5 Ways Your Brand Can Score Big in Social Media

8/12/2019 5 Ways Your Brand Can Score Big in Social Media

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In 2012 the San Francisco 49ers dusted offthe read-option and used overnight quar-terback sensation Colin Kaepernick as anoffensive wild card to confuse and upendtheir football counterparts. It worked, and

they came within one yard of the super bowlXLVII. But what worked last season doesntguarantee success this season, and stayingahead of the competition takes passion andforward thinking.

Your social media strategy is no different.

Staying ahead of the social media trendsand the way content is moving takes a com-munity of involved digital strategists and en-gineers constantly rethinking and rehashing.And as the social media landscape chang-es and evolves, staying ahead of the curveoften makes the difference between a suc-

cessful campaign and one that falls flat. Thisebook aims to provide a summary of the keyplatforms, where the wind has shifted andways you can incorporate new schemes intoyour offensive arsenal to upend the competi-tion and score big!


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table ofcontents

02

01

our draft picks

know the game

03 the xs and os

04game day

05 trading deadline


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01 know the game

The wave of marketing trends has come and gone, but social media and its ability to

amplify content and shape a brands voice has become a powerful weapon marketershave spun into gold in recent years. But staying on top of the channels to target, andanticipating the shape of its evolving landscape, can be a challenge for many brands.How do you take full advantage of all of the available options and use them to drivetraffic, generate leads and spur viral mentions?

Smart online marketers know that the online environment is not only colossal but mal-leable. It changes shape, turns, and weaves into new directions in imperceptably smallsegments of time, and for the untrained eye it can feel impossible to keep up with. But

there are anchors to this movement, and if you keep your campaign pointed in the rightdirection, and adhere to the new fundamentals in content marketing, your company willnot only succeed in this new paradigm, but thrive.

As of the end of 2013, there are over 214 social media platforms worldwide. Thatsa huge number, and targeting each one would be worthless to most brands. However,there are several key anchor platforms each brand should develop a solid base on,and then get into niche targeting from there. So which platforms should you target?The answer will be different for each brand, but a fundamental strategy will include atleast 3 dominant networks. In the next section, we will explore these platforms in depth,sharing some key stats and elements you should consider before committing.

97% of businesses who use social media and con-tent marketing believe it is highly beneficial to theirbottom line.

The number of social media platforms worldwideas of the end of 2013.

How can you squander even one more day with-out taking advantage of one of the greatest shifts inour generation. How dare you settle for less whenthe world has made it so easy for you to be remark-able. - Seth Godin

97%

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picks


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Facebook continues to dominate the social space with their highly engaged user base

of over one billion worldwide. Coupled with a steady diet of ad revenue and inventiveadvertising options to promote and engage, Facebook is living up to the hype.

While Facebooks sticky interface attracts users with its healthy blend of text posts andmultimedia, their ad exchange and promotion tools present unique opportunities forbrands to expand their reach and target their customers in ways that have not yet beenavailable. Anticipate more growth as their mobile platform matures in the coming quar-ters.

Sidebar Ads

Placed along the side of a users Facebook window, sidebar ads are by far the mosteffective for growing your Facebook community. With ad targeting parameters, brands

are able to reach a very broad, or a very specific, target audience. These types of adsare solely focused on gaining an audience to your page.

300% increase in desktop adrevenue in 2013

1.15 Billion Users Worldwide

23% of Facebook users

check their account morethan 5 times per day

70% of businesses have

acquired a customer throughFacebook

1 out of every 7 minutes spentonline is on Facebook

41% increase in mobile adrevenue in 2013

02 our draft picks

FACEBOOK

ENDORESMENT DEALS: Advertisin o aceboo

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Promoted Posts

These ads appear in a users News Feed, not along the side of the window like SidebarAds. They are targeted towards those that already like your page, PLUS their friends.Used for reaching your audience more often, and with specific content, they very effec-tive when trying to promote a specific post and/or generate an action; signing up foran ebook, promoting contests, encouraging newsletter sign up, or highlighting a sale.

Sponsored Stories

Built around user activity, advertisers pay to highlight an action that users have taken onyour page - such as liking the page, a post, or commenting - and then promoting thataction in the users news feed. This allows a users friends to see their activity. This typeof advertising can only be targeted towards those who already like your page, and isused to help build credibility and promote likes.

Facebook Ad Exchange

Facebooks 20 or so FBX partners the companies who buy ads based on trackingcookies inside Facebooks Ad Exchange are making as much as $150 million a yearin revenue. The platform allows for seamless integration between offsite viewing andonsite ad-serving (such as visiting Zappos, clicking on a pair of shoes, then browsingback to Facebook to see the same pair of shoes as a promoted post or sidebar ad).For now the price of the ads remains relatively cost-prohibitive for most brands, but asthis platform evolves, look for the FBX to play more of a central role in your Facebookadvertising.

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The amount in millions that Facebooks FBX part-ners are currently making per year, according toKarsten Weide at research firm IDC.

FIRST ROUND,Frs Overal Pic

With an emphasis on visuals, a highly sticky interface, and the worlds largest userbase, Facebook presents brands a very compelling argument for using social media as

a lead generator, a sales driver, and as a community engagement tool. We recommendusing this platform as a mandatory element in your social mediastrategy.

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If your business isnt using Twitter to broadcast its message and manage its community,

its behind the curve. 77 of the top 100 Fortune 500 companies have an active Twitterfeed, 60% of online businesses routinely use the platform, and nearly every emergingbusiness is using it to spark engagement.

Twitter can be used to not only promote your companys content, thoughts, awardsand ideas, it can be a powerful influencer that can sustain credibility and position yourbrands identity. The company recently went public to an overwhelming reception, andas their ad revenue begins to snowball, brands that anticipate their offerings and takeadvantage of the network will be well positioned down the road.

Promoted Accounts

These ads build an active community of influencers and brand advocates for your com-pany. Promoting an account will appear in the Following and Followers sections of the

accounts followers. One of the benefits of promoting an account is that companies onlypay when the account gains new followers. If your brand already has

Handles 32 Billion SearchQueries Per Month87% Of Its Revenue Is From

Advertising

Over 50% of Twitter UsersAre Mobile Only

Maintained 44% Growth InLast Twelve Months

53% Of Its Users Are Female

02 our draft picks

TWITTER

ENDORSEMENT Deal

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a large following and wants to grow it even more, promoting your account is worthtesting. Another benefit is the ability to the gauge the success of the promotion. If onlya slight increase in followers has resulted, you can pause the campaign.

Promoted Tweets

Promoted Tweets put your words front and center at the top of your followers NewsFeeds. This kind of ad is best applied when a company wants to promote an overallmessage to onlookers. A special event, a promotional product, or an important com-

pany announcement would be best suited for a Promoted Tweet. TIP: Utilize hashtagsin the promoted tweets to increase the search probability of it being found by searchqueries. Keep the text shorter than 120 characters (not160 characters - leave room forretweeting) and encourage brand advocates to retweet the promoted tweet.

Heres what the people at Twitter say about their platform for businesses and brands:

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SOLID FIRST RounderWith a growing and highly engaged user base, along with emerging and potent ad-vertising options, most brands and corporate officers will benefit from a direct and wellrounded strategy on this platform.

For businesses and brands, these conversations pro-vide a rich canvas and a powerful context in which to

connect your messages and your brand to what peopleare talking about right now. Businesses can also use Twit-

ter to listen and gather market intelligence and insights. Itis likely that people are already having conversations about yourbusiness, your competitors or your industry on Twitter.

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Google is the #1 search engine on the planet; over 400 million search queries areperformed on an average day! Imagine a social networking platform that ties into this

voluminous number of searches.

Google+ may be a relatively new competitor in the social media world, but with its con-stant upgrades and unique features, it is a colossal contender and should be folded intoyour brands current social media objectives. Recent studies have proven Google+spower as a traffic generator, showing that with active engagement and more than 100followers, a companys Google search engine results position can improve by 14 spots.

Google+ currently offers no specific advertising within their social platform, as all adsare run through their Adwords system, but as Facebook and Twitter have demonstratedunique opportunities on their networks, expect Google+ to join the circle and beginoffering similar options to increase engagement and boost authority.

With Google Search, ThePlatform Handles More Than400 Million Searches Per Day

If Your Business Has 100 Follow-ers With Active Engagement,Your Google Search Engine

Results Position Can Improve By

Fourteen Or More Spots.

41% of online B2C marketersuse Google+, compared to39% of B2B companies tosource business

70% of Brands Have A Pres-ence On Google+

48% of All Fortune 100 Com-panies Are Using Google+

Sites Using The +1 ButtonGenerate Three Times More

Google+ Visits

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GOOGLE

SOLID FIRST Rounder

The SEO benefits alone are worth using Google+ as a consistent outlet to amplify yourcontent and keep your social voice relevant.

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02 our draft picks

LINKED-IN

A professionals social media platform, LinkedIn has made waves in the business

world. Often thought of as a job seeker resource, LinkedIn is an underestimated so-cial media platform for business-to-business marketers. Facebook is considered a busi-ness-to-consumer social media platform, but LinkedIn was built on the notion of linkingwith like-minded individuals

With over 3 million business pages to date, its no wonder 53% of business-to-businessmarketers have acquired a customer through the network.

If your company focuses on business-to-business relations, this is the professional ver-

sion of Facebook to utilize. If you own a restaurant, your time would be best spent onanother platform, unless youre looking for new food vendors.

LinkedIn streamlines this business-to-business connection with its Company Pages. Thisallows users to stay connected with your news, services, products, and business oppor-tunities. Like Facebook, Company Pages allow your brand to share status updates andnews with your followers.

Company Pages also features analytics tools to find out who has visited your page andwhat professionals are interested in learning about you.

3 mil. LinkedIn business pages43% of US marketers have found acustomer through LinkedIn

LinkedIn generates the highestvisitor-to-lead conversion rate at2.74%, which is almost 3 times

as higher than both Twitter(.69%) and Facebook (.77%)

47% of LinkedIn users visitthe site for industry and pro-fessional news

53% of business-to-business mar-keters have acquired a customer

through LinkedIn, compared to22% for business-to-consumer

75 of the Fortune 100 companiesuse LinkedIn as its corporate hiring

solutions

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This analytics data allows your brand to refine its business messages, drive more trafficto the page, and create new leads.

LinkedIn currently offers a paid advertising option, Sponsored Updates. These updatesplace your status update at the top of target audiences Update Feeds. The placementdrives professional traffic to your page, as well as builds relationships with others inyour business sphere.

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SECOND ROUND PicThe business relation benefits make this platform worth the effort, but if you arent look-ing for new business contacts, focus your social media efforts somewhere else.

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Just like on a jumbotron at a football game, a picture is worth a thousand words. This

photo driven platform can serve as a secondary voice for your brand. When utilizedcorrectly, Instagram can offer behind the scenes snapshots of your company.

With over forty percent of brands and 130 million users, Instagram has become its ownvalid community in social media.

One of the most unique features of the photo platform is its video capturing ability. Thisdistinctive difference sets Instagram apart from many other social media channels. Thisunique feature allows brands and businesses to connect and engage with consumers

on a new and more advanced level.

Businesses are given the opportunity to expand their brand by successfully integratingvideo into their Instagram updates.

Instagram is terrific for showcasing behind-the-scenes elements of your brand, andshould be used to augment your other outlets.

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INSTAGRAM

THIRD Rounder

130 million users25% of the Fortune 500 com-panies use Instagram

40% of the top 100 brandsare on Instagram

40 million photos are upload-ed each day

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98 percent of Instagram pho-

tos posted by top brands arenow shared to Facebook.

Instagram videos get Twice

the engagement of photos


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Another jumbotron-like platform, Pinterest serves as a photo bookmarking outlet, and is

useful for many industries including travel, fashion, technology and pop culture.

Pinterest utilizes a feed as users homepage, but their golden feature is the ability tosave items into designated boards users create and customize themselves. This allowsbrands to interact with audiences based on preferences and common interests, andopens up many exciting ways to stir engagement.

Note:By allowing users to save and revisit pins, shoppers on Pinterest are 10% morelikely to follow through with a purchase when compared to other social sites.

Tip:Are you in the ecommerce business? Look no further than this platform.

As with Instagram, Pinterest is more of a satellite social media hub for businesses astheir advertising options and ability to drive traffic are relatively niche. Consider addingthis to your plan if you need strong visuals or have a predominantly female user base.

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PINTEREST

THIRD Rounder

Over 48.7 million users52% of the top 100 brandsare on Pinterest

American users spend an av-erage of an hour and 20 min-utes a day on Pinterest

80% of Pinterest users arewomen

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Shoppers referred by Pinterestare 10 percent more likely tofollow through with a purchasethan visitors from other socialnetworking sites.

Pinterest generates over400% more revenue per click

as Twitter and 27% morethan Facebook


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Social media posts that are engaging domestically can often translate poorly interna-tionally. The same goes for social media outlets. What might be popular domesticallycould be small-time elsewhere.

Here are five of the top players in the international social networking game to consider,although to get a deeper understanding of this type of campaign we encourage you toread our blog post on going international (click here to read):

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GOING Globa

Sina Weibo: This wildly popular Chinese micro-blogging site with 500million registered users, which recently expanded to Singapore andIndonesia, mirrors features of Twitter.

Orkut: This Google-owned social networking site similar to Facebookhas 33 million active users worldwide and is one of the most visitedwebsites in India and Brazil.

Hi5:Initally a U.S.-based start up, Hi5 has over 80 million registeredusers worldwide in a number of countries including Thailand, Nepal,Mongolia, and Romania.

Viadeo:This business-oriented social platform is used worldwide but ismost popular in France and Spain.

Qzone:Asias largest social networking site, with 600 million users, isgrowing by the day. This blogging platform allows users to listen to mu-sic, share photos, and customize their space according to their interests.

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http://rocketpost.com/going-global-strategies-for-launching-an-international-social-media-campaign/http://rocketpost.com/going-global-strategies-for-launching-an-international-social-media-campaign/


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THE Os


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03the xs and the os

Much like an organized play in a football huddle, your social media marketing cam-paign needs to be a well thought out, planned strategy.

Heres how to stay ahead:

Set up a content calendar

Akin to setting up a football games play calling in advance, you should create a com-pany content calendar in order to keep content organized and streamlined. This time-line will define what content youll need written and when. It allows you to look aheadand organize the pieces of your content strategy.

Thinking of writing about hosting a Pinterest contest or effective email marketing tips?If your content is organized and laid out, a good calendar will easily show you the lasttime you wrote about those topics, avoiding redundancy.

Categorize the topics by subject and assign a color to each topic. This allows you tovisually recognize when youre talking about one subject too much.

Dont reinvent the game! Utilize already established tools like Google Calendar oriCloud Calendar that can be shared with as many emails as you want.

Customize your strategy

Plays called in the opponents red zone are different than plays called on your own twoyard line, so focus your content platform-to-platform. The tone and strategies are much

different across each, as they have their own etiquette, tone, and allocated characterlimits. So dont post the same content on Twitter that you would on Facebook.

Review the play

Your team can only get better by assessing what worked and what didnt. A well con-ceived content strategy allows room for trial and error and making adjustments on thefly. So dont be afraid to air it out every now and then and try something bold. Some-times these moves pay off big.

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03the xs and the os

Cut out the usual clutter

Spice up your engagement by creating eye catching visuals for your key platforms withthese types of content:

Photography:Photos in social media posts and feeds get 53% more likes, 104% morecomments, and an 84% better click-through-rate.

Only post high quality, clich-free images to maximize value and effec-tiveness. Photos of animals and nature, surprisingly, do very well.

Images:Visuals not only include photos, but images. Illustrations, images withtext, or logo branded graphics are other forms of visuals to showcase

on your social media outlets (but try and go easy on the cat memes).

Add different effects to your images. There are countless amounts ofapps for photo editing and enhancing, including PicLab, Camera+,Clone Camera, and Photoshop Touch.

Infographics:Have too many photos or images? Compile them into a cohesive info-graphic.

Infographics are one of the most popular, powerful and effective waysto promote an idea or story through social media.

As an embedded tool, infographics are very easy to share and canoften drive thousands of page views to the hosted page.

Tip: Try using visual.ly or infogr.am instead of outsourcing to a designer.

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03the xs and the os

Videos:Youtube, Vine, and Instagram are powering short-form video to newheights, and are powerful tools for brands to incorporate into their cam-paign.

Videos are also terrific tools to publish behind-the-scenes content of yourcompany and imbue more personality into your streams.

Online Presentations and Slideshows:Done right, and with a resource-first strategy in mind, online presen-tations can have tremendous SEO benefits and create a viral boost toyour campaigns.

Slideshows are very similar to online presentations, but are more ded-icated to delivering the text content as opposed to added audio andvideo.

EBooks:Ebooks are another immersive tool brands should be using in their con-tent marketing strategy to share useful content and drive inbound leads.

Ebooks are in-depth, well-designed insights into particular segments ofan industry, and can range in frequency from monthly to quarterly re-leases, depending on the budget and resources available.

- They are excellent as email opt-in offers

- They can be used to drive opt-in leads on landing pages

- They can be shared and posted regularly through social mediachannels

- They can be used on social media platforms to build email lists

- They can easily be converted into Slideshare and presentations

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04

Just like managing multiple players and schemes in a game, managing and growingmultiple social media accounts across numerous platforms can get frantic. Streamlinethe process with social media management tools such as Hootsuite and SproutSocial.These platforms allow you to schedule multiple posts across platforms such as Face-book, Twitter, Google+, and LinkedIn.

Scheduling out content allows for companies and brands to spend more time research-ing and engaging with their target audience and current consumers.

Hootsuite

Getting organized with Hootsuite is essential in order to take full advantage of the tool.The tabs are broken up by account, then streams are organized by social media plat-form.You can set up exactly what streams you want displayed and in what order.

Hootsuite is best suited for content scheduling and minor engagement. Hootsuite offersanalytics reporting on social data, but not as advanced when compared to other so-cial scheduling platforms. If youre more interested in using the actual social platformsthemselves for outreach and analytics, Hootsuite allows you to see individual mentionsas streams, providing a nice birds-eye view of your brands social voice.

Sprout Social

A more advanced and pricey option for marketing managers is Sprout Social. Alongwith the ability to schedule by account and platform, Sprout Social also provides in-depth analytics, organized by platform or as a campaign snapshot.

Sprout Social offers very advanced analytic reporting. From new followers to audiencedemographics to tweet responses, Sprout Social is calculating your platforms everymove.

Marketers can also connect their Google Analytics profile with comprehensive report-ing incorporating social performance.

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04

So Which Should You Choose?

Hootsuite and Sprout Social are just two of the early adopters many agencies and so-cial media managers have used to effectively manage the nuances of social campaignsand cut down on the time it takes to steer them. But choosing which management toolto use, if any, comes down to personal preference and budget.

Some marketers prefer to have their scheduled content as well as their live social data

in one hub. Yet others prefer to use the social media platform analytic tools directlysuch as Facebook Insights, Twitter Analytics and Google Analytics, for all of their data.

Price is also a factor. If you have just a handful of accounts you manage, Hootsuite isa smart low cost option. Sprout Social on the other hand does offer a free trial, but allplans come with a cost, and can run in the hundreds of dollars per month.

Evaluate what features are most critical to you when determining which social mediascheduling platform to choose, or start by going platform to platform and gauge your

needs from there.

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deadline


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05 TRADING DEADLINE

Football rocks. We love it, and we especially love it when a new coach comes in andshakes things up with moxy and bravado by incorporating solid fundamentals with bril-liant line shifts and play calling. But what was successful last season doesnt necessarilymean success this season, and it takes a skilled and resourceful hand to maintain awinning way.

Getting your social media campaign to perform takes a lot of adjustments and finetuning, and is one that must be closely monitored and reviewed. Platforms must be op-

timized, and sometimes entire strategies and/or players traded or upgraded to makethe most of your efforts.

Your social media is this football game, and you are the owner of the team in this ex-citing, shifting industry. Who will you draft? What coach will you pick to manage yourstrategy? And how will you dominate and out-think your counterparts to score a gamewinning social media touchdown?

Rocket Post was conceived with this question in mind, and were ready to help launch

your campaign and power your message to new heights. Were a small group of dedi-cated marketers who thrive on a challenge and aim to please with results and forwardthinking. Heres how to get in touch:

SUBSCRIBE TO OUR BLOG!

PHONE -855-858-7625

EMAIL [email protected]

FOLLOW US: .

CONTACTInf
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5 Ways Your Brand Can Score Big in Social Media