Say what you will about social media, but it has become the metaphorical elephant in the room: hard to ignore. But how do you make the most of it? Which is the best platform to invest in? Are you doing it right? If not, what should you be doing better? Plagued with such questions? That is exactly what Aditi Ohri, is trying to answer in this webinar. Aditi is the Director of Ops and Strategy at Emporio Marketing Pvt Ltd. Emporio is a boutique marketing agency, which specializes in Social Media Marketing, Influencer marketing and Online Reputation Management. With over 5 years of experience in social media marketing, she talks about the subtlety of designing a Social Media Marketing Strategy in this webinar.
In case you missed it, watch it now!
If you want a quick overview, below is a compilation of the questions that were asked during the webinar.
Social Media Marketing Strategy FAQ:
1. What social media platforms are recommended for a webcasting provider?
For a webcasting service, it would be better if you run ads on video platforms like YouTube. LinkedIn and Twitter are other good options, because the people you are trying to reach out would be there as well. You can also try Facebook depending on your audience. The best thing to do is to experiment on all platforms and find out what works for you.
(For more insights on viral video marketing, watch this webinar.)
2. Can I know who visited my pages on any portal even if they don’t really engage in comments or likes?
Page insights is a good way to figure this out. It will tell you what sort of posts are performing better, what kind of audience you have and what times they are usually online. Based on this information, you can decide what sort of content should be posted. ‘Reach’ is another metric which lets you know the number of people to whom the post has appeared. But, unfortunately, Facebook and other social media portals don’t really let you know if people have ‘seen’ the post.
Editor’s plug: If you want to know who visited your website pages and how much time they spent there, try LeadSquared :)
3. Any tips on social media marketing strategy for B2B brands?
When it comes to designing a Social Media Marketing Strategy for B2B businesses, you need to figure out what platform your target businesses use extensively, be it LinkedIn, Reddit or Quora, and then make your presence felt there. Before starting out, make sure you know and understand that platform and follow its best practices for maximum leverage.
Get people who use your product, to talk about your brand. Use hashtags that are relevant. Create content for each platform accordingly and target the right audience. If you find any discussion happening in any kind of forum, then take the plunge and participate and fuel those discussions.
Know which platform gets the maximum returns for your particular business. If Snapchat doesn’t make sense for your HR consulting business, concentrate more on LinkedIn, where you would get much better returns.
(Find more tips on online marketing for B2B brands here.)
4. What is the best time to post on social media pages?
There are many tools available that lets you calculate the optimal time for posting on social media. Many lifestyle brands have claimed that 10.30 has worked well for them. This is when most housewives are done with their chores, and office-goers have just arrived at work and tend to check their social media feed before starting their day. Social Media Analysts have also claimed that 6-7 is ideal, where people tend to check their feeds while commuting back from work.
But, more importantly, you should remember that what works for one wouldn’t hold true for all. Therefore, there is no optimal rule or timing that you can follow. You should test the whole process and take the time to understand what is working for you and what is not.
But even while you figure out the best time to post on social media, you should make sure the content takes into consideration the time of the day. If you plan on targeting a time when your audience would be busy, try to give them content worth spending a minute or two on.
When you start out, experiment with different times and even different days to see what clicks. Your business would just be the exception to the generic rule. So, go ahead and find out your own optimal time by constantly testing and experimenting.
(Our designer, Rajat, talks about what worked best for him and how he made his content viral, in this post.)
Facebook:
5. What is the difference between boosted posts and ads on Facebook?
Boosted Posts: They are created by allocating an advertising budget to a post that is already on the businesses’ page. Boosting the post allows you to ensure that a much larger audience of your choice get to see the post on their news feed.
Facebook Ads: Facebook offers the most number of options for advertisers and the type of ad you choose will depend upon the goal of your campaign. Another benefit to running ads over boosted posts is the ability to add an additional call-to-action button promoting actions such as ‘shop now’, ‘sign up’, ‘download’ and ‘contact us’ to name a few.
6. Are boosting posts or paid campaigns on Facebook a helpful strategy to increase the community size?
There are two kinds of people who visit Facebook, who we have classified as
- Organic reach
- Inorganic reach (Paid)
In case there are around 100 people online at a moment, chances are that the post has reached only one person organically. To reach the other 99, some paid activity needs to be there. Facebook’s algorithms work in such a way that it shows specific articles and posts to people who have frequently ‘liked’ or might have shown interest in, in the past. Which is why you need to pay to push your article to your audience. But chances are that once a person likes your post, it would be circulated among their friends’ group as well.
When you decide to boost your post, there are three options that Facebook will show you.
- Boosting the post to people who like your page
- Boosting the post to people who like your page and their friends
- Boosting the post to people who you have chosen through targeting
Using one of these options would ensure that your post would at least reach the entire 100 people that you are targeting. Boosting posts will definitely help circulate and push your content in the right way to the right people and hence would definitely be a good strategy to adopt.
7. How to promote tickets on Facebook and make people buy them?
Facebook is doing its best to become business friendly. They give you the options to sell tickets on right on your page. You can promote the ticket sales as well, and it is a pretty simple step-by-step process. This Guide will help you through the process.
8. According to you, what would be the best bidding strategy for Facebook?
That would depend on why you are running a campaign in the first place. Define the goals first, and then run the campaigns. If your goal is lead generation, then optimize the campaign for conversions. If you want to drive traffic through your campaign, then focus on cost-per-click.
Editor’s plug: 10 New Ways to Generate Facebook Leads Without Running Ads!
Twitter:
8. How do you improve engagement on Twitter? Do Indians really engage with brands on Twitter?
Twitter is all about communicating a message in 140 characters. The most tried and tested way to increase your customer engagement is through the use of hashtags. This can be done in two ways.
a. Choose a hashtag that best communicates the message of an offer or product that you are trying to sell. One of the most popular examples of a business doing this successfully is Coca-Cola’s #shareacoke campaign. Launched in 2013, the popular cola brand aimed at getting people to buy their new bottles which came with a name. The campaign was so successful that people still use the hashtag.
b. Twitter also gives you the option to see what’s trending. So, you can easily find out what’s being discussed on Twitter in India, and even within your city. Leverage this to get the message across. For example, at LeadSquared, we try to post content that is relevant to what is trending on that day. This way you can just ride the trend wave and capture your target’s attention.
While using these hashtags, make sure that you choose them carefully, because the usage of wrong hashtags might backfire on you and create a bad impression. McDonald’s hashtag campaign backfired on them big time, when they tried to get #McDStories trending, and instead people started talking about their worst experiences with the food chain.
Understanding which hashtag is the most relevant for your brand and using it in the right way will drive engagement on platforms like Twitter.
Another trick that worked for Emporio was, sending a personal message to every new follower, thanking them for joining us and asking them suggestions on what they wanted to see. This gives a personal touch which makes the user feel that his presence is being valued.
As for Indian presence on Twitter, we are the third country to have the maximum number of Twitter users, worldwide. Though new users find it difficult to use the platform, Indians have become increasingly interactive. Start following people that your target audience interacts with and figure out how they communicate with these personalities.
Editor’s plug: How relevant will Twitter marketing be in 2016?
LinkedIn:
9. What should be the ideal strategy for B2B businesses to target other businesses in LinkedIn groups. Does posting comments or asking questions in these groups help in lead generation?
Join groups that you feel have relevance to your business. If you have content on content marketing, then post it in a content marketing group, as the people in the group are looking for exactly that.
Being interactive always helps. If you feel that you would be adding value through your comments and questions, then you should do so. But be sure that they don’t come off as spam.
10. How do you use LinkedIn effectively for a B2B business? Are there any strategies to get leads and increase my followers?
It has become imperative for B2B businesses to have a presence on LinkedIn. These are some of the things you should do before you start promoting on LinkedIn.
- Perform a competitive analysis to find out what other B2B businesses have been doing to engage their audience.
- Define your organizational needs and your goals for using the platform. For example, are you using it for lead generation or to improve traffic?
- Next, find out if your target audience is actively using LinkedIn.
- Then, analyze how your customer behaves on the platform. Does he participate in discussions? Is he present on forums? How often does he engage with his followers?
Once you’ve established his behavior patterns, target the communities he frequently visits and try to catch his attention there. Connect with him on a personal level and try to give him reasons to talk about your brand. Having a customer present in a community, which is prospect rich for you, can be used to your advantage. A satisfied customer would be more than willing to talk about your brand and that could catch the attention of other prospects.
Another method you could try is using LinkedIn Ads. Like all Advertising platforms, LinkedIn also pushes Ads that are specifically targeted. Know your customers and your competitors and target and position yourself accordingly. Done right, this could increase the reach of your content significantly.
Editor’s plug: 7 Things I Learned the Hard Way about Successful LinkedIn Ads!
Google+:
11. What is your take on Google+? Is it still relevant?
One interesting fact about Google+ is that while your current audience may not be present, a huge section of teenagers below 18 are, thanks to hangouts and the other features that come with Google. Of course, this translates to the next generation of customers and it would not be a bad idea to let them know of your existence.
Another reason why Google+ cannot be ignored, is because it helps your business a lot in organic search. Therefore, even if you don’t invest as much time in Google+ as other platforms, having a profile for your business on the platform would help in visibility.
At LeadSquared, we make it a point to regularly share our recent posts on Google Plus and have seen it come up in searches. Being a by-product of Google, a little bit of attention is helpful rather than ignoring it altogether.
Instagram:
12. How far is Instagram useful for a B2B company?
With more than 500 million active users, Instagram has become a medium that businesses can’t ignore. Since it is an image first platform, B2C companies have been experiencing massive success, while not many B2B companies have actually capitalized on Instagram. What you must keep in mind is that, you are selling to people, not businesses. Therefore, you can give them visual cues that would make them look at your business on more humane terms.
Try posting pictures that talk about the values of your company, employee culture, quotes relevant to your business, events, hashtags or even regram posts that might interest your audience. If done right, Instagram can work for B2B businesses as well.
An example of a B2B company using Instagram well, would be Oracle. They are selling the message of ‘happy employees make a happy team’, by posting pictures of various events and conferences. With most of the employees commenting #ProudtobeOracle, they are giving their clientele a sneak peak into what life at the company is like.
You can access previous webinar recordings here.
