SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY
Four Trends To Include In
Your Social Media Strategy
By Shannon Brain
channels. Brands have multiple touch
points and consumers want seamless and
unified interactions on each platform.
Micro-Influencers
Micro-influencers have a smaller
following than macro-influencers; most
of the time, they have less than 10,000
followers. Their smaller following means
that they are able to develop personal
relationships with their followers and
are often considered experts in their
niche industry. They target a small,
specific audience, making their marketing
potential very high.
Here’s how to pick the perfect micro-
influencer(s) for your 2019 strategy:
Consider what sort of subjects the micro-
influencer covers as well as their area of
W
ith a whirlwind of social media
trends spinning into 2019, it can
be difficult to pinpoint which
ones to include in your strategy. Consider
including the below top four social media
trends in your plan.
Marketing to Generation Z
Generation Z (Gen Z) includes people born
from the mid-1990s to the early 2000s.
These individuals demand that brands
respond instantly and that they provide a
quick, error-free experience across all your
digital platforms.
Here’s how you can ensure your social
strategy appeals to Gen Z: Create content
that is short, to the point and communicates
your brand’s value as quickly as possible, or
you may run the risk of losing your audience
and a sale.
Make sure your website is mobile friendly.
Gen Z spend most of their digital lives on unanswered. This is why continuing to
smartphones, so if you're hoping to drive provide tip-top customer service through
them back to your company website, make your business's social pages is essential.
sure that it works perfectly on mobile too.
Here’s how you can improve your
Show diversity through your content. consumer engagement strategy: Increase
Gen Z are the most culturally and socially customer loyalty by acknowledging and
aware. Therefore, it is important to engaging with your customers’ comments
represent diversity in your posts and ads or posts. Don’t forget that they chose
in order to form a connection with them. your brand over your competitors, and
they want to know you appreciate them.
Don’t ignore the value of video and the For example, you could repost a positive
importance of visually appealing content if mention on your profile. Customers love
you want to win over the hearts and minds a shout out.
of Gen Z. Non-promotional, short-form
storytelling is the way to go. Remember Don’t delay in your responses – social
to tailor videos for various platforms and media users are all about instant
devices.
gratification. To keep your response
time short, create helpful, pre-written
responses for general inquiries and
Consumer Engagement
always try divert negative conversations
Whether it is a brand mention, product- into your brand’s private inbox.
related question or a complaint about
poor service, customers don’t want to go Make sure that your customer
engagement strategy organized. You
can do this by creating a schedule that
clearly states who is managing which
social media accounts and at what times.
Add links to your Instagram Stories to di-
rect your followers to blog posts, exclusive
offers on your website or product infor-
mation. This provides an opportunity to
increase traffic to your sites and also gen-
erates leads for your brand.
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Take note of and analyze your customers’
comments
and
complaints. This
information is useful for your marketing
department and can help improve your
products and strategies.
Ensure that your customer experience is
integrated and consistent across all brand
expertise, and make sure that this aligns
with your brand.
Look into who makes up their following
and ensure that you share a similar target
audience.
Create content that aligns with the micro-
influencer you have chosen. They are more
willing to publish content that relates
to their specific tastes, which gives your
content a greater chance of being shared.
Make sure that the influencer’s approach
is passive when it comes to marketing a
product. A more subtle mention of the
product will inform followers, as opposed
to pushing them away.
Instagram Stories
Instagram Stories offer marketers an
opportunity to reach a higher number
of people. Stories are more relatable and
interactive, and offer more flexibility
when marketing your product. With
new features being launched regularly on
Instagram Stories, they are here to stay in
2019.
Here’s how you can include Stories in your
social media strategy: Take advantage of
the polls on Instagram Stories to get quick
customer feedback and insights into their
preferences. For example, by asking the
question “Which color handbag do you
prefer, black or red?”, customers will be
able to answer right then and there.
Add links to your Instagram Stories
to direct your followers to blog posts,
exclusive offers on your website or product
information. This provides an opportunity
to increase traffic to your sites and also
generates leads for your brand.
Use Stories to increase brand awareness
and stay top of mind by documenting your
brand’s day-to-day activities. They are also
perfect for once off quick promotions,
sharing of new products or promoting
your partnership’s with Influencers.
Amplify a Call To Action (CTA) using
the overlay text feature. You can make sure
that your followers don’t miss your CTA
by highlighting or repeating it in big, bold,
colorful lettering.
Once your social media strategy is on the
go, it is vital to track its performance. This
will allow you to determine the success of
brand messages and campaigns on social
media.
amaSocial is a complete social media
tracking and reporting service. It helps
marketers, community managers and
analysts to measure social media activity
on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and
YouTube, as well as brand mentions on
blogs.
Shannon Brain is a Marketing
Coordinator at amaSocial based in
South Africa. You can communicate
with her on topics related to traditional
and social media monitoring and
reporting via email at: Shannon.
[email protected].