbolism to represent themes and be intentional in layout and color. These influence the design’s reception and interpretation. Finish your design with thought-provoking text that will stick in the viewer’s mind as they skim through their social media feeds.

Learn How To Understand Social Media Analytics

A social media practicum at California State University resulted in a variety of discoveries that help to pinpoint important factors in social media marketing. One of these is the value of analytics.

Analytics provide insight into thought processes and trends. Tracking these will help you know how to create your social media marketing to better meet these trends. Analytics illustrate what has and has not worked in the past so you can decide which marketing efforts brought in the best results.

You can also analyze the effectiveness of different social media platforms. Which platforms have received the best results in the past? Which platforms don’t get much engagement? Make decisions about your marketing based on the data you get from analytics.

Develop Strong Teamwork Skills

Social media marketing requires teamwork, just like every other marketing method. Learn where you best fit. Are you a leader? Are you skilled in design? Do you have experience monitoring social media activity?

Determine what you can contribute to a social media marketing campaign and fill that niche while encouraging others to do the same.

Identify & Connect With Your Target Audience

Determine the specific target audience for your social media marketing efforts. Consider who your ideal customer is, and who you want to reach the most. Do some research to discover which social media platforms they use the most and how they interact with those platforms.

What seems to draw their attention the most? How do they interpret the world? What are their values? No two people are identical, but you can find common themes within your target audience and focus on appealing to those themes in your marketing.

Understand Your Target Audience

Know your intended audience’s background. Study what has happened in the target community. If you don’t, you may unintentionally hit a particularly sensitive subject. Perhaps something tragic has happened in the community that causes an otherwise innocent post to be perceived as insensitive; this would turn people away instead of appealing to them. 

Social media can connect people and can be a valuable marketing tool for your business. But like any other marketing strategy, there are best practices to use to increase its effectiveness and avoid common pitfalls using these social media marketing tips.

Need help getting your social media marketing strategy started?