Social media marketing sounds very straight forwards, especially if you just entered this industry and your tasks are only publishing posts on social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, YouTube…etc, or finding some influencers and asking them to review a product.
But there are actually quite a lot of details that would get one into trouble, or lead to a not-very-successful marketing campaign if one is not really aware of that.
Here are 5 essential tips for a new social media marketer that very few marketing books would mention.
1. Fake and low-quality data influencers
It is inevitable some people would buy fake data, such as views count, followers count, comments count…etc.
Mismanaged marketing teams or agents might still partner with them, thus they can survive.
But how to distinguish them?
One of the easiest ways is to check the ratio of their videos/posts views count, subscribers/followers count, and comments count.
Very few fake data generations could generate a reasonable ratio for those counts. And even if they can, it would not be for every video/post.
For most of the markets and most usual videos, the view counts are usually around 10% of the subscribers for YouTube videos, but it could vary as well.
Apart from the number of comments count, you could also look inside the comments. Are the comments reasonable? Note that some creators would do a lot of giveaways or ads to generate huge numbers of comments and subscribers/followers. These counts are technically real but low in quality.
A YouTuber with 38.2K subscribers but only with 3-digit views and 2-digit likes.
2. Social media assets frame ratio
If you are preparing content to be posted on social media, it is better to be aware that the ratios needed for different social media platforms are different as well.
A rule of thumb would be
Facebook: 1:1 or 4:5
Instagram: 1:1 or 4:5
IG Story: 9:16(vertical)
YouTube: 16:9
Twitter: 2:1
If you have graphic designers, photographers or video editors working on that, it is strongly advised you talk with them about that in very advance. The design and editing take time and effort. It might also be impossible to do a 9:16 or even 1:1 ratio if the object is placed near the edge of the original footage/images.
Hootsuite got a good description of that:
3. Engaging with the audience
What to do after someone comments on your posts on social media? It is extremely important to engage with them.
If you consider them in a marketing funnel, they may be already in the middle of it, i.e. consideration.
Either to convert them or maintain an active atmosphere in the community, it would be very beneficial to engage with them in a real and living style conversation.
It is a great waste to leave this job to a bot. Just think about how much effort and money you need to spend to get a person to the middle of a marketing funnel.
4. Include a CTA(call-to-action) in the ads if it is suitable
What to put at the end of the copies of your social media posts?
Every post got a different purpose. Maybe generating awareness, maybe making conversions, or even collecting email addresses or future conversion stimulation.
It would be great to tell your audience to do that. But also please be gentle on that but do not threaten them or tease them for that.
Canon UK's post on Facebook with a CTA
5. Have a nice thumbnail, and first 5-15 seconds of videos, especially for inorganic ads
Think about the modern way of consuming content on social media. Most of them would not survive more than a 5-second of gaze, especially if it is an inorganic ad.
Therefore it is very important to prepare a nice thumbnail.
You could also rearrange the editing of your ads from your original long video. For example, put the most exciting/eye-catching part at the very beginning of the video, and if it is possible, you could put the message or the CTA(call-to-action) on the screen at the beginning of the video if it is feasible.
Handling social media marketing can be as easy as publishing posts, and sponsoring influencers. But to make the effort and budget effective, there would be quite a lot of details. Hope that these five tips could help you to have a smoother journey in marketing.
#Marketing #DigitalMarketing #GlobalMarketing #SocialMedia #SocialMediaMarketing #MarketingCampaign #CampaignManagement
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