Here’s how hundreds of other companies like yours are using social media to get leads.

1. Bigger Is Not Always Better – Or Is It

Ask a lot of companies what they want from their social media accounts, and most will say, “More Followers…,” and while they may add a few other needed improvements, “more followers” is considered a sign of success. Often times that leads them to hire growth freelancers or use bots to boost their follower numbers. Yes, you’ll get 100K followers in unreasonably short timeframes, yet you will find that you cannot cash out on any of those. You see, the trend has been to use fake followers, and  “follow for follow” or “likes for likes” methods to build social media accounts. These type of social media efforts always proves futile because you cannot convert fake followers or people who are not your target audience into real customers.

In contrast, companies on a more organic growth track often find more value from real engagement. They get more impressions and clicks directed to their landing pages – the very thing you should be striving for. It’s always best to focus on reaching and engaging with your target audience and then work on converting them into clients.

2. Be Human

We touched on growth bots ad fake followers in the previous section but let’s be clear. Perhaps the worst thing to ever happen since social media has to be growth hacking bots. Those tools that promise thousands of followers overnight. Not only does it prove pointless in the long run, but your account can also be locked and taken from you by whichever platform you tried plugging a bot.

Being human on social media timelines provides your potential customers the chance to connect with you emotionally. Given how nowadays people stay glued to their social media apps, particularly through their smartphones, being relatable goes a long way in getting genuine, high-quality leads.

Allow me to Share a Story

As I engage with my Instagram audience, I noticed that an individual with 134K followers moved from an average of 34 likes per post to approximately 330 likes overnight and so I decided to engage him about his strategy. He directed me to purchase his book. I thought to myself, “with 134K followers and 33o likes and no comments, that does not amount to any type of impressive engagement.” I suspected he was using bots so I continued to monitor his account to see how things would progress. Yes, I am the curious, analytical type (smile). Needless to say, after 2 weeks he was back down to an average of 34 likes per post.

See how these type of social media efforts proved pointless? I don’t doubt that Instagram caught up with him and he got a “slap on the wrest.” You see Instagram is actively working on Reducing inauthentic Activity on Instagram. So much for his sales pitch about his book! I suspect, he now needs a new strategy!

3. Spend Your Social Media Efforts In Starting The Conversations You Want

Perhaps the most important, yet overlooked objective on any social media platform has to be creating the connections that bring the results you need. A lot of companies create social media profiles and leave them to bask in inactivity – a sad sight. On the other end of the spectrum, many companies focus their social media efforts in actively creating working relationships and turning interesting strangers into either customers or worthy partners in business.

Starting the conversations you want on social media snugly ties the first two action points into a bundle. As such it would be pointless to use a bot for either growth or to spark conversations with other profiles.

What Then?

Just be real! Selling Authenticity and Personalizing Your Brand is key in showcasing your brand to your target audience. Engaging and building relationships with your potential clients will go a far way! Although this can be quite a chore to stay engaged with your audience, it’s better to hire a freelancer that will focus on organic growth through engagement than having a large number of fake followers for the optics of success and really amount to nothing in terms of conversion.

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Advantages of Following Social Media Trends

So, Let’s cut to the chase! What do you stand to gain by following news and trends in the social media space? First, let me just say that it’s important to maintain a social media presence to grow your business. The knowledge of news and trends in the social media world will help you and other social media managers move businesses forward. You see, nowadays, it is not enough to know the ins and outs of your business. If you cannot follow trends and recognize the opportunities they come with, it is only a matter of time before it tells on the success of your business.

Now, let me ask you what comes to mind when you see that by 2022 chatbots will save about $8 billion in the healthcare and banking industries? Note that this is an increase from $20 million in 2017. This tells you that investing in the use of chatbots now will give you a head start from your competition. This leads to an increase in your profit margin.

The bottom line is, getting information on the latest news and trends in social media, and then applying them to your business will also help increase your conversion rate. Your conversion rate refers to the number of visitors on your site that take desirable actions, and it is directly linked to the success of your site.

Now, let’s look at some of the current trends in social media and how you can take advantage of them.

Social Media Trends and What They Mean To Your Business

There are numerous social media trends around today it is almost impossible to cover them all. Therefore, we are looking at 4 of these trends and how you can take advantage of them.

Video Contents are Thriving

The year 2017 was a really big one for video contents, as we saw a remarkable increase in its use especially for social media marketing. This continued in 2018 and promises to continue in 2019 and beyond.  The proliferation of users on social media platforms like Instagram and SnapChat has also contributed to this boost in video contents. Since the launch of Facebook Live in 2015, its search popularity increased by over 330% in just two years.

What’s more? Research has shown that about 82 percent of consumers prefer watching live videos to reading posts. This tells you that your consumers are more likely to check out your video contents than the written ones. No wonder many social media platforms like Facebook that didn’t offer live streaming a few years ago now do.

Influencer Marketing is Picking up

“An Instagram user with 100,000 followers can command $5,000 for a post made in partnership with a company or brand,” (Clare O’Connor, 2017). This statement basically covers how influencers are affecting social media marketing. Using someone with a strong influence on social media is now quite an excellent strategy, as you can take advantage of the person’s large audience. An audience that you probably don’t have access to.

This trend is also directly tied to the fact that social media marketing is starting to move away from the “free promotion” that many once considered it as. Nowadays, you need to spend a bit of cash to maximize the potential of social media marketing. Jonathan Foley, the CEO of WULF Marketing and the founder of @Societyfeelings and @Positivity, opined that brands should start investing in building their own social network pages, to own as many audiences as they possibly can. “Today, Facebook and just about every social media platform have become pay to play,” (Jonathan Foley).

This is the Era of Chatbots

As stated earlier, the use of chatbots is now one of the biggest social media trends today. It is very popular because it helps boost customer relation management. Social media brings businesses to their customers, using chatbots is like adding enhancers to the mix. It allows you to make real-time engagement with your customers.

Chatbots can help provide around-the-clock service to customers, which is one of the key factors to customer satisfaction. Also, it is a lot more cost effective than hiring employees that will attend to consumers 24/7.

Social Mobile

Let’s do a quick survey. What are the chances of anyone reading this having a smartphone? Pretty high right? Well, Statista seems to agree with a forecast of the number of smartphone users rising from about 1.6 billion in 2014 to about 2.9 billion in 2020.

Mobile users should be your key priority because social media platforms are shifting their focus to this audience. There are even some social networks with mobile-only apps, so you can only reach their audience through their mobile devices.

Final Thoughts

I think it is quite clear that it is really non-negotiable for you to monitor social media trends and incorporate them into your business strategy. It doesn’t cost you much really, and you have numerous benefits to gain. Of course, there are many other current trends in this industry, so you should not restrict yourself to just these four.

It’s up to you to key your business into the benefits of following these trends, and then you can start reaping the numerous benefits.

The post Social Media Trends: Why it’s Important to Stay Informed appeared first on Strategy Nook.

Social Media as a Business Marketing Tool

Here’s a fact for you. According to Statista, the number of social media users has increased from a little less than a billion in 2010 to about 2.6 billion in 2018. Looking at this alone, it is easy to see the potential in using social media marketing to boost business growth.

According to a report from Social Media Examiner, about 97 percent of marketers are participating in social media, even though about 85 percent of them are not sure of the best social media strategy to use.

Having a social media presence has affected the business world in a remarkable way. According to Hubspot, about 92 percent of marketers claimed that social media helped their businesses gain more exposure. Also, over 50 percent of marketers using social media for at least 3 years have indicated that it helped them increase sales.

Importance Of Social Media Presence On Business Growth

Let’s face it, social media has come to stay, and if you have not joined the trend, you run the risk of being kicked out of the moving business train. Social media has long passed the point of being “the future” or “the next big thing.” It is now the in-thing as well as the future, so if you still think it is the next big thing, then your business is already at a huge disadvantage. Let’s look at some of the benefits social media will bring to your business.

Build Brand Awareness

The simple truth is that, if people don’t know about your business, then you can’t attract them as customers no matter what your package is. It is, therefore, imperative that you take advantage of every opportunity to increase the visibility of your brand. What better way to do this than using social media that is accessible to all and is currently being used by almost everyone?

In the US alone, about 81 percent of the population had a social networking profile as of 2017. Putting this stat into a more businesslike term, you can say that your business could be visible to about 81 percent of the US population if you use social media platforms for marketing. Impressive right? Wait until you see the other benefits.

Improve Customer Loyalty

Customer loyalty is one of the most important factors – if not the most important one – that affect the growth of a business. If you want to see a higher level of loyalty from your customers, then engage your business in various social media channels. If your customers follow your brand on different social media platforms, they are more likely to remain loyal to your brand. This is further reiterated in a study made by Convince&Convert that indicates that about 55 percent of Americans that follow brands on their social networks are more loyal to the brands.

Decreased Cost of Marketing

One of the biggest advantages of social media marketing is the decrease in the cost of marketing. You can start your marketing on any social media network without paying a dime. Yes, you read that right. You can multiply sales without having to pay anything. All you need is time to set up a profile for your business and then you can develop your content every day.

This is where you can decide to get a social media manager for your business; someone whose job is to manage the social media presence of your business and interact with customers if needs be.  Therefore, you can reach out to all your customers at a lower marketing cost than traditional marketing means.

Enhanced Search Engine Rankings

Social media presence has become a vital factor in calculating SEO rankings today. You cannot overemphasize the importance of a good SEO ranking – we will cover that on another article later – Nowadays, it is simply not enough to update your blog regularly or optimize your site, you need a social media presence that will give your brand an authority and validate its integrity.

Final Thoughts

Perhaps you don’t know this, but your competitors are already involved on social media, so they are currently poaching your potential social media traffic. Also, the potential losses are quite insignificant, as the amount of money and time you need to start reaping the benefits are minimal. The longer you wait the more you lose, so don’t stand idly by while your competition converts your potential traffic. Be vigilant and stay informed about social media trends and use them to use them to your advantage today!

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