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Social media marketing ideas are something that even the older generation of business owners are looking at as an opportunity to do something different.
It has taken over the world one personal share at a time. I remember when I was in college at UCF, someone asked me if I had a Facebook page and I looked at them quizzically and said, “What is that?” This was back in 2007 and at that time, Facebook was only available to college students. Remember those days?
I also had a professor who made us answer questions via Twitter for extra credit. I remember looking at a friend during our homework/ study time and looking back at the computer wondering if the answer to the question was correct and also if I had just done something that the whole class would see as a huge mistake… posting my answer. But, there it went off in cyberspace as one of the first tweets I sent out in response to an accounting extra credit opportunity… lame.
Now, I’m a little more knowledgeable of the social media realm. But let me tell you, we’ve grown leaps and bounds from those days back in 2007 and 2008. Now, social media is a must-have and your customers expect you to have an answer to their question right away. They want it to be instant and if it’s not, it’s unacceptable.
But, have no fear, we’ve come up with 5 social media marketing ideas you can implement today across all of your platforms. Here we go.
Be consistent
As our first social media marketing idea, I know it is so repetitive if you’ve read any of our other blogs (which I hope you have!) however, it’s so important. To be relevant you need to be posting constantly and interacting to go along with it. To interact is harder than posting because you need to put a lot of time into it and you need to be… wait for it… social!! My rule of thumb is the ‘three rule’ especially on Instagram. If you go a little further back in someone’s feed on Instagram (or any other social site) use the three rule:
Like, like, comment
Comment, comment, like
Or some variation of the above. By doing this it will show that you’re interested in their content and your hope is that they’ll view your content, respond back and know that you’re out there in the cyber world.
Use Canva or Adobe Spark
Canva has been a lifesaver and such an asset to our team here at South Street & Co. This shouldn’t be as much one of your social media marketing ideas, rather, something that you need to do now… implement today! Think of it as the alternative to Photoshop. You can do almost everything in it and the program even has a new business account where you can upload your brand colors and theme to make sure it’s always consistent. There’s another program we’ve been playing with too called Adobe Spark. This is an app for your phone too and it’s just like Canva, except made by Adobe.
Choose a hashtag for your company or choose one that represents something your company is interested in
Here’s an example: We help a client who’s a speaker reach her target market who are franchise owners. We just implemented a hashtag campaign called #FranchiseFriday. Our goal with this campaign was to highlight franchise owners and to engage with them by tweeting or posting something that the company has done that’s extraordinary. It could be an award that they were just recognized for or the opening of another location. The reason is always positive and it’s always highlighting something that they’d want to be known for.
Have a brand style
We all know the Nike swoosh or the Starbucks logo, so set your company up with a consistent look in the same way. Nike always has their logo on their merch and so does Starbucks. They even have straws that are the same color as their kelly green logo. Your brand should be no different. If your colors are black and white (like ours) make everything you put out the same. Make it the same font, the same jet black and the same white, not cream. This makes a difference when people see the brand and it establishes authority and recognition.
Jump on the video train
Yes, video is in and after attending SMMW16 in San Diego with Social Media Examiner, we jumped on this train too. We decided to implement a training series through Snapchat (and our tag is @SouthStreet_Co so you should follow us too!)
But, many people are implementing their own ways of doing video. Some people are doing live streaming through YouTube like Dave Ramsey.
Others are doing video through Facebook live like The Shoe Maven.
And Periscope can now be streamed live through Twitter. Many people are doing tutorials or showing others how to do things. YouTube is still sought after for learning skills and teaching others tasks that aren’t easily learned via reading.
All of these social media marketing ideas and tips above we implement into our daily lives and those for our clients too. Do you have anything to add to this or any other things you think would be valuable to grow and help social media? Tweet us @SouthStreet_Co to let us know.
