Writing Facebook post is not a time consuming task if you are sharing something general in nature or some kind of entertaining content but if you are promoting your business on Facebook then it may be one of the most difficult part of your whole marketing campaign. Although Facebook was not invented for marketing or to make something viral but now it is biggest platform to market your product and engage users by simply creating effective content and utilization of some marketing tools with very low investment. To be successful in your Facebook marketing campaigns nothing is more important than making your content viral, and when it catches like wildfire, not only exciting the fans you have but also attracting the other users. In fact it is too hard to do. Few marketing agencies have learnt that how to make their posts viral.  It’s much easier when you’re a significantly wealthy and established agency, of course. But it’s not guaranteed. It’s not something you can just order, like your lunch. There are some simple ways to make your post viral or considerably more likely. Tactics that have worked before, work currently, and will probably always work to a degree. In underneath discussion we will talk about those simple tactics that can make you viral on Facebook and other social media websites. These techniques are not crucial and expensive; it is so simple to apply even if you are not a well experienced and established digital marketer. 

Be Ready to Newsjack

Whenever something happens and something important or something scandalous, something newsworthy people like to read, share and comment on it.  If something like that happens on Facebook users will notice posts that mention it and they will pay more attention to them. So you need to pay attention on these kinds of stuffs. Stay current on things and when something happens, think about that how you can relate the post with your brand and what you are selling.  When a newsworthy content is shared, your branding will be there. You can also place Facebook viral gates on your post.  Viral gates make your post more viral as everyone must have to share your post to read your complete post.

Offer Discount Coupons

 You can offer discount coupons for your fans if they share and like or comment on your post. This technique is widely used to generate new potential leads also. To offer discount coupons you need to use Facebook viral marketing software. This kind of software make it easy to offer discount coupons for readers otherwise you must have to bear development and hosting expensive. Nowadays there are several kinds of Facebook marketing software. You can create and post any type of content like motion posts, Fb ads video posts and can directly post on your fan page.

Contests work

Contests are not only best way to engage your fans but also great way to invite new users. It is important to decide what kind of contest will give you maximum exposure. Sometimes by running contest that is not related to your business provide great exposure to your brand. There are, of course, a few ways to do it right. And that’s important not only for virality, but making sure you don’t have any logistical problems with running the actual contest as well. On Facebook very few kind of contests options are available, you can use them effectively.

Use CTA Buttons

Make your Facebook posts be actionable, ask a question, issue a challenge, ask your fan to tag their fans or something like that which invite a response from visitor. It is always good idea to ask your audience to do something. It is often critical. Try to create posts that can encourage your audience to do something for you. When your visitors responded, you need to reply them as soon as possible. With the passage of time it becomes really untenable, you’re already viral-so it’s no longer a problem.  Call to action buttons are not only used for engagement, but for virality also.

Promote Your Post on Different Platforms

The last and proven technique to make your Facebook post viral is self-promotion on different platforms. You really need to promote your posts on other social media websites like Google, LinkedIn and etc. Promote your Facebook Fan Page posts as many platforms as possible. Sharing Facebook posts on other social media network has great impact on increasing traffic.  You can try different Social Media Management Programs. There’s quite few a few to choose from.  Always remember that you may never produce viral content but still you can do it by adopting different strategies and by solid viral marketing plans.

You can also customize your posts by using available Facebook viral marketing software. You can use fully customized templates and designs for your posts that make your post more attractive. If you have to engage your audience on regular basis but you don’t have time to post regularly then you can use schedule posting options to post your content timely. More importantly these kinds of softwares provide analytics for each and every post separately.  We always recommend promoting as much as possible, of course, but your audience might be more receptive to newsworthy content than contests. You’ll be the one to know that – it’s your audience.

 

We have all heard the phrase that ‘content is the king’. In order to survive in the digital world, we live in, knowledge and information are everything. People need more information to advance while businesses need to produce more content to stay alive and grow in a competitive environment. Needless to say, every brand needs a plan, a strategy that will give them authority and allow them to stand out in the market.

Using social media to connect with people around, friends and family sounds very easy and entertaining, and is when used for those purposes. Organizations and companies however use it for completely different reasons. They need traffic for their website, Engagements on the posts and better leads from audience, which is not at all easy.

To use social media to its full potential in a business environment needs tactics and smarts. You really need to understand your targeted audience and what they want to hear from you. Once you know them, their behaviors and perceptions, you will be able to get the engagements you want on the content.

Connect

Brands that focus more on having actual connection with target audience and consumers rather than filling news feeds with advertisements achieve more success. The growth of these companies is fast as their customers trust them more. There are different ways to interact with users on social media. Some brands go with sass and a little bit of unconventional humor when responding back to comments, while others are super nice or neutral. An entertainment company cannot be serious in their conversations as their job is to provide a good time. A Facebook page focused on providing breaking news from all over the world has to state facts and figures hence they need to be formal and professional in their interactions.

The goal should be to let audience know that you are there for them. Trust is the most essential component of a healthy relationship between business and its customers. Credibility and trust get the company loyal customers which serve as the brand ambassadors and face of the brand to other users on Facebook. Reviews from these audiences are most important as their recommendations carry a lot of weight in front of general public.

As a marketer, your focus should also be on networking with influencers and industry professionals. Experts have a power in defining trends and shaping the way of news stories or campaigns, which is keeping them close can give you upper hand.

Social media influencers have the power that can either shoot your business to the sky or make it disappear in the matter of weeks. You need these people on your sides because they are most trustworthy among audience. They work independently so their opinions carry weight and are considered reliable. Influencers partner up with the businesses they admire and share same ideology with. In search for a reliable influencer, you must consider the fact that they share the same opinions and views as your brand, so you do not compromise the image.

Stay Active

To make an impression in the digital world, you need to be present all the time. Online presence and visibility are the key components in giving your company a considerable standing in the competitive market when starting the business. Use all available social channels that can be managed in the allocated budget to promote the content and products and services you offer.

Building awareness is the focus of every new business in the market as without awareness no one will notice you amongst the sea of established competitors.

Posting on Facebook in the form of status updates, photos and videos is pivotal to the social media growth. Posting statuses and website blog links on the page give users an opportunity to view, share and interact with your content. Through comments and reply section, deepen the relationship with audience and potential customers.

Reply to all everyone and acknowledge the opinions of users. If anyone has a query, try to answer it immediately and keep the conversation going as long as you can. It is understandable that you cannot sit in front of a laptop of use smartphone to access social media all day and it is possible to miss few comments made in that time. To avoid leaving anyone out, set a time to go through whole comments section. It can be in the evening or morning depending on when your day ends. In that time, check your inbox and make your presence visible in comments thread.

Analytics

How can you make sure that your campaign is on the right track and is actually reaching the target audience? Too often, marketers build whole campaigns and invest a lot in them without realizing that they are failing and bringing zero to nothing return on investment.

With modern technology and advancements, the chances of complete failures are slim as you can find out the results as the campaign is in progress. Google analytics and other third party softwares can fetch analytics and data from the websites to let you know which campaigns are working and which ones are not.

Analytics are crucial not only for ongoing campaigns but also for shaping the future campaigns. You can even find out which format works and which does not. Between visuals and live stream videos, if video gathers more engagements and shares it will be sensible to plan the future live streams instead of focusing on graphics. Similarly, analytics can also find out the type of people the campaign has had most effect on. With one graph or table, you can see whether your content resonates better with youngsters and teens or elders.

Social media strategy has no one typical design standard. Every company and every brand has different approach and it is totally possible that two opposite types of campaigns work perfectly fine for two competitors. In social media, you need creativity and the ability to be unique. If you have those talents, you can pull anything off when planned right and executed perfectly.

Marketers are faced with a number of options to promote their businesses and when strategies are executed right, they can reach to hundreds and thousands of people through multiple channels available in the digital world. Social media out of all the channels is most efficient and cost effective way to reach the right customers and increase client database. Marketing on social media means creating content that is unique and valuable for the audience. That content must resonate with audience and provide them with new knowledge so it can go viral.

Producing viral content and being viral on social media is one of the fastest ways to make a name for your company. Going viral means your content will get more views, engagements and shares, which will subsequently result in higher number of conversions, maximized organic visitors on websites and better leads.

Exposure and heightened awareness about your brand in people is good for business for so many reasons . Apart from the great return on investment (ROI), viral content gets people to take interest in you even if they are not categorized as your target audience. To go viral, you need to strategize and make sure that your campaign reaches right users and is able to catch on with trends. Some of the marketing strategies that can be used in the content promotion to make sure it goes viral are listed below.

Visuals

Pictures and graphics work the best in any type of marketing contain, be it traditional, digital or social media. Content that is appealing to the eyes automatically receives better attention than a status update or tweet in text form. Use pictures and images to promote your campaign message or big idea. Even if the message is in text form you can always put it on a picture with faded background. Delivering message in the form of animated or short video also appeals to the audience.

Images being used must be coherent with brand theme and the main message should be highlighted. Amateur marketers usually pick images up from Google without considering whether or not they go well with the brand perception and appearance. The purpose of this article is to warn and stop you from making that mistake. Do not compromise your company and its image and when using third party graphics, make sure you give credit to the owner of visual.

Memes and humorous content have the tendency to go viral more often than a straight forward serious message so be creative and convert the solid content into light jokes that can be understood easily without altering the meaning of message.

Big Idea

Every campaign needs a message to deliver and behind that message is an idea. While most viral content is accidental and can happen to anyone, businesses cannot rely on that chance and therefore must plan their message carefully. There are no guarantees that the content is bound to go viral but if the message is strong, novel and clear, audience will pay attention to it.

You must have a deep understanding of your customer behaviors and audiences’ preferences to know what they like and what they want. These insights will help in curating and delivering the message in a much better way.

Appeal to Emotions

Viral content is not about self-promotion or hard core advertising. It is about the connection it is able to make between the reader and the message creator. Social media users respond better to the content they can relate to. Sentiments and humor are the easier tools that can be used in the message to get to the audience. When your goal is getting virality the facts and figures are not enough. You must be able to get an emotional response from the audience and for that you need to get personal. Appeal to the fears and hopes. Talk about controversial topics that spark conversations and only then your message is likely to go viral.

Do not Overdo It

Most business try too hard when launching campaigns. A lot of money, time and man power is spent on distributing the message. For a viral campaign, the technique is to let it happen by itself instead of forcing it on to the audience. If you notice, viral content becomes viral when diversified users share it and not when the company does. This means that focus on quality of the message, channel and customers present on it. Launch from one medium and let the audience do the rest.

Quality content will automatically get shared. Screenshots are the quickest way for users to spread the message on social media. Engage your employees in the process and ask them to share it with their friends so the flow continues.

Networking

While making connections and interacting with target audience is the basic rule in social media marketing 101, it pays off even more in generating viral campaigns. People trust you more when you are active and responsive on social media. It increases your online visibility and presence in the digital world giving you more authority amongst the competitors.

This authority is helpful when you are sharing the content with the intention of it going viral. The community of these niche users might look small but play the most essential role in sharing content on multiple social media outlets.

Social media marketing and especially viral marketing can make small business successful in the matter of hours. When you know the people you are addressing and understand their needs, creating viral content is not that difficult. It might take its time but it will eventually happen if you use the data and analytics properly and to your advantage. In some cases, it is possible that you do everything right but the campaign does not achieve its goal. This is the thing with social media. It is unpredictable and ever changing so you can never know the right answer. Just keep your objectives clear and focus sharp and you will get what you want one day.

People trust and talk about brands when they interact with them personally. Social media provides businesses the incredible opportunity of connecting with customers and any potential clients present on the network.

Digital marketing and online exposure have become the part of core objectives in a marketing strategy. In order to stay ahead of competition, marketers need to learn and thoroughly understand social media tactics. Without a plan or strategy, advertising and promotion on social media is bound to fail, even when done in front of the right audience.

Research has shown that certain techniques and tools on social media directly help in maximizing the exposure of brand to the target audience as well as increase the reach and overall authority of the organization. In order to use social media to its full potential for your own benefit, your business managers and media marketers need to know these following amazing tactics.

Worthy Content

Content is the king in social media. When a user opens your company’s official Facebook page, he/ she is looking for new and useful information. This information should be worthy of their time and must offer value. Using old posts, pictures and articles is not the way to encourage interactions from viewers as they have already seen it.

To establish a name and standing for your brand in the industry, your social media team needs to be creative. Novel ideas and quality content is central to the success and bringing in leads and conversions.

Using keywords, trending hashtags, backlinks and visuals in articles is incredibly helpful in actively staying the part trending discussions and news stories.

Multichannel Strategy

Social media is more than just a Facebook page or a Twitter profile. Smart phones have enabled developers to create social media apps that have user friendly interface, so it is easy for people to use and understand them. These new apps also offer more features that are advanced in nature. This has allowed business to expand their networks beyond typical networks like LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, Google + and Facebook. Whether you are looking for all in one features app or a one specific feature app, you are just one tap away.

Take periscope as example. Talking to people in real time without any barriers and censorship is highly interactive for brands. Properly shot and edited videos have their own charm but trusting people with whatever comes the way is the fastest way for a business to build its credibility and deep personal connection with its customers and target audience.

Creating multichannel strategy also gives the marketers a chance to be more creative in building narratives. Promoting the same idea through 140 characters’ tweet or 10 second Snapchat story, through an Instagram visual or Tumblr thread eventually helps in artistic journey of social media managers. Using multiple channels in social media promotions means more visibility to more audience which is important in brand’s growth and success.

Timeliness and Frequency

While content and its right promotion on right channels is crucial, you cannot forget the vitality of uploading it on right time. Different target audience use social media networks differently. It depends on your locality and other basic demographics of customers. If you are targeting teenagers in New York, the ideal time to post on Facebook might be around 6-8 PM while for Twitter, this time can be 10PM to 12AM.

It all depends on who your target users are, how they interact with social media apps and websites and when they do it. Establishing prime time for publishing most important content of the day is essential to ensure the viral capabilities of content.

With timeliness, frequency of the content is a key player as well. You cannot just rely on one post for the day and be done with it. Keeping social media active is first step of the successful online presence strategy and for that you need to post multiple things throughout the day. The magic is to not overdo it while making sure that enough content is being posted. With the amount of content thrown at users in their newsfeed, it is very easy for a post to get lost once it is published. Frequent content posts help in overcoming that problem as they all cannot be ignored. Users are bound to see few of them and interact with them so explore your options and use automation softwares to schedule them for preplanned time slots.

Two-way Communication

Social media is not a one-way street. Posting content and getting responses from target audience does not mean that the job is complete. People will respond to one ad one time but how can you make sure that they come back next time? The answer is to follow-up and respond to the community participating in the discussion through comments section.

Making people feel important and worthy of your time is essential for your brand to move forward in a mature way. User interaction can be enhanced when both the business and customer are actively participating. The point is to keep going. Even if you cannot start a new dialogue, just respond with acknowledged notes to the comments with opinions and personal views.

Comments are also a way of collecting feedback and letting the users know that you care about what they think.

Be Personal

While many consider social media a shallow platform for friends, families and businesses to interact, it is not always true. A website or a blog are a place of one-way communication but social media offers the chance to users to know their favorite brands personally.

Professional networks like LinkedIn, which are meant to be a place for business and formal interactions are not part of this strategy, but Facebook and Twitter can be used to put a face value to the brand. Take portraits of your team and upload them. Candid shots of employees and CEO working can also play a role in getting users to know you better. People become more interested when they see a face behind a product instead of just a logo.

The focus should be on the narrative and telling the story instead of selling. Once you have the connection, customers will automatically be more prone to buy your product while visitors can be easily converted into future clients.

Exceptional customer experience means everything for a company’s maturity and successful growth. A compelling strategy in today’s digital media world is not enough unless it is present everywhere, especially when your business is competing with tens or hundreds of the same other brands. To get more customers, company needs more reach, better understanding of the audience being targeted and Social Media Marketing Strategy along with proper channels to execute it on.

Research shows that when a brand uses multiple channels to promote a single idea in different formats it works better and the number of profitable outcomes are high compared to when marketed through one channel or network only.

A multichannel marketing strategy can be defined as a plan implemented on more than one channels that are aligned to present a single front to the viewers. The strategy is independent regardless the network and is exceedingly consistent. It is viewed by a diverse audience in multiple scenarios resulting in a unified reaction from the users with different needs and expectations.

In today’s world, customers and clients have better access and unlimited choices to access and view content in a digital world, while the time is short. To reach more people and manage all their expectations from the business, marketers need to have a plan that is expandable and flexible so it can be adjusted anywhere at any time. This demand is what makes the need of a multichannel strategy urgent and necessary so your company is ready to handle any situation given at any time in a small window.

Creating a thorough and creative multichannel strategy is difficult and takes a fair share of time. As a marketer, you need to understand what you offer and what people want are the same things. To make sure that your audience knows the same you need to curate an exceptionally well strategy so customers actually engage with your content. Here are some of the pointers that can be of extreme help when devising a multichannel social media strategy.

Try Everything

Before reaching a decision, you need to make multiple plans and use different marketing models to find the perfect one. Every model has different parameters, hence can be used for different channels. You cannot know the best unless you have tried everything possible and within range of the budget. It is quite possible that one method looks perfect in theory but fails when implemented.

Taking on challenges and risks in a restricted environment make the strategy more refined and advanced.

Pick the Right Apps

With the presence of over hundreds of networks and social media apps, you need to know which ones cater to your needs and demands the best. Each channel has something different to offer so choose the ones that fulfill most of your needs. If you want the image marketing campaign, Instagram is the best shot while for small chunks of updates and getting people to share their opinions, Twitter is the one.

The questions as following must be kept in mind

  • What is the target audience?
  • Who is your competition and where are they present most significantly?
  • How many channels can be handled in the given budget?
  • Are there any new channels in the market that are starting to get people’s attention?

You want people to be aware of your content and the brand, so look at the highest number of Targeted Audience that use the networks under consideration. Priority to the ones with the most active target audience should be given. Determine the pros and cons of each channel. One of the most important thing is to consider whether the channel works on mobile, browser and desktop. Mobile apps are especially important since people are prone to use them more compared to a website.

Mobile-friendly content

Just like the apps, content you deliver should be mobile friendly and highly optimizable. To get more website visitors and blog readers, you need to produce content that can be modified according to any given app where you are promoting the brand.

The number of smart phone users has increased substantially since past years and that should weigh in on your content design. The content that can be promoted through mobile and desktop is the ideal one to get more people into the sales funnel.

Using scan and QR codes on actual products is one of the best ways to get customers to revisit your website or blogs.

Quality content

Instead of worrying about more content for different channels, focus on the worth and value of content. Once the idea is finalized, convert it into multiple formats. For Twitter, you will need to use just 140 characters it to convey it. Turn the idea into a story board for making a video or create visuals when promoting through images.

Valuable content is the key to survive in the market as they enhance the unique value of the brand. When the same content is distributed in multiple forms at multiple places, it is sure to leave an impact on audience, removing the noise and augmenting the personal connection between business and customer.

Data and Analytics

Every plan needs to be evaluated to see whether it is working or not. Analytics are the way to help you decide whether to go ahead with the current strategy or is it time to modify and change it according to circumstances. For a unified strategy, you need the common results and that can only be obtained once the single persona of audience has been established. The linking spot in audience is what you should focus on and evaluate the strategy built around that to see if it working or not.

If you do not invest in getting the right information, your strategy cannot work. Track every success and failure. At the end of the day, it is customer experience that defines what works and what does not and that is only possible to access when you have the right means and resources in the form of analytics softwares and tools.

 

The advancement and evolution of social media has introduced multiple options for business and brands to promote themselves. Focusing on strategy to cater all famous social media networks and apps like Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, LinkedIn etc. is not the way to build connections and network with clients or potential customers.

While, a multichannel strategy might work for two or three similar networks, it can neither be applied to everywhere nor any marketer needs to, no matter how small or big business is. Achieving goals and meeting objectives is easier when the you have a specified area and content to work with as a marketer or business owner.

The challenge is not to build multiple strategies but to understand what differentiates each channel from the other. That information can substantially help in choosing the primary networking space for your brand promotion based on the services and specialties offered by them. The framework and data provided by each channel can help in deciding the space where you will get the most engagements and organic visitors for website from.

Creating perfect strategy for a niche audience on limited number of channels comes with expertise time and resources. For a new business owner or an entrepreneur recently entering the market, these points are irrelevant in the present short term since the first step is to get audience who will listen to you. Without social media audience, your business is dead.

Starting fresh, the first step you need to take is approach people who fall under the demographics of target audience. These potential customers can be reached through multiple channels. Here are some points that can help you understand why each channel is important and how you can get new customers through them.

Facebook

The initial purpose for building Facebook might have been facilitating communication  between students and later common public, it no longer is that. Now Facebook is used  for more than just connecting with friends to share notes and talk. Entertainment,  business and ads have become a huge part of it which is why every brand sets up their  Facebook page at the start.

 Facebook for business and customers is important because it helps in building  awareness. It allows companies to build themselves and share content that the audience will be interested in. the prefect platform to build a reputation and starting meaningful interaction is Facebook, which is why it should be top of your choice.

With audience optimization, the results that can be achieved through a Facebook page can be breaking enough to shoot your business at the top of market.

Twitter

To generate conversation about your brand or campaign, Twitter is the perfect place to start. People who use Twitter are well aware of the fact that it is mostly used as a way to express opinions about anything the user feels like. It can be trending news and it can be new cereal flavor you ate this morning.

The point is that in a fluid environment, where everything is said and talked about, it is not difficult to start a conversation. The best way to spread fast is by using hashtags. Invest all your employees into tweeting consistently to promote your campaign or product. Few days of work will show you productivity and attraction of customers towards the brand.

Google Plus

While most companies and businesses consider Google + to be nonexistent for  promoting business, it is hardly true. Although the number of active user might not be a  s big a s Facebook or Twitter, it is still somewhere around five hundred million. These  500 million accounts belong to users who actively participate on the network and share  content publicly. While the number of registered users on Google plus is approximately  3 billion, the data show that 90% of these users have never made a post on the channel once in their life. The active users can still be used in promotion of mobile content via Gmail. Ecommerce is also a hot topic for Google plus, resulting in more customers and buyers through mobile. Although, Google plus is not a social network, it can still be used to form connections and join communities that share same interests as you and your audience.

YouTube

YouTube is a video marketing channel, which is a perfect place to put a face to your  brand and show the world who you and your team members are. Video can help to build  an image of authority when created with powerful editing, script and acting. Video is a  communication channel that brings most engagements when compared to text or  pictures. This is exactly why you can use the comment section of YouTube to find people  who can be future customers.

You can also use YouTube to share worthy content that is not available anywhere else on internet like unique tutorials, talk shows, interactive sessions and so on.

LinkedIn

With over 400 million users, LinkedIn provides organizations and officials to be a part of community where the environment is more formal and business oriented. Finding influencers, industry experts and CEOs of companies is done through LinkedIn and it provides new marketers the perfect opportunity to learn and connect with them.

As we have talked about it a hundred times before that influencers are the key to driving more customers as their recommendations are trustworthy and credible. LinkedIn groups also provide an incredible opportunity to find targeted communities who hare mutual interests and are like minded.

Based on your profile, LinkedIn also suggests groups on his own for you to join. The information is based on shared contents of a profile or content. Talk to these communities in groups and share your professional portfolios to build a standing in market.

Every brand, company, organization needs audience and clients, which are the key to survival of business. Without any awareness and public acceptance, businesses can easily go down no matter how unique the product being offered is.

Social media optimization is one way to let people know about you and your brand resulting in increased followers and traffic on blog. Optimization simply is a way to enhance your content and marketing strategy through different social media profiles like Facebook page, Twitter account, LinkedIn profile and so on.

The optimized content plays a vital role in deciding where the content will be ranked on search engines when people search for it through keywords. Content is considered optimized when it directly helps in increasing your online visibility by appearing in trending news, relevant posts and blogs etc.

Just like search engine optimization (SEO), Social Media Optimization works on same core principles. The objective is drive traffic to your Facebook page and ultimately the website, expand social media network and maximize the online visibility.

Why is SMO important?

In order to build social media connections and networks, you need to update your Facebook page and other profiles with information consistently. Uploading content and hoping it will make you millionaire in a day is just wishful thinking but if you need to convert those dreams into reality, what you can do is understand the importance of social media optimization.

There is always something more you can do to reach out to people, have deeper interaction with them and increase organic visitors on website. Staying active and maintaining a noticeable presence can help a lot when you want to add more people to your sales funnel.

The potential that any social media channel can offer for branding and publicity of a company can be huge. Add in social media optimization tactics and your company is set to make a name for itself in the industry amongst fierce competitors.

To improve and simplify social media optimization, here are some tips that can vitally improve your strategy.

1. Automation

Social media’s evolution in recent years has made it difficult to handle it efficiently in a limited time. The number of apps and websites is increasing for people and companies to connect on along with the number of accounts on one channel.

Designing new plans and strategies, evaluating the ones that are already implemented, staying active, communication with clients and customers are the few pointers in a list of unending tasks for a social media manager. To save time and get things done quickly, marketers need to handle their activities using automation softwares like Bleupage or TabFu.

Through automation services, content can be uploaded automatically at any specified interval, messages can be scheduled and tweets can be posted in advance. Automation is an optimization strategy that is effective, time saving and does not require an individual or team to sit in front of a laptop or desktop whole day.

 

2. Mobile friendly

Most of the social media websites are available in the form of apps for android, iOS and windows. Considering that more than half the population of this planet owns and actively uses smart phones, the best way to optimize content and social media is by making it mobile friendly.

Use share buttons that allow people to share your blog on any social media with just one tap. For Facebook, use instant article publishers which makes content loading faster and more presentable. While scrolling through newsfeed, users do not want to waste time waiting for content to load, which is why with instant articles the chances of your content actually viewed, read and interacted with become higher.

 

3. Build networks

Use Facebook groups as a way to self-promote and find any potential clients who share the same interests as you to get them to invest in your company. Networking is important for social media optimization because it gives you a chance to mature and grow with more exposure. Influencers, social media personalities and experts can have a positive effect on your brand if they know about you personally.

You can also leverage influencers to market you on their profiles and networks. Given their authority and credibility in the market, your social media can blow up after getting positive reviews from them. This directly results in increased visibility and huge traffic on the website.

Audience is as important as the influencers and networking with them is not enough. You need to have a personal deep connection of trust and understanding. Attention towards audience depicts your brand values as well as the fact that you care about your customers. When customer input is valued, people are more likely to interact with you and recommend you to their friends even if they do not fall in your primary target audience.

This is helpful because it expands your followers from just niche to more general, giving you the opportunity to build newer campaigns. The more the follower count is, the higher is the probability of your sales funnel growing.

 

4. Primary channel

For social media optimization, multiple channels of marketing are crucial but it is impossible to use all of them to their full potential at the same time. Different apps and networks have different features making them suitable for variety of content. For example, you cannot post hilarious cat videos on LinkedIn and expect to meet professionals and industry experts who will take you serious. To generate discussions and understand opinions, you need Twitter and Facebook while to initiate business oriented discussion, LinkedIn provides an ideal platform.

Considering these features, look at your content and social media marketing strategy to decide where you fit. You cannot get everything out of a Facebook page or Facebook marketing but with data and analytics, you can decide whether it should be the channel to put most focus on. If most of your target audience actively use it to interact with your content and share, make it your priority but if the analytics show Twitter to be the one bringing the most outcome in form of visitors on website and sales funnel, shift your strategy to that.

Use other platforms alongside for other purposes, such as you can use periscope to broadcast a live event, or use Snapchat to share stories that are interactive and informal.

Social media is crucial for your brand’s success and everyone knows it. While a strong social media presence can double your reach, audience, leads and sales, the wrong strategy can cost you these things as well.

One wrong move and suddenly your following is decreasing, your audience are disengaged and you find yourself back to square one resulting in missed opportunities, that ultimately impacts your revenues and sales.

Creating a social media strategy is not difficult at all in theory and in practice as well if your aim to be average amongst your competitors. However, if you want to make a real change in your industry you will need to understand a lot more than just the fundamentals of social media strategy.

To use social media to its full potential, the first step is stop thinking just about Facebook page and Facebook Ads only. The opportunities are limitless and certainly go beyond a Facebook fan page.

The idea is to understand the complete media landscape and plan your strategy around that while keeping your campaign flexible to adjust any new trends.

Create Content Not Ads

The audiences do not react and respond when you are doing only hardcore selling. Facebook is full of ads and promotional content. Stop for a minute and think about the difference your ad would make among the other millions. None!

People need to know about you and who you are before they buy your product. So, it is never a good idea to start with Facebook ads when implementing a social media strategy.

Produce something that has value and ability to resonate with users emotionally. Your content should be able to insinuate feelings into the viewer’s mind and heart so they respond to it by interacting and further sharing it with their friends.

Once users know that your content is worthy and unique, they will not need any persuading into visiting your website and checking your products out.

Brand Ambassadors

Social media has recently seen a spike in influencers and their key impact on followers. People trust them and listen to them. Vital decisions in media strategy are made based on the opinions of influencers which makes them a significant force.

When you profile your target audience based on demographic, research about the influencers they follow and trust. By building a partnership with these influencers, you can make them brand ambassadors for your company.

A few mentions of your product alongside their name will result in higher reach and engagements for the content.

Influencers are not easily affordable as they are well aware of their power on people, so until you are completely sure that their ideology resonates with your brand theme, do not waste your money.

Keep looking even if it takes some time and when you find the right one, it will be worth your time and money. Businesses in hurry mostly make the mistake of making brand ambassadors say whatever they want to by offering higher rates, regardless of their personal opinions.

While this might work in short term, it backfires in long term when your contract is over and the influencers are no longer required to say what you ask them to. Today’s audience is vigilant and they pick up such details, costing your company its credibility and value.

Diverse Channels and Consistency

As I said, Facebook Ads are not the only important factor in a winnable social media strategy. Look beyond a Facebook page. Set up a Twitter account. Experiment with Snapchat. Broadcast any live events on Periscope. Use LinkedIn to connect with other businesses and professionals of industry.

Making an account on all apps and platforms is not enough. Post across all channels. If you think handling multiple channels and accounts is overwhelming, use automation softwares to be more efficient and save time.

Consistency is very important, even if you do not see an immediate elevation in your analytics. Not posting anything or just posting once in a week is never better than moving forward by having a reliable schedule to upload posts. You may not see any engagements in starting weeks or even months, but ultimately people are bound to notice and that is crucial for your success.

Active Presence

In a two-way communication world, it makes sense that when the both sending and receiving parties are actively involved. Ignoring people’s comments and opinions does not do any good to your brand.

You not only come off as standoffish but your audience also creates this image of you, where you do not care about anyone but yourself. When someone asks a question, reply to them even if you see it late or someone else has already answered.

The user asked you because they trust your answer, so give them an answer and in case it has already been answered by another user, acknowledge that their information is correct and reliable.

This is a way of letting your potential and target customers know that you care about them.

Analytics

How will you know whether you are on a right track or your strategy needs some shifting? The answer is in one word. Analytics!

Many businesses ignore analytics by just looking at the results in front of their face in form of comments, shares, retweets, reposts etc.

Do not make that mistake. Many apps like Facebook, Twitter, Google, LinkedIn and others provide their own analytics so you can see the progress of your account for that network only.

However, if you are using a social media channel that does not have its own analytics app or option, you can always rely on third party softwares and tools like TabFu that will provide your analytics in one dashboard.

In conclusion, it is likely that different tactics work for different brands in different ways. Nevertheless, the above five tips are substantial in any campaign implementing them in your strategy can never hurt.

Follow the rules if you want to play by the book but taking risks is also vital. At the end of the day, having a meaningful deep personal connection with your customers is important to ensure their loyalty and to further your sales, leads and revenues.

In the modern pop-culture, the word ‘viral’ is considered a ticket to entering the big leagues of internet and social media scenario.

Everyone from high school kids to multinational companies and non-profit organizations wants to go viral. Everyone understands that a piece has gone viral when your content shared on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Reddit, Tumblr or any of the social media platforms gets picked up by other users (apart from friends and followers) bringing in shares, responses and comments.

Take the example of ‘the dress’ that blew up social media recently. A picture posted by a user who was genuinely confused about the actual color of the dress. It went viral, but can it be considered viral marketing… not really.

The term viral marketing can only be applied when the idea or post going viral has a sales and persuasive effect to it. Now, in the case of ‘the dress’, what can be considered viral marketing is the media response companies like clothing lines received when they used the hashtag ‘#thedress’ in their Facebook ads or tweets.

When does it happen and how it happens are the questions no one knows the definite answers to.

  • Does it work by following the traditional media strategy? Hardly!
  • Does the content, advertisers and marketers want to go viral, goes viral? Hardly!

In this blogpost, we will try to understand the strategies for a viral campaign and then look at some of the reasons it works, although some experts argue that it is waste of time and money.

How to create viral campaign

  • Content

The first step to enter in the world of viral marketing is to forget the word ‘viral’ altogether. Your content is what that matters and this content can be in the form of a picture, text post, video, Facebook ad etc.

All viral campaigns have one thing in common and it is their simple yet unique content. When you want to create a viral campaign, you focus too much on the ideas and their refinedness, overlooking the simplest things that have ability to connect and invoke emotions in other users.

Creating something that appeals to the heart by either bringing joy, anger, happiness, nostalgia, fun or any strong emotions is the key to becoming viral. Commercials, songs and videos that get watched millions of times are the perfect example of viral marketing as they have ability to engage the viewer by making an impact right there in the moment.

Most of the English speaking population could not make out the lyrics to PSY’s ‘Gangnam Style’, yet within weeks people knew and had listened to the song. Why? Because of its catchy tune and bizarre dance that was completely new and fun.

One of the old tricks to go viral is by producing something borderline controversial. This strategy works because it gets the people from both sides of argument to talk and comment.

To make sure that you are on the right track, test your content by thinking from the perspective of viewer. Will they like to share it with their friends? Will you yourself be willing to WhatsApp or Facebook inbox to your friends or you will just ignore it. Based on your answers you will know about the next steps.

  • Out of the box thinking

Creating a unique, first-time content can be overwhelming and often when you do come up with an idea it gets shot down by the boss or your colleague tells you that they have seen it before.

What could be done in that case?

It is understood that people respond well to rewards and the idea of a free product even if it is no use to them. Imagine the response you would get from your target audience when there are motivators involved. I am not just talking about voucher codes and coupons that one in a hundred or one in ten get. Instead, it could be done by rewarding everyone while your big idea and brand strategy stays in place.

Let me give you an example. The message Coca Cola spreads through its advertising is that of love, happiness and sharing. The company came up with an unusual idea to further this brand theme by introducing hug machines. This was specifically targeted for the Indian and Pakistani audience as the rivalry between two countries is never ending.

One person on one side of the border would hug the machine while the other on the other side… when the hugs synced, the huggers will be rewarded with a free coke automatically.

Why viral marketing works

  • It creates a buzz

Short-lived though it might be, viral marketing is surely responsible to create and uptick in the sales of a company when it is getting mentions from media and hundreds or millions of users across social media platforms. With right tactics, you can further build the campaign and use the heat to further spread the campaign.

The attention also helps in building a rather untypical following that you would normally not target while designing a normal campaign.

  • Credibility

When a huge chunk of population talks about you, the first impression on a new user is that you are important. This builds credibility and trust of consumers on your products and services. The momentum can also be capitalized by connecting with influencers and getting them to endorse your product, so your product gets more recognition in the industry.

  • Global Campaign

Viral campaigns are a way for businesses to launch themselves globally. Most of the content made and distributed in US by large organizations get seen across the world, but small businesses do not have that luxury. For them, a viral campaign can help get a global recognition allowing more potential clients and opportunity for the business to extend internationally.

  • Impact in industry

Viral campaigns play a crucial role in deciding your standing in the industry. The impact can be huge and you have the ability to get ahead of your competitors, who have been in the industry for years.

Viral campaigns are also favored in social media marketing as they create a path for introducing more vital ideas in the shadow of viral attention. It is important to try new things in marketing so maybe it is time you think about building a viral campaign.