Instagram Advertising: A Basic Guide

Since its inception, Instagram has evolved into a dominant force in brand advertising, boasting a user base of over 2 billion active users and high levels of engagement. It is essential to stay up-to-date with the most effective methods for optimising your Instagram presence. If you are currently reading this, it may be time to refresh your understanding of Instagram advertising.

Here are all the things you need to know about advertising on Instagram from its features, pros and cons, and what are the best practices to maximise it.

Instagram Advertising: What is it?

Advertising on Instagram refers to the practice of promoting products, services, or brands through sponsored posts, stories, or ads on the Instagram platform.

These ads can be in the form of photos, videos, carousels, and more. They can be targeted to specific audiences through demographic, location, and behaviour-based targeting options.

Advertising on Instagram is definitely an effective way for you to reach and engage with your target audience, increase brand awareness, and drive sales and conversions.

Important Features

In Instagram advertising or Instagram ads, you can leverage visually appealing content to reach a large and engaged audience through a robust platform. With a wide range of ad formats and targeting options, you have the flexibility to create campaigns that align with your objectives and resonate with your target audience.

Two key features of Instagram advertising are boosting posts and creating campaigns:

Boosting Posts

Boosting allows you to promote your existing posts to a larger audience, beyond just their followers.

This is a simple way to increase visibility and reach for specific posts, without the need for a full advertising campaign. By selecting the post to boost, you can choose the target audience, budget, and duration of the promotion. You can learn more about how to boost your Instagram posts here.

Campaigns

Campaigns offer a more comprehensive approach to advertising on Instagram. This feature allows brands to create and run multiple ads as part of a larger campaign, with the option to target different audiences and test different ad formats and creatives.

Additionally, you can track the performance of the ads and make adjustments to optimise your campaigns. With campaigns, you can achieve greater scale and impact with creative advertising practices on Instagram.

Pros & Cons

Pros of Instagram Advertising

Large Audience

With over 1 billion monthly active users, Instagram offers a vast audience for advertisers to target.

Visual Platform

Instagram is a visually-driven platform, which makes it perfect for showcasing products and services in an attractive and appealing way.

Targeted Advertising

It offers various targeting options based on interests, behaviours, and demographics, allowing advertisers to reach their desired audience.

High Engagement Rate

It also has a high engagement rate, meaning that people are more likely to interact with content on the platform compared to other social media platforms.

Cons of Instagram Advertising:

Costly

The cost of advertising on Instagram can be higher compared to other platforms, especially for popular keywords and target audiences.

Algorithm Changes

Instagram’s algorithm is constantly changing, making it difficult for advertisers to reach their target audience organically.

Competition

With more businesses advertising on the platform, it can be challenging to stand out from the crowd and get noticed by potential customers.

Limited Action Options

Instagram advertising options are limited to clicks to websites, profile visits, and direct messages, which may not be suitable for all businesses.

How To Get Started

If you’re considering using Instagram advertising for your brand, 2Stallions can help you with that!

Here are six simple steps to get you started:

Creating an Ad Account

The first step in advertising on Instagram is to create an ad account. This can be done through Meta Business Suite, which allows you to manage your Instagram advertising alongside your Facebook advertising.

Defining Your Target Audience

Once you have an ad account set up, the next step is to define your target audience. Instagram offers various targeting options based on interests, behaviours, and demographics, allowing you to reach your desired audience effectively.

Choosing Your Ad Format

Instagram offers several ad formats, including photo, video, carousel, and story ads. You can choose the format that best fits your business goals and target audience.

Creating Your Ad

After selecting your ad format, you can create your ad by uploading images or videos and adding text and a call-to-action. You can also choose to target specific locations and select your preferred budget and bidding options.

Launching Your Ad

Once your ad is created, it’s time to launch it. Instagram’s advertising platform will review your ad and make sure it meets its advertising policies. After it’s approved, your ad will be live and start reaching your target audience.

Measuring Results

Finally, you can measure the success of your advertising campaign through the analytics available in your Instagram ad account. You can track metrics such as impressions, reach, engagement, and conversions to see how your ad is performing and make any necessary changes.

Who Should Use Instagram Advertising

Instagram advertising is a perfect tool for a variety of businesses, especially those in e-commerce, business-to-consumer (B2C), direct-to-consumer (D2C), industries that rely on visuals, service-based businesses, local businesses, and non-profit organisations.

How Much Does Instagram Advertising Cost?

The cost of Instagram advertising can vary widely depending on several factors, such as the ad format, targeting options, industry, competition, and budget.

Instagram uses a bidding system, which means that the cost is determined by how much advertisers are willing to pay for their ads to be shown to their target audience. The cost can be based on cost-per-click (CPC), cost-per-impression (CPM), or cost-per-action (CPA) models.

It is best to use Instagram’s advertising platform to set a budget and determine the actual cost of advertising for your specific campaign. Alternatively, you can learn more about setting the right budget through Meta’s Ad Guide.

Best Practises For Instagram Advertising to Achieve Marketing Goals

Define Your Target Audience

Knowing your target audience is essential for any advertising campaign. Instagram’s advertising platform allows you to target users based on factors such as age, location, interests, and more. By targeting the right audience, you can increase the chances of your advertisements being seen by users who are most likely to engage with your brand.

Use Visually Appealing Content

Instagram is a visual platform, and users are more likely to engage with visually appealing content. Use high-quality images or videos that showcase your products or services in an attractive way. Utilise Instagram’s various ad formats, such as carousels, stories, and reels, to create a more dynamic and engaging experience for users.

Utilise Instagram’s Call-To-Action (CTA) Features

Use Instagram’s built-in CTA features, such as “Shop Now” or “Learn More,” to drive users to take specific actions, such as visiting your website or making a purchase. By making it easy for users to take the next step, you can increase the chances of converting them into customers.

Track And Analyse Performance

Instagram provides detailed insights and analytics that allow businesses to track the performance of their advertisements. Use this information to make informed decisions about future campaigns, such as adjusting your target audience, changing your ad format, or modifying your CTA.

Use Influencer Marketing

Partner with influencers who have a large following in your target audience. By having influencers promote your products or services, you can reach a new, engaged audience and increase brand awareness.

Wrapping Up

Instagram advertising is a powerful tool that can help businesses and individuals connect with a vast and engaged audience, leading to higher brand awareness, engagement, and conversions.

By leveraging the various ad formats and targeting options available on Instagram, you can create compelling campaigns that resonate with your target audience and drive real results for your business.

If you are looking to maximise the potential of Instagram advertising and build your brand presence, look no further than 2Stallions. We’re passionate about helping businesses of all sizes succeed, and we’re here to support you every step of the way.

Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you create an effective Instagram advertising strategy that drives real results for your business!

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Social Media Marketing

Facebook Advertising 101: A Quick Guide To Getting It Right

Facebook advertising is a powerful tool for any business.

With over 2.8 billion monthly active users, Facebook is one of the most used social media platforms in the world.

Aside from being a popular social network for individuals, it is also a powerful platform for businesses to promote their products or services to a wider audience. Facebook provides cost-effective and efficient marketing tools to help businesses reach their target audiences and achieve their goals.

Here is how your business can benefit from advertising on Facebook:

4 Key Benefits of Advertising on Facebook

Both big and small businesses can benefit from advertising on Facebook. Here are 4 key benefits of advertising on Facebook that might help you get started.

1. Wide Audience Reach

With a wide audience reach, Facebook offers businesses access to an audience diverse in age, location, and interests. Through Facebook’s advanced targeting options and demographic, businesses can target their ideal audience and reach people who are most likely to be interested in their products or services.

2. Cost-Effective

Advertising on Facebook is an affordable way for small and medium-sized businesses to promote their products or services, making it a great option for them. Facebook’s range of ad formats can cater to different budgets, and businesses can set their ad spend according to their budget.

3. Advanced Targeting Options

Facebook’s advanced targeting options enable businesses to reach their ideal audience based on factors such as demographics, interests, behaviours, and location. Helping businesses create ads that are relatable and relevant to their target audience increases the chance of conversion that benefits the business.

4. Measurable Results

Aside from advanced targeting, Facebook also provides a range of metrics to measure the performance of ads. Businesses can track metrics such as ad reach, impressions, clicks, and conversions, which helps in terms of optimizing ads and improving ROI.

6 Top Tips for Creating Successful Facebook Ads

Successful Facebook advertising campaigns start with a systematic approach. Here are 6 tips you can use to create engaging Facebook ads campaigns to suit your audience.

1. Define Your Objectives

Before creating a Facebook ad, it is essential to define your objectives. Do you want to increase brand awareness, drive website traffic, or generate leads? To create ads that are relevant to your goals and increase your chance of success, your business needs to define your objectives.

2. Choose the Right Ad Format

Facebook offers a range of ad formats, including image ads, video ads, carousel ads, and more. Selecting ad formats that best suit your objectives, ensures your ads resonate with your target audience.

3. Use High-Quality Visuals

Visuals are an essential component of Facebook ads. For example, you can capture the attention of your audience through high-quality images or videos that are relevant to your ad. Avoid using stock photos and opt for original visuals representing your brand and message.

4. Write Compelling Ad Copy

The ad copy is another crucial element of Facebook ads. Write a concise and compelling copy that communicates your message and encourages your audience to take action. Ads with clear call-to-action that directs your audience to the next step, such as visiting your website or contacting your business are always the best.

5. Use Advanced Targeting Options

Use Facebook’s advanced targeting options so that your business reaches its ideal audience. These options target people based on their demographics, interests, behaviours, and location. When you know your target audience, it is easier to create relevant ads to increase the chances of conversion.

6. Test and Optimize

Testing and optimizing your Facebook ads are essential phases you need to do to improve ads performance and ROI. Test different ad formats, visuals, copy, and targeting options to identify what works best for your audience. Use the insights gained to optimize your ads and improve ads’ effectiveness.

Expand Your Reach With Facebook Ads

Businesses can reach a wider audience and achieve their marketing goals through Facebook advertising. It is a powerful tool for businesses in this digital age.

With its advanced targeting options, cost-effective pricing, and measurable results, Facebook provides businesses with an effective platform to promote their products or services.

With these tips, businesses can create successful Facebook ads that resonate with their target audience to increase their ROI.

Let’s explore our in-depth tips and tricks when advertising on Facebook.

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Marketing Expert Series

Digital Marketing Acceleration with Evelyn Lee

The F&B (food and beverage) industry moves fast on a bad day. On a good day, it’s one of the fastest-evolving industries on the planet.

Digital marketing acceleration plays a dominant role in this industry, propelling it forward at lightning speed!

In this issue of the Marketing Expert Series, we are in for a tasty treat. Secret Recipe’s Evelyn Lee, the company’s Head of Marketing for Malaysia, joins us to talk about marketing strategies and tactics during and post-Pandemic.

In particular, she shares some deep insights into the impact of digital marketing acceleration and how she and her team have grown closer together to keep up with the ever-advancing pace of the industry they call home.

Hi, Evelyn, thank you for joining us in our Marketing Expert Series. Let’s kick off with a little background, can you tell us a bit about yourself? How did you get to where you are now?

Interestingly enough, my journey actually began in a bank! Three years later, I then moved into F&B where my true passion lay, landing a role at Classic Fine Foods, a leading gourmet and ingredients supplier in Malaysia.

During the height of the third-wave coffee movement, we opened the first coffee training school in South East Asia, Universita del Caffe Della Malaysia in partnership with illycaffe in Italy.

Nine years on, I was presented with the opportunity to join Secret Recipe Cakes and Café.

At Secret Recipe, effective marketing strategies and a supportive team resulted in a proven track record of awards for the brand, namely, ‘Brand of the Year’ by World Branding Awards from Kensington Palace, London and Platinum for ‘Best Brand’ and ‘Best in Marketing’ by Star Outstanding Business Awards (SOBA) for both 2018 and 2019.

In fact, just last week, we took home ‘Malaysian Business of the Year’, Platinum for ‘Best Brand’ and Platinum for the newly introduced category ‘Best Halal Product or Service’ at SOBA 2022.

You’re the Head of Marketing at Secret Recipe Cakes & Cafe in Malaysia. Please tell us a bit about Secret Recipe and the company’s product philosophy.

With a history spanning 26 years, our vision has always been to establish ourselves as a top-tier industry leader by consistently delivering high-quality products that exceed our customers’ expectations. Our team is committed to going above and beyond by implementing innovative ideas and continuous improvements to meet our goals.

The market is highly competitive, and we use various marketing channels throughout the year to showcase our new and exciting hot meals and cakes to keep our customers engaged. However, introducing new products alone is not enough, so we also collaborate with different parties and brands to keep our brand top of mind and close to our customers’ hearts.

As marketers, it is crucial to stay informed of the latest industry trends and always be open to learning and adapting.

What role do you play as Head of Marketing at Secret Recipe? Is there a part of your role you enjoy most?

As a marketer, you will always wear more than one hat. You have to be the marketing strategist, the social media strategist, the content strategist, the creative director, the budget specialist, the coach and a whole host of other things.

I can’t tell you which of them I enjoy the most but I love the unpredictability. I love the challenges, the new things that are thrown your way, obligating you to navigate.

For example, look at the buzz and concern ChatGPT has created – instead of it being a threat, how can we learn from it? That should be our focus.

You’ve worked at Secret Recipe for more than 7 years now, and before that, you were with Classic Fine Foods for nearly 9 years. What drew you to the F&B industry as a marketer?

People say FMCG is fast, but personally, I feel F&B is even faster.

Your response time to market situations has to be on point and you must be able to scale quickly. It keeps me on my toes, and I learn more and that’s what I love about marketing.

There’s always something new to learn!

Is there an experience or moment you’re most proud of during your career to date?

One of the moments that I am most grateful for is when we won Platinum for ‘Best in Marketing’ at SOBA for 2018 and 2019. Another is when I was invited to be a panel speaker at DigiBranCon 2.0, last October.

But if I am to be perfectly honest, I am the proudest of my team, how far we have come and grown together in 7 years. Some have since left, but I am very proud to see how they have grown in their new roles.

(Side note: do not try to headhunt my team members.😉)

The F&B industry was heavily affected by the Pandemic. What lasting impact do you believe the pandemic’s forced acceleration of digital transformation has had on the industry?

The two years of the pandemic forced the F&B industry to grow digitally, which is something that might have taken five years or more normally. That being said, digital adoption and transformation will not slow down and we shouldn’t stop and go back to the conventional ways of doing things.

People changed, and consumers’ buying behaviour changed as well. I believe many industries are accelerating digitalisation as we have to be open to the new technologies and trends coming our way.

Do you think that this impact has permanently changed how you and your team go about your work? Where do you see your strategies going in the next few years?

My team grew very close together during the pandemic and it has shown us that we can do things that are beyond our expectations.

The sense of emotional closeness other than just the professional relationship makes us work together much more cohesively.

One thing that I realised during the pandemic was that we cannot work alone and in silos. As individuals, we all require assistance and collaboration with each other. I cannot foresee exactly what will happen in the next few years but on a personal level, I will continue to connect with my team both professionally and emotionally.

Any advice you’d give to young and/or aspiring marketers?

This will sound corny but I am going to quote “Rome wasn’t built in a day”. Always have the perseverance to test and learn. Humility is key since there will always be something that you don’t know, but it doesn’t mean you can’t learn!

It’s been great to learn more about you and your work, Evelyn, thank you for sharing. How can people connect with you if they’d like to know more about you or Secret Recipe?

Connect with me on LinkedIn!

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Social Media Marketing

How Dynamic Content will Future-Proof Your Social Media Marketing Strategy

Social Media Marketing Has Revolutionized The Way Marketers Communicate With Customers

Social networks have changed the fundamental ways in which marketers communicate and interact with their customers. Social media has become one of the must-have digital marketing channels for almost all brands.

Social media marketing is now an integral part of the marketing mix of any B2C or B2B company that seeks to have direct contact with its customer.

With 4.74 billion global social media users, it is no surprise that companies continue to turn to social media to reach their target audiences.

Marketers who have successfully built a strong social media presence experience greater engagement with their customers and a significant increase in lead generation.

Ad spending on social media is projected to reach over $173 billion in 2022 (Statista)
83% of marketers report confidence in the ROI on social media marketing (Hootsuite)
27% of social media users look for inspiration for things to buy or do (GWI)
26.2% of social media users use the platforms to find products to purchase (GWI)

During the COVID-19 pandemic, social media took off even more than before as people turned to the Internet to stay connected to loved ones. This is coincidentally the first and foremost reason why people use social media.

Even now that most countries are out of their lockdowns and vaccines are slowly pushing the pandemic into the history books, social media is still a go-to place for people of all ages to connect and share. As a result, social media marketing remains an essential strategy for businesses.

Future of Social Media Marketing – Take a Dynamic Approach

While social media marketing is immensely valuable and beneficial to your business growth, your social media strategy will have to differ based on which social networks your audience spends their time on.

Consider the following data:

Your target audience may be on one or more platforms – or they may be on five or six! To get the most out of any social media marketing strategy you are going to need to create dynamic content that is not only interesting for your target audience but also adapted to each platform you’re going to use to reach them.

What is Dynamic Content?

Dynamic content refers to content that changes based on data, behaviour and interests of the users.

Different social media platforms have different sets of demographics, interests and types of content consumption. Therefore it’s essential that marketers tailor their social media content to suit each platform’s users.

The Components Of Dynamic Content On Social Media

A dynamic approach can be applied to all content posted on social media e.g using Facebook dynamic ads

A dynamic approach can be applied to both content and paid social ads (including retargeting ads). Whether it’s content or paid ads, the type and presentation of content will have to change based on the behaviour and interests of the target audience.

The key is customization and personalisation.

Dynamic Paid Ads

For paid ad campaigns, the most common practice is to customise blocks of tailored content (ads) that are displayed on social media according to the rules for particular subscriber groups.

Using tools such as Facebook Dynamic Ads & LinkedIn Dynamic ads marketers can customise the “look” of the ad and leverage the various targeting options available.

When marketers create retargeting ads, they can choose to target a group of customers who are most likely to convert (for example, customers who have left items in the cart or have browsed your site previously).

Creating a Facebook Dynamic Ad

When you create a dynamic ad, choose assets that make sense together when combined. You can choose up to 30 assets for your dynamic creative ad.

You should also:

A/B test best call-to-action buttons
Reach the right people with the use of pixels
Keep the text short, clear and to the point
Draw attention to your image with movement/ formats

Dynamic Monthly Social Content

Using insights gathered from your social media channels, marketers should also plan their monthly social media calendar according to their customers’ interests and purchase intent. These can be gathered using the page insights function that all your social channels will have.

Tips for planning your social media calendar:

User Segmentation
Segmentation is a method of dividing your visitors into specific groups and customizing both your content and the user experience for each segment. You might want to check out our guide to creating a customer strategy, this will help with audience segments.
Collect Relevant Data
Collect consumer insights based on the products that the user has been looking at.
Adapt Your Branding and Creative Approach
Change the content type and style based on all the data that has been collected thus far.

How Dynamic Content Future-Proofs Your Social Media Strategy

A one-size-fits-all social media content won’t cut it anymore.

If you’re trying to reach customers on TikTok, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram you need to tailor your approach to each platform.

Your customers are increasingly demanding. They expect their interactions with businesses on social to be tailored to who they are, their goals and their needs.

For marketers to maintain a competitive advantage, they must adopt a strategy that is flexible enough to reach their customers at multiple touchpoints.

That is why we recommend a dynamic strategy which will deliver long-term value and drive social ROI for any company.

A dynamic Approach Optimizes Your Content to Drive Conversions and Sales Faster

Dynamic content is your first step towards better audience targeting to bump up social ROI and achieve business results for your brand.

It is a versatile and cost-effective strategy which will help businesses receive the most return on ad spend.

With a dynamic approach, marketers are optimizing content which will appeal to their existing and potential customers.

With dynamic ads, you can:

Reach more customers: Show people items that are tailored to their interests, regardless if they’ve been to your website or app
Complete the sale: Dynamic ads retarget your website or mobile app shoppers to remind customers of items they’ve left in their shopping cart
Find new potential shoppers: Using a function known as broad audience targeting, you can reach new people who’ve expressed interest in your products (or products similar to yours) even if they haven’t visited your website or app yet
Save time on creating ads: Marketers just need to create an ad template that automatically uses images and details from your catalogue for products you’d like to advertise

As a result, dynamic ads help quicken the conversion process and increase conversion rates because you are targeting customers who have the greatest probability to buy from you.

Rather than incurring a huge ad spend on a general audience, marketers will achieve better results with the least possible amount of ad spend by selling to customers with the highest purchase intent, across all the stages of the marketing funnel.

Dynamic allows marketers to leverage a full-funnel marketing approach using various components that augment your digital marketing strategy as a whole.

Wrapping Up

The steps we’ve provided for you to create a dynamic strategy are relevant for Facebook and other social media channels. Feel free to adopt any of the tips we’ve provided and get started on creating your own dynamic strategy today!

Not game to go at it alone? Contact us today, we’re happy to help.

Originally published: 22 May 2020
Updated: 25 November 2022

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Digital Marketing

Introduction to Digital Marketing: Understanding & Mastering the Digital Marketing Basics

Increasing Global Digital Population

It’s hard to imagine a world without the Internet.

Billions of people are going digital to search for information, shopping for groceries or do their banking. That’s why businesses should follow the suit and master the digital marketing basics.

However, you can’t expect to become a digital marketing expert overnight. The field is vast and involves several concepts necessary for establishing a solid online presence and meeting consumers in the digital realm.

In this introduction to digital marketing, we’ll help you understand all the modern marketing techniques it constitutes, why they’re essential for your business, and how to use them to your advantage.

Billions of people are connected worldwide via the internet. From searching for information to shopping for groceries or banking, the internet has become an essential part of our day-to-day lives.

In fact, as of April 2022, there are over 5 billion active Internet users. That is 63% of the global population!

What is Digital Marketing?

Very simply put, ‘digital marketing’ refers to all marketing efforts that take place on the Internet.

It involves promoting your products or services on digital channels such as via a website, social media, or email.

Digital marketing is also about leveraging consumer insights. It uses data to formulate marketing approaches targeted at specific market segments.

For example, checking the number of impressions of your blog posts lets you determine how many times visitors view the content. It also gives an idea of what type of topic appeals the most to viewers and tailors your content according to user behaviours.

The advantage of using data to sell online is that it allows companies to make calculated marketing decisions. Knowing who to target and where to sell online gives digital marketers the ability to estimate budget spending for a certain set of Return Of Investment (ROI) goals.

Whether it’s inbound marketing or digital marketing for clients, common KPIs for digital marketers include increasing brand awareness, lead generation and conversions across different digital marketing channels.

Digital Marketing Introduction: The Fundamentals

The role of digital marketing is to help brands gain online visibility, acquire leads, and turn leads into paying customers.

There are several digital marketing concepts that enable business to connect with prospects and attract a steady stream of customers.

Let’s dive in and explore each concept so you can start building an effective strategy!

What does a digital marketer do?

Digital marketers have different specializations, but they often work together as a team to make a campaign succeed with their ROIs. Some of the different departments include:

A design team to make the creative assets
A copywriting team to write the ads
A performance marketing team to create and manage paid ads

To give you a better understanding, you may refer to the diagram down. The chart shows you the various aspects influencing a website and or mobile app, plus the array of digital solutions a digital marketing agency could offer to improve those aspects.

Introduction To Digital Marketing | 2Stallions — A digital marketing agency offers specialised services for online marketing

For example, a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Manager is responsible for overseeing the performance of websites and web pages. The manager optimizes websites by conducting regular website audits to identify technical issues to be fixed. He or she will also do regular keyword research to rank the site for certain keywords, so as to boost the position of a website (ranking) on Google’s search results page.

On the other hand, a content marketer is in charge of content marketing. He or she focuses on content development and content distribution. Examples of content creation include writing articles and electronic direct mails (EDMs) that represent a brand’s story to connect and engage with the target audience.

The content marketer often tracks web traffic using Google Analytics and also conducts keyword research in order to know the kind of content readers are looking for.

Performance marketers or advertisement specialists are also critical to many marketing campaigns. These are the people responsible for social media marketing (social media ads) and also search engine marketing (Google’s display ads).

Here are some examples of digital marketing elements that people specialise in:

Email Marketing

Email marketing is a low-cost marketing channel that can be used by any business, from small startups to large corporations. It has been proven effective in driving conversions, generating revenue and building a loyal customer base.

In a nutshell, email marketing is a type of direct mail marketing that provides information about products and services to potential customers. Its goal is to get people interested in your business’s product/service offerings so they will purchase them.

Content Marketing

Content marketing is a digital marketing strategy that focuses on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined audience.

The key objective of content marketing is to create both evergreen and timely assets that will serve as a foundation for your business’s growth.

Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing helps companies to reach customers by connecting with them on the platform through content and other promotional methods. It can also be used to develop brand awareness, increase customer engagement, and improve sales and lead generation.

The value of social media marketing can be seen in the fact that as of July 2022 there are now 4.7 billion global social media users.

Search Engine Marketing

Search engine marketing is the process of promoting your business or website by paying for advertising on search engines like Google and Bing. It’s a digital marketing technique that helps businesses rank higher in organic search results.

Search Engine Optimisation

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of optimizing a website or web page to improve its ranking in search engine results and thus increase traffic.

The first step in SEO is to create content that will attract users. The second step is to ensure that the content on your website or blog is accessible, easy to read, and relevant for users.

SEO can be used for a variety of purposes including increasing online visibility, driving traffic, making money from advertising on your site, boosting brand awareness, building authority and credibility with key influencers, and attracting new customers.

Digital Marketing Is A Crucial Part Of Any Business Strategy Now

Digital marketing is more in demand than ever.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many businesses and individuals were forced online, triggering a digital transformation. As a result, the Internet is now being used at a rate never experienced before.

Companies with digital solutions can easily answer customers’ queries online and are better able to grow in this post-pandemic normal. Due to their digital transformation experiences, companies are now better equipped to move forward in a digital world.

Digital marketing is likely to be a critical part of any company’s business strategy in the future. It is also evident that digital marketing is crucial for any company to remain adaptable to any market situation. The firms that cannot adapt digitally are likely to be left behind.

Wrapping Up

Now that you have a better understanding of digital marketing, it is time for you to consider how your business can transform digitally too. If you’re interested in making a digital marketing campaign for yourself or need advice on digital marketing, contact us.

To stay updated about all things digital marketing, subscribe to our newsletter!

Orignal publication date: 11 May, 2020
Updated: 25 November, 2022

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Digital Marketing

Social Media Marketing Made Easy

Social media has turned into the most prominent platform used for connecting with friends, forming communities, networking, engaging with customers, and promoting a business.

Through this tool, marketers and business owners can reach new audiences and engage with prospects. It also enables them to attract a wider, targeted audience by placing ad campaigns.

First, What is Social Media Marketing?

Social media marketing, a.k.a. SMM, is the process of interacting with your target audience through social media platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and more.

SMM is a powerful way to build brand awareness, draw in potential customers, stay on top of engagements, and promote your products or services, among other things. This practice also includes creating and sharing compelling content pieces, including articles, images, and videos.

Social Media Marketing Glossary

Check out the list of commonly used social media terms to keep yourself in the know.

A-H

Algorithms – is a process or set of rules to be followed in calculations or other problem-solving operations, especially by a computer.
Advertisement – short for ad, it is the promotion of a product, brand, or service to a specific audience.
Brand awareness – is the level of familiarity consumers have with your brand. It’s often considered one of the main goals of social media marketing.
Content marketing – is the practice of attracting and retaining customers through the creation and distribution of original, valuable content such as videos, whitepapers, guides, and infographics.
Direct message(DM) – refers to a private message sent directly to a user’s social media inbox.
Digital marketing – is a concept that uses the Internet and digital technologies such as desktop computers, mobile phones, and other d online platforms to promote products and services.
Engagement rate – is a social media metric that tells you much about a post that motivates people to interact with it. It’s defined as (number of people who engaged with your post/number of people who saw your post)
Follower – refers to a social media user who has subscribed to see your posts in their feed. Both personal and business accounts can have followers.
Frequency – is a Facebook/Instagram advertising term that refers to how many times your ad was shown to the average user in your target audience.
Hashtag (#) – is a way of connecting your posts on social media to other posts on the same subject or trending topic.

I-N

Influencer – is a social media user with a significant audience who can drive awareness about a trend, topic, company, or product.
Influencer marketing – a strategy involving collaboration with an ‘influencer’ to promote a product, service, or campaign.
Insights – refers to the analytics and performance statistics you can see on your Instagram profile in the Instagram app.
Mention – is the act of tagging a user in a social media message. Sometimes called @ mentions, these usually trigger a notification for that user and allow your audience to click through to their bio or profile.
Newsfeed – is the Facebook term for the screen that shows all the latest updates posted by people the user follows.
Notification- is a message or alert indicating new social media activity. For example, if somebody likes one of your Instagram photos, you can receive a notification on your phone that lets you know.

O-Z

Objectives – are the results you want to achieve through your ad campaign. These objectives are used to determine which key performance indicators to follow and optimise ad spend.
Platform – means the same thing as “social media network” or “social media channel”. However, a social media platform is technically the software behind a social network, including its API, backend, and markup language.
Reach – is a social media metric that tells you how many people have seen your post. It differs from impressions in that even if a user sees your post multiple times, they still only count as one person reached.
ROI – short return on investment, is a measurement of how much revenue your activities on social media are generating for your company versus how much you are spending on them.
Social media analytics – is an umbrella term used to describe both social analysis tools and the information those tools provide.
Targeting – is a social media advertising term that refers to how you select the potential audience for your ads.
Traffic – is the number of users who visit a given website or page.
Trending – is a subject or event that had a sudden surge in popularity on social media.
Viral – is a term describing content that spreads exponentially on social media. This typically occurs when people share the content with their followers, then their followers share the same content to their followers, and so on, creating a snowball effect.

Benefits of Social Media Marketing

1. Build Brand Awareness and Recognition

Social media marketing helps build better brand awareness and recognition. Unlike conventional media, like TV or print, social media brings your business in front of customers more rapidly. The reason? It’s because half of the world now uses social media.

On average, people spend 145 minutes on social platforms. The fact that the average daily time spent on social media continuously grows means more exposure for your business.

Prospects might come across your social media post–and they might share it when they find the content handy and relatable. The shared post could attract more eyeballs and encourage engagement (i.e., likes, comments, shares), helping spread the word about your brand faster

Building online communities are one of the most effective ways to get your name out there. Here’s the good news: forming a community has now been made easier, thanks to social media.

Facebook, in particular, lets you bring as many people as possible together through Facebook Groups. Members can invite their friends, family members, or colleagues to join the community and share their stories, posts, and opinions.

Apart from creating a Facebook Group, you can also create a community by sharing meaningful content. Getting your social followers to tell their stories sparks conversation. It encourages others to participate in the thread, allowing your social media posts to appear in the News Feed.

When your posts show up in the people’s News Feed, you’re likely to prompt more discussion–and promote positive word-of-mouth. For instance, existing customers may recommend your products and encourage prospects to give them a try.

2. Form Online Communities

On average, people spend 145 minutes on social platforms. The fact that the average daily time spent on social media continuously grows means more exposure for your business.

3. Increase Website Traffic

While social media marketing and search engine optimisation are two different concepts, the former plays a pivotal role in the latter. Social media allows you to scale up your SEO efforts in different ways, including:

Social media profile optimisation. Adding branded keywords to your social media profiles lets your business become searchable. It also helps to include links to your company website, products, or services.
Content distribution. Social media gives you access to a much wider audience than your website alone. Publishing and sharing content across your social networks helps attract more traffic to your site.
Link building. Building links is one of the many SEO techniques. You can incorporate links in the call-to-actions (CTAs) of your social media posts or link the product you’re promoting to a specific landing

4. Improve Customer Satisfaction

Social media allows you to establish direct contact with your target audience. You can engage with your audience consistently and respond quickly to their questions or concerns via the platform.

Since social networks provide you with opportunities to connect with fans and followers, building healthy customer relationships becomes easier. Here are a few ways to use social media in enhancing the overall customer experience:

Connect with customers who have questions, complaints, or feedback
Keep followers updated on the new services and product offerings
Involve prospects and followers in campaigns (i.e., polls, giveaways, share to win, etc)

Social Media Marketing Strategies

Like in other digital marketing concepts, you’ll need a solid strategy to succeed in social media marketing. Thankfully, there’s not just one but a handful of techniques you can implement to leverage the power of social media. Here’s how you can use the tool to its full potential:

1. Personalise Social Media Content

According to a study, 81% of customers want brands to know them deeper and find the best way to approach them. Users crave personalised experience and respond better to content tailored to their needs and interests.

This is where crafting personalised content comes in handy. Personalisation can give your business a boost in social media engagement, not to mention customer loyalty and brand affinity.

Below are some tips to get your content personalisation right:

Segment your audience. Start by creating buyer personas, a profile of your ideal customer. Then, compare them against your existing customers’ data, such as age, location, language, interests, goals, and more.
Create content for each segment. Once you have your personas in place, produce content that’s most relevant to them. While blog posts and videos are the most comment content forms, you can also explore other types including:
- case studies
- product demos
- product comparison guides
- Keep personalisation offline and online. Investing in AI-powered chatbots is one way to facilitate personalised, real-time conservation.

2. Partner with Influencers

Influencer marketing is another tried-and-tested social media marketing strategy. Collaborating with ‘influencers’ (thought leaders, celebrities, other individuals with a large following) lets you expand your customer base and drive purchase decisions.
A post by an influencer can have a much bigger effect than a post by an everyday user on the same platform. The reason behind this is either because consumers find influencers credible or they look up to them.

3. Run Social Media Campaigns

Social media marketing works hand in hand with social media advertising. Advertising on social networks is a sure-fire way to reach your target audience fast. So if you have more funds to support your SMM initiatives, consider placing ads on different platforms.

Types of social media ads include Facebook ads, video ads, stories ads, slideshow ads, playable ads, ads in Explore, and more. Whichever ad you plan to run on whatever platform, make sure to set marketing goals. A few objectives you can include are:

Obtain user input
Create email marketing lists
Increase website traffic
Increase overall brand engagement
Generate more sales

How to Measure Social Media Marketing Performance

The best thing about social media marketing is that it allows you to measure the performance of your SMM efforts. In short, it helps you determine whether your strategy is hitting the mark or not.

Here are four of the most important social media metrics:

Engagement. The engagement metric measures how users actively interact with your content. Engaged audiences interact with a post through likes, comments, shares, retweets, and brand mentions, to name a few.
Reach. This metric is influenced by two factors–timing and content. It indicates the number of unique users who have seen your post.
Impressions. This social media reporting metric tells you the number of times your content appears on someone’s feed.
Conversion. The conversion metric lies at the end of the funnel–it measures the number of leads converted to sales.

Evaluate & Adjust Your Social Media Marketing Strategy

By this point, you should have a clear grasp of your social media strategy.

You’ll never know how one campaign performed until you evaluate and compare it against your goals.

The ability to take a bird’s eye view of your social media interactions can help you put things into perspective. Take a look at your best-performing content and modify your campaigns when your material isn’t working as expected.

Befriend social media analytics. Use data to track your social presence. React to your social media ads to keep the momentum and most importantly, maintain a laser focus on your goals.

When things become overwhelming, go back to basics. Revisit this guide to start anew and come up with an even better strategy.

Do You Have Your Social Media Marketing Plan for 2022 Figured Out?

A well-thought-out strategy is insufficient if not carried out in the same manner as planned. You must design visual content so that the user is fascinated by the post even before they read information.

It might be as simple as a designed social media post, a video, or even a picture of your product that has been professionally or artistically photographed. The goal is to catch people’s attention before they get interested in your product or service.

The goal of social media marketing is to connect with your target audience. So, put a strong emphasis on this to keep your business ahead of your competitors.

This article emphasised the fact that there are several parts to having a current social presence. Making your own doesn’t have to be time-consuming or a drag. If you create measurable objectives and follow each of the processes above, you’ll be well ahead of the game when developing a social media marketing plan for your company.

Need help boosting your brand awareness, audience engagement, and online visibility on social media? 2Stallions got you covered! We provide social media marketing services that can help you grow your audience and business.

Learn more about our social media marketing services and process here. Wishing you the best in 2022!

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Digital Marketing

3 Powerful Reasons Why Your Business Should be on Social Media

Social media has progressed from a social networking tool to a strong marketing platform over time. Globally, social media has over 4 billion users. A typical social media user spends around 2 hours and 22 minutes each day on social media sites.

In other words, if used properly, those 2 hours and 22 minutes each day offer a tremendous chance for your company to raise brand awareness, increase traffic, increase sales, and improve overall conversion rates.

But what is it about social media that makes all this possible? Let’s find out.

1. Social Media Helps Grow Your Reach

One of the most significant advantages of using social media is that it allows you to reach a larger audience in a short amount of time. Reportedly, 90% of all marketers believe that social media marketing has enhanced their company’s visibility. In addition, 70% of business-to-consumer (B2C) marketers have used Facebook for successful lead generation. This demonstrates how crucial social media can be for your company.

Here’s how it works:

You have to keep your social media approach constant. This involves actions like sticking to a publishing schedule, connecting with your followers through likes, shares, and comments, and utilising relevant hashtags. This will help your brand become more visible. As a result, people will begin to recognise you and when people identify your brand, they begin to trust you as well.

2. Social Media Helps Attract Traffic to Your Website

If you want people to visit your website, you need to let them know about it first.

People won’t visit your website unless something attracts them – i.e. unless they find it organically. The issue is that organically attracting traffic does take time. So, if your company is new, you’ll need to think of alternative strategies to market and promote it. Fortunately, social media can assist you in this endeavour. The best part is that with a single click of a button, you can reach out to thousands of individuals at once. Not only that, it works for different platforms outside of social media such as, you can create amazing material for your website, blogs, video sites and share it with your audience using social media. This will help you in expanding your reach, for example, the more readers you have, the more visitors your blog will receive.

3. Makes Relationships with your Audience Stronger

Another advantage of using social media is that it allows you to form relationships with your target audience. You can use it to connect with your audience on a more personal level and to establish trust with them.

Most of the time, your audience only gets a sense of your brand through the material you provide- they perceive it through the company’s lens. As a result, your audience has no emotional relationship to your business. You can leverage social media to humanise your brand for your audience. Humanizing your brand can help maintain a positive relationship between company and consumer. This will help customers connect with your company.

Most companies, for example, do not provide their behind-the-scenes experiences for their customers. Offering a behind-the-scenes look at your company might help them better understand your brand. You can use this opportunity to introduce your workers to the audience, offer them a tour of your business, or demonstrate how you work. All of this helps your audience get to know the individuals that work in your company and how things work.

Key Takeaways

Social media is no longer just about social networking. It has evolved into a huge marketing platform that can help your business grow and succeed. Marketers now use social media to generate brand exposure and leads.

Social media marketing should be a substantial part of every marketing strategy. What now? Convinced? Then make a social media plan so you can get out there and start posting! Not sure where to get started? Give us a call today.

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Social Media Marketing

What is Social Listening?

Social listening is one of the key tools in any company’s marketing kit. By gathering real data and insights into consumer behaviour, brands can learn to forge powerful connections with their audience. Building these connections allows brands to provide the services and answers to questions that your audience is looking for. When used properly, social listening is a tool that empower brands to make real connections with their target audiences.

What is Social Listening?

In essence, social listening is simply the process of monitoring social media channels for mentions of your brand, its products, and your competitors. Social listening lets you cash in on opportunities to track, analyze and respond to online conversations, mentions and reviews about your brand on social media – and other digital channels.

Think about it. Imagine you’re the proud owner of a cafe, and you serve different kinds of treats and beverages all day long, day in and out. While you’re working you can usually hear your customers talking. Most of the time they’ll talk their day, swap stories about their kids, or gossip about their next door neighbours. They also talk about the coffees you’ve served them, and the cakes – trust me here, I’m speaking from experience – and what they say isn’t always what you’d like to hear. You might hear that they absolutely love the chocolate-raspberry cake and that the coffee is the best in town, flattering right? That means you’re doing something right. If the person sitting across from them steals a bit of their cake and agrees with them, you’ll know it’s not an isolated opinion. Your chocolate-raspberry cake is a winner.

But what happens if you overhear something less flattering? What happens when you hear that the coffee is bitter and burnt and the cake is dry and has no flavour? What happens if you overhear that conversation from more than one person? Then you have a problem right?

Wrong. You have an opportunity. An opportunity to improve something that your customers – your audience – is not enjoying about your product or brand. Armed with this new information you can now make a change to improve your products and/or services.

Why is it important?

Social listening lets brands gather information and insight into their audience. Without that data, we can only base our actions on assumptions and guesswork which is not a strategic way to get ahead in life. In business – as in our personal lives – if we don’t listen to what our audience wants, we won’t be able to connect with them. Without connections there’s no way to influence or reach them. Connections drive all marketing, and without them the entire company will suffer. By building on the opportunties that social listening data offer, you can strengthen your companies and grow your brand strength.

15 Social Listening Tools worth checking out

Sprout Social
Hootsuite
Buffer
TweetReach
HubSpot Social Media Management Software
Falcon.io
BuzzSumo
Keyhole
SumAll
Mention
Awario
Snaplytics
Oktopost
Iconosquare
Tailwind

Final Thoughts

Social listening is a spectrum, an insights-generating tool that can help brands understand their target audience, customers, and competitors. It provides real information into what people are saying – and, by extension, feeling – about your products and services as well as the brand in general. Social listening brings brands and their audiences closer together, and lets people know that companies really do actually care.

Would you like to build your own brand’s connections with your customer base? We can help you get started.

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Videos

6 Reasons Brands Must Use Social Media Live Streaming Today

During the days of TV’s dominance, everyone couldn’t peel their eyes off the screen when a program was “live.” People did so because they didn’t want to miss out on a once-in-a-lifetime experience. In addition, they wanted to be the first to know what would happen, something we know as FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out).

Today, anyone can do live streaming. Social media networks such as Facebook even highlight your profile and send your network a notification that you’ve gone live unless the function is turned off.

Nowadays, marketers consider it a powerful marketing tool. In fact, the biggest brands have used it to successful ends, just like GE’s Periscope drones when the app was still independent of Twitter for #DroneWeek.

The five-day-five-episode live event allowed audiences to feel the scale and impact of GE’s drone technologies. Their efforts helped them gain 3.22 million video views, 50.6 million impressions, and a total of 84.7 thousand live stream viewers per episode.

Live streaming is not just a fad. It’s here to stay and can be your ultimate tool for social media marketing success. Just look at the infographic below:

Source: Filmora Wondershare

1. Live Videos Vs. Text Content

More people love to watch rather than read. In fact, 80% of customers would rather watch live videos about a brand than reading posts. In addition, a continuous stream of text and image updates in social media can create fatigue for your audiences and your message gets lost in the clutter.

With live streaming, brands are able to show events as they are happening and capture the essence of the moment. With the power of smartphones and the Internet, it is possible for a single correspondent to give the full details of the live event. People are able to witness for themselves what is happening instead of receiving second-hand information via an article written later that leaves out a few details to make it more succinct.

The reason for the audiences’ unfaltering attention is because a video is an engaging format. One of the reasons why video is compelling is that the human eye is naturally drawn to movement. People are drawn to motion and familiar nuances such as a person conversing and relaying events as if they were at the event itself. It also makes use of audio, which is easy for people to understand and follow what’s happening. Here’s how to add audio to video and create a more unique experience for your audience.

2. Easy Opportunity-Based Production

About 41% of people in social media watch live events featuring breaking news stories. While most people are watching funny or entertaining live videos such as gaming conventions or live comedy events, most people will watch content similar to flash news. For example, it can be the launch of a new satellite, the wedding of a royal family member, or the unveiling of a brand’s newest product in a gigantic press conference.

If your brand has a new product it needs to launch, audiences who follow your page might consider it value-adding because it concerns their interests.

3. Millennial-Oriented

According to Marketing Profs, there are over 2.67 billion social media users in 2018 alone. Millennials aged 20-35 years old spend more than eight hours a day browsing through social media. As a tech-savvy generation, Millennials love the idea of live streaming with 63% from every social network watching live content when they receive a notification.

If your brand appeals to Millennials, then leveraging on live streaming is important to improve your social network presence and overall brand recognition. In fact, 42% of Millennials know how to create interesting live videos themselves making it a great channel of communication between brand and audience.

4. Personality-Driven

Influencers have made their careers through short videos. Their communities love watching their content. Niche-recognized influencers not only receive free products to review and endorse, but also grab the opportunity to live stream events whenever possible because they have a wide reach. Influencers bank on their personality to expand their communities and live streaming is one of their best tools to do so.

Therefore, a single strong-personality host for any brand’s live stream is enough to drive traffic. If this individual adds value to their audience, then they present the brand in a positive, entertaining, and reliable light.

5. FOMO-Powered

Remember FOMO? Majority of social network users have it. Just like at the height of television networks, missing a particular live event means you’ll have to wait for someone to tell you what happened and it’s nothing like seeing it for yourself. Live streaming, which sends notifications to audiences, initiates this particular feeling all over again, compelling audiences to tune in “RIGHT NOW”.

For example, a global audience means that not everyone would get to attend a particular gaming convention where new games are announced. With their fear of missing out, they will turn to social media for live coverage on the event such as on Facebook, Twitter, or others services such as live stream giant Twitch, which has over 10 million daily users.

6. Authentically Interactive

Social media videos allow users to watch content and consume it fully. However, if they have questions about particular topics, they can only make a comment or reply on the page. This form of communication is still an effective brand-building tool, but with live streaming, there’s an extra value-adding rapport created.

Live streams allow hosts or social media agents to respond to real-time messages that audiences send regarding the event, making the interaction between brand and audience more authentic. This allows them to answer questions, create discussions, and find value in the brand. It establishes rapport between you and the hundreds of thousands watching your brand’s live stream quickly.

Conclusion

Live streaming is an excellent tool for brands aiming to expand their reach and create value-adding communication with their audience. While live streaming is useful only in moments such as breaking news, product reveals, how-to-guides, and conferences, it has enough value that urges hundreds or even thousands of your audiences not to miss out on a unique or once-in-a-lifetime event. If you need help with this, feel free to contact us (we’re very friendly!) or you can also check out our social media marketing services here.

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Content Marketing

6 Social Media Tweaks That’ll Help You Build an Engaged Audience

Have you been making social media campaigns, but your business still isn’t generating many impressions? If yes, then it’s time to do some social media tweaks.

Social networking platforms offer a wealth of benefits, from increasing brand awareness to generating leads, boosting sales, and more. However, it’s hard to reap any of these benefits without a vital element—audience engagement.

The word “social” in social media relates to interaction with other people, meaning social media without engagement is just media. Unlike traditional media such as TV ads and print ads, social networks are a two-way street that creates a connection between two or more parties.

This connection plays a pivotal role in increasing organic reach on Facebook and other social media platforms. Facebook posts, for example, that spark meaningful conversations appear high up in the newsfeed.

Here’s why the social media giant sees engagement as a crucial metric in getting more reach:

“Interacting with people is associated with a greater sense of well-being… On the other hand, just scrolling through your Facebook feed, passively reading or watching without interacting with others, tends to make people feel worse.” – Facebook

How to Tweak Your Social Media Campaigns for Better Engagement

1. Create Viral-Ready & Value-Adding Content

Companies should ride the wave of social media marketing and inject a little creativity into their campaigns. And, guess what? Your business isn’t exempt from this.

The reason behind this is because the number of social media users grows each year. Facebook, in particular, has reached roughly 2.8 billion monthly active users in 2020, up from 1.35 in 2014.

Since more people spend their time on social networks, it’s crucial to up your social media game and make some social media tweaks.

Update your old blog posts and re-promote them on your social media platforms. Revamp the content (i.e., update the statistics, discuss timely news, etc.) to retain your blogs’ usefulness.

It’s also a great idea to plan a full-blown viral marketing campaign. Viral posts have the highest likelihood of boosting engagement levels. Here are a few things that make a content viral-ready:

emotional triggers
relatable theme or story
displaying uncommon talent
provide a unique experience

Learn from companies that gained massive support from the online public and increased their social media following base.

Scoot Tigerair Pte Ltd or Scoot, the budget carrier of Singapore Airlines Group, is one example. The low-cost airline launched its “Minute to Wing It” campaign in 2016 to celebrate its second year in business.

The campaign included one-minute Q & A videos, and participants who answered quickly received SGD2,000 in travel vouchers daily. Those who won in all their short video campaigns received the grand prize of two airline tickets.

The “Minute to Wing It” campaign won the Singaporean Marketing Magazine’s “Agency of the Year Award 2017” for having the best digital campaign idea and best social media content during the time.

2. Discuss Current Trends, News, or Events

Engaging your customers in social media can sometimes happen naturally. When audiences relate to or like a post you share, it’s easy to engage in stimulating conversations and turn those conversations into followers and customers.

The term “engagement” covers a range of actions across all social platforms, including:

likes and favourites
comments, DMs, replies
shares and retweets
saves
clicks
mentions

These metrics measure the effectiveness of your posts. They gauge the level of engagement generated from your social media campaigns.

To ensure you get more likes, comments, shares or clicks, create content that resonates well with your audience. One way to that is by discussing or following a current trend, news or event.

If that’s not clear to you, then let these two brands/campaigns do the explaining:

Coca-Cola: Socially Distanced Logo

Credit: The Coca-Cola Company

The beverage giant ran a billboard in New York’s Time Square, which showed each letter in its brand name separated. This logo tweak encourages people to maintain social distancing amid the COVID-19 crisis.

Berger Paints India: Dalgona Coffee

Credit: Berger Paints India

Dalgona coffee has gone viral during the pandemic. The coffee recipe became popular on social media globally, and brands like Berger Paints were clever to incorporate the Dalgona trend into its campaign.

2. Livestream Your Most Important Events

Live streaming on social media platforms, such as Facebook and Instagram, is blowing up the scene. But what is live streaming anyway?

Image Source: Wikimedia

At its simplest, live streaming is a practice that lets people stream digital data, such as audio and video, simultaneously. The streamed data is broadcasted in real-time for viewers over the Internet.

If you haven’t discovered yet the potential of going live on social media, that’s enough reason to include it in your social media tweaks list. Start live streaming your events to enjoy a wide range of business benefits, including:

Diminish marketing costs. Facebook Live costs little-to-zero dollars. All you need is to show up on your live video and engage in a real-time discussion with your target audience.
Generate a bigger audience. Live streams have no geographical and physical restrictions and are accessible to a worldwide audience.
Develop direct engagement. Live streaming creates a direct connection to each viewer. When a social media user views your content, that person may see it as if he/she is interacting with your brand personally.
Create new business opportunities. A live-streamed event can provide new business opportunities. Integrating promotional offers into the live stream video, for example, can generate large numbers of sales.

Here are some live stream event ideas to consider:

Host a contest or Q&A
Raise money for a cause
Announce a new product
Do a live consulting session
Stream an inclusive interview
Take a virtual tour of your space

4. Write Personal & Intriguing Captions

Sharing your company blog posts or other relevant industry news across your social media profiles is a widely used marketing technique nowadays. When done right, it can help you get a positive return on investment (ROI) from your content marketing efforts.

So, how do you get more traffic and reach a wider audience from this tactic? Here’s a tip: make your captions more personal and intriguing.

Avoid simply putting the title and URL of your blog article. Your readers can already see your article headline, and doing it will appear like you’re putting less effort into creating social media captions.

Here are a few tips on writing engaging captions on social media:

Write the important stuff first and within the character length limit
Pull inspiring quotes or statistics from the content you share
Ask open-ended questions to prompt interaction
Include a call-to-action (CTA) in your caption

5. Use Hashtags Effectively

Social media presence and engagement are intertwined. Having a solid social media presence can drive better audience engagement. While driving a lot of engagement on social media can get your business in front of more followers or customers.

For this reason, it’s crucial to make your content or business discoverable for other people via hashtags. This tactic is one of those social media tweaks that you should prioritize, especially if you’re struggling with creating interactions around your brand.

Hashtags are an essential part of social media marketing. They’re a metadata tag prefaced by the hash symbol (#), which allow users to label content and find relevant topics, events, or conversations.

Since hashtags aggregate all content with that same hashtag, it makes great sense to incorporate them into your social media posts. Doing so helps improve your searchability and encourage people to connect with your business and other social media users.

Below are some tips for a successful hashtag marketing campaign:

Keep the hashtag relevant. Use a hashtag that is relevant to your content and company.
Make the hashtag brief. Avoid using too many words in a hashtag. Instead, use the most simple keywords or phrases possible.
Find the right hashtags. Find hashtags on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook and see if other people are using them and if they fit your content.
Include trending hashtags. Adding a trending hashtag to your social media post can get your message seen by a larger audience.
Limit the number of hashtags you use. Don’t overuse hashtags. Here are the hashtag restrictions per social media channel:
- Twitter: 2 hashtags per tweet is ideal because of the character count limit
- Instagram: 11 hashtags offers the highest level of engagement
- Facebook: 1 to 2 hashtags with 10+ characters work best

6. Respond to Comments

Have you ever sent someone a text and got no reply? If yes, how does that make you feel? Do you feel ignored or mistreated? Or do you regret the idea of trying to interact?

The same thing applies to how your followers or social media users feel when they leave a comment on your Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram post. Their impression of you is put at stake when they had a negative customer experience while engaging with your business.

Social media engagement is a two-street. That’s why you must respond to comments, whether they’re questions, praises, criticisms, or negative feedback.

Here are some ways to do just that:

Establish a consistent tone. Always use your brand voice and be consistent across social channels.
Make personal responses. Avoid copy-pasted responses. Whenever possible, include the name of the commenter to make it more personal.
Remain professional. Maintain a professional stance, especially when replying to negative comments.
Respond quickly. A quick response shows that you care about your customers and their concerns.

Final Thoughts

Social media is a powerful tool for business marketing. With millions of active social media users, your marketing and advertising efforts have a strong chance of succeeding.

By taking note of these six social media tweaks, you can create a compelling campaign that can help you generate leads and improve your conversion rates.

2Stallions can help you boost your social media marketing efforts and establish a better relationship with your target audience. Contact us today to learn more.

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