7 Types of Social Media Marketing You Need To Try Today
Social media is like a match made in heaven for brands.
With billions of people using these platforms, there’s unlimited potential to acquire more customers.
Even if someone isn’t actively looking to make a purchase, sometimes it’s just an inevitability when they come across the right post or advertisement.
Now, there are a lot of different ways to use social media to your advantage.
Today, I’d like to share:
- Why social media is prime pickings for brands from all industries and of any size.
- 7 types of social media marketing that you can start using as soon as you’re done reading.
- What the data says about how to engage with social media users.
Ready to kick your social media game into high gear?
Good. Let’s get into it…
Gigantic Chance for Lead Generation
No matter what industry you’re in, social media is one of the biggest digital marketing channels you can utilize.
Real quick, let me break down how popular each platform is.
With the most up-to-date data available, here are how many monthly users each social media platform has:
Facebook: 2.91 billion
Instagram: 2 billion
TikTok: 1 billion
YouTube: 866 million
LinkedIn: 810 million
Twitter: 211 million
Okay, there are some other platforms out there, but you get it…social media is just ripe for brands to market themselves.
And it doesn’t matter if you’re selling retail to a stay-at-home mom or software to an enterprise corporation, social media is an opportunity that just can’t be ignored.
Once a user finds a brand they like, they’re going to take action.
According to a recent report from Sprout Social, 9 out of 10 social media users will visit a website or app and also make a purchase from brands that they follow.
What Should You Be Using Social Media For?
Well, a lot of things.
Remember, you’re not using social media just to promote your products or services. On average, you should only promote your offerings once every five or so posts.
The rest of the time, you can do the following:
- Show off your brand’s personality and culture.
- Respond to customer comments.
- Engage in conversations.
- Share interesting insights or facts.
- Invite users to share their own content.
On social media, your goal is to keep your brand in a positive light.
And you do that by reaching out to users on a regular basis and by providing valuable content.
So it’s pretty clear that you need a social media presence.
But admitting that is the easy part.
Now you need to figure out how to actually be effective using social media.
With that, let’s take a look at the first type of social media marketing that your business can start using.
Type of Social Media Marketing #1: Influencers
Influencer marketing is where you use individuals who have a large following on social media to promote your product or service.
Of course, you don’t just choose anyone. Instead, you need an eagle eye for spotting social media personalities that attract consumers in your target audience.
And you don’t have to choose a celebrity as an influencer. In fact, microinfluencers (those with fewer than 10,000 followers) can be more effective than influencers with huge followings because they have a more engaged audience.
Get this…Socialbakers reports that microinfluencers generate 60% more engagement than macroinfluencers (100,000-plus followers).
You see, by using influencers, you get your brand name out there to social media users who otherwise wouldn’t know anything about you.
Type of Social Media Marketing #2: Paid Promotion
Okay, this is an easy one.
We see this type of social media marketing tactic all the time.
Sponsored posts are paid advertisements that appear on social media feeds.
They look like regular posts, but they are marked as “sponsored” or “paid for by.” And of course, the posts direct users to a landing page where they can sign up for something or buy a product.
Although sponsored posts cost you money, they can be a very effective way to reach new customers.
For example, Virtual Summit Mastery saw a 876% return on ad spend using Facebook sponsored ads. Not to mention 769 new email subscribers too.
In addition to providing some good content, Virtual Summit also targeted existing email leads with sponsored ads — to nudge them towards making a purchase.
As you can see, there was a little bit of a sense of urgency used in this ad.
That’s definitely something to keep in mind when creating your social media ads since, according to OptinMonster, 56% of social media users experience FOMO (fear of missing out).
By the way, you can use paid promotion for any kind of content.
Got a great upcoming article? Get more eyeballs on it by using paid promotion.
Have an on-demand webinar you want to share? Paid promotion will get you more views.
Really, there’s nothing you can’t promote with paid social ads.
Type of Social Media Marketing #3: Contests
Yes, you read that right, “contests.” Not “content.”
Contests are a type of social media marketing that allow you to engage your followers and get them excited about your product or service.
You can run contests on social media platforms, using some tools like:
At the core of this type of social media marketing is user-generated content (UGC).
As a quick case study, let’s take a look at what Catalyst Agents did on Instagram.
On behalf of a real estate agent client of theirs, the team decided to engage with Vancouver’s Chinatown and Railtown communities by hosting the Street Photography Contest.
Using the hashtag #SnapEastVan, users would take iconic photographs in the area and upload them to Instagram.
And the incentive for all this? $50-$100 gift certificates to nearby restaurants for the top three winners.
With just a $500 budget, the contest resulted in 41,000 impressions.
Goes to show you don’t need a ton of money to market your business on social media.
Type of Social Media Marketing #4: Hyper-Targeting
All the major social media platforms today give us access to a wide array of audience segmentation options.
Now, this is important since you can choose who does and doesn’t see your social media content.
Say that you sell college tutoring courses.
You can create a custom audience (or something similarly named) on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube that ensures younger users see your content — since most college students or soon-to-be college students are 18-25 years old. That way, you target the right people.
If you’re using paid promotion, you’ll save money with this type of marketing on social media because your clicks will come from users more likely to take action.
With hyper-targeted campaigns, you give yourself a better chance of resonating with consumers.
Actually, according to GoodFirms, 66.99% of people unfollow brands because they think the content is irrelevant.
Or maybe you’re a local hair salon owner. Again, you can leverage demographic filtering to show your content to female users within a 10 mile radius.
But you don’t have to limit yourself to just demographic filtering. You can also customize your audience based on behavioral data.
That’s exactly what Mason Digital did for an experiential marketing client of theirs.
After a trade show, the team sent relevant content to attendees based on the registrant list.
Doing so, the client saw 66% more leads than any other marketing tactic used all year.
Type of Social Media Marketing #5: Retargeting Ads
Retargeting is the process of targeting users who have already visited your website.
When someone leaves your website without taking an action, you’ll want to use this type of marketing.
Since you’re reaching out to people who are already interested in your products or services, retargeting ads are exceptionally effective. According to Wishond, you can expect 10 times more conversions than traditional ads.
Now, here’s some criteria to decide who to use retargeting ads for:
- People who abandoned their cart or the checkout page.
- Someone who visits a landing page and leaves.
- People on an existing email list.
- Leads that filled out a form but never took the next step.
You get the idea. There are lots of audiences you can reach out to and win back.
Lifestyle brand Nolan Bros sent in-feed retargeting ads to TikTok users who had visited a product page within the last 180 days.
As a result, the company saw an impressive 3.4% conversion rate through the campaign.
Type of Social Media Marketing #6: Community Management
Community management is essentially customer service.
Your goal with this kind of social media marketing is to keep your customers happy.
And it could be responding to comments and messages, answering questions, and more.
Now get this…90% of consumers use social media to communicate with a brand, as found by Sprout Social.
Not only that, but Gartner says failing to respond to social media comments leads to a 15% churn rate.
Community management is basically like marketing, customer service, and PR morphed into one operation.
But that makes sense because each of these things affect each other.
By staying connected with customers, you not only make them more likely to trust you, but your brand will also stay top of mind.
Spotify is one of the best brands at doing community management. They even have a separate Twitter account dedicated to customer care, aptly named SpotifyCares.
For the most part, customer inquiries are responded to within just an hour — which is really impressive considering how many users ask for help.
And they also post general updates on app performance to keep customers informed.
Type of Social Media Marketing #7: Competitor Analysis
1 out of 5 startups fail because they get outcompeted, as reported by CB Insights.
So if you don’t keep an eye on your competitors, you could very well risk losing your customers.
Because as consumer preferences change and technology evolves, you’re expected to keep pace.
No wonder why 96% of businesses told Crayon that their competitors’ social media accounts are valuable sources of information.
Using tools like Sprout Social and Rival IQ, you can benchmark your brand with your competitors on social media.
And you’ll look at factors like:
- Frequency of their posts.
- Engagement their posts receive.
- Types of posts that are most successful.
- Hashtags that generate the most engagement.
- Topics that are hot in your industry.
- Social share of voice (how often people talk about a brand).
- Brand sentiment (positive or negative mentions).
Now, this type of social media marketing is nothing without putting the data to good use.
That’s why you need to create a SWOT analysis.
After a SWOT analysis , you’ll have a better sense for where your brand is positioned in the eyes of the market. Even more, you’ll understand how to improve that positioning moving forward.
Conclusion
Well, there you have it.
With these 7 types of social media marketing, you’re in a great position to increase brand awareness and add some fuel to your sales funnel.
At first, it might be a little bit of a learning curve.
But I assure you, over time you’ll get the hang of things, and you’ll start to see where the magic is.
Remember, not every audience is exactly the same.
For example, maybe you used to run another online business, and you think what worked on social media back then can be applied to your current strategy.
But that’s simply just not how it works.
Instead, you need to dig into the data and draw some meaningful conclusions about the preferences of your target audience.
Variety is key here too.
When you can market to social media users in numerous ways, you cast a wider net. Plus, it’s your chance to get creative and stay fresh in the minds of consumers.
By the way, if you think you’ll need a hand with implementing these types of social media marketing strategies, you can book a call with us at AutoGrow today. One of our strategists will walk you through how our platform works and answer any questions you may have.
And before you go, let me ask you…
Which type of social media marketing do you think will benefit your company the most?
Let me know in the comments below.
Keep AutoGrowin’, stay focused.
