You’ve heard the expression “The more things change, the more they stay the same,” right? That’s relatively true on social media, at least in terms of the most popular trends. At its core, social media is just that: a social venue, designed to connect communities and people, to share ideas and experiences, to create a way for enterprises to reach their intended audiences in subtle, socially acceptable ways.
No matter how much social media will continue to evolve with each passing year, it’s safe to say that people will always crave those real-life connections that draw them away from the typical “sales” experience — and toward the kind of content that makes them laugh, cry, engage and grow.
With that being said, this roundup of some of our top tips from 2019 serves as a reminder of the constants in social media, with a caveat that even these tips may evolve as time goes on. Hopefully, these ideas from will carry you into 2020 as you round out your social media planning for the new year.
Get Social With New Recruits
If you’re hiring, candidates will be checking out your social media pages, so you want to be sure you’re presenting your best self online. People want to see that you have a great company culture and core values they can get on board with.
The majority of employees today are already posting employer-related messages and media assets on their social media pages, according to a study by Weber Shandwick and KRC Research. Employee advocacy gives you a chance to leverage user-generated content to your advantage for recruiting purposes.
You can even incentivize employees with various rewards for posting on your behalf. For example, if you’re hiring a salesperson, you can create a few local assets advertising the position. Pass them along to your employees, who can share the opening with their circle of friends and followers. You can then offer a referral bonus of some sort for any new hires that result from those efforts.
Drill down deep into employee advocacy, and you might see a need to clarify your company’s core values and how they’re shared and demonstrated throughout your business. When employees feel like your company truly lives out its core values and supports its employees, they’ll feel more compelled to share about their great experiences working for you via social media.
As those posts get shared, it creates a positive public perception of your location. New recruits will be more likely to seek you out and apply if they feel confident you’re a good employer who values its employees.
Read the complete post here.
Say It Louder for the People in the Back: Respond to Your Reviews
Have you ever left a review about a brand and not gotten a response? Kinda makes you not want to buy from them anymore, right? Whether a review is positive or negative, it’s imperative that you respond to all of them. It demonstrates good customer service and accountability, and it makes your customers feel like you value them. The same is true if a customer comments on a post or asks a question.
If you don’t already have a system in place to respond to your customers online, make it a priority.
Read the complete post here.
Give More, Promote Less
“People are often self-serving on social media,” says Gary Vaynerchuk, CEO of VaynerMedia, and that approach doesn’t do anything to win over your target audience. “Your content needs to bring value to the audience at no cost so they can go and do something with it.”
The most successful social media accounts serve up content that either informs and educates or entertains rather than going for the sale, says Gary. He adds, “There are no accounts doing well on social media that don’t do one of those two things.
Additionally, franchisees need to be producing local, engaging content. Why? “Because they want their business to grow,” quips Gary. “If you’re not making contextual content, you’ve lost.”
By contextual, he means that simply pushing out the same corporate content across all locations isn’t effective in terms of broadening your local reach. If you want to do business with people who actually live in your area and are likely to frequent your establishment, then you need to speak to them directly.
Read the complete post here.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B5sj1BiBg1_/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
Boost Your Ad Budget
Along with having great, hyper-local content, you need a healthy ad budget to get seen in the overcrowded social media space. According to Social Media Today, you should consider increasing your social media ad budget in 2020 in order to remain competitive.
“All social media platforms are improving the machine learning behind their advertising platforms. For these machines to learn, they need data, and as social media advertising campaigns run, they collect and aggregate data in search of users who are most likely to convert,” writes author Nathan Mendenhall (@NCMSocial).
So you’re not just paying for people to see your content — because goodness knows they’re not going to see it if you rely solely on organic reach — but also for that data. Spend less, and you have less data aggregation. Spend more, and you shorten the time to convince and convert leads and generate positive ROI.
The bottom line:Social media platforms have to make money, just like you. Consider paying a little more for advertising so you can start maximizing brand reach with the people you want to reach, right when you want to reach them.
Read the complete post here.
Optimize for Search
Mobile search gave rise to “near me” searches, whereby people search for a business, product or service located nearby. If someone is looking for a pet store, for instance, they might type in or utter the phrase “pet stores near me” or simply “pet stores” — and Google will suggest nearby locations. Even without the “near me” phrase included in the search, Google now knows people are looking for local places. In fact, it’s more likely that people will drop “near me” from their search, knowing that Google will serve up relevant search results based on a person’s geo-location.
According to Google, roughly one-third of all mobile searches are now location-based, as more and more people attempt to locate whatever they need in that moment — all while on the go. In fact, location-based searches have been growing 50 percent faster than any other type of mobile search.
The implications of this growing trend for franchises are huge in terms of driving local customers into their businesses. To ensure your franchise location shows up in “near me” searches, there are two important steps to take for local search optimization. First, make sure your website has a contact page with your address and phone number. (Rallio offers a Directory Listings service to quickly update this information across the web.) Google likes to see a contact page in particular and will read the information in searches. Simple as that!
Next, set up a Google My Business profile, which will also ensure you show up on Google Maps (formerly known as Google Places). Your GMB profile is where all information related to your business will live in the Googlesphere — such as your name, address, phone number, website, location on the map, Google reviews and more.
Setting up your Google business page is a simple process you can get done in minutes. Add as much information as possible, including photos and videos, to make your business uber-searchable and to give customers a good glimpse into your location. In addition, ensure that your website is mobile-friendly so customers have a positive experience when viewing your site from their phones.
Read the complete post here.
What are some of your “greatest hits” in terms of social media marketing from the past year? We’d love to hear your ideas in the comments below.
