6 Social Media Hacks That Growing Businesses Need
There was a time when social media was about connecting with friends and family. Today it is often seen as a virtual soapbox for content creators and brands to share their opinions. It helps brands shout out and create awareness about their products and services without getting onto their rooftops.
While we do know that social media helps you stay top-of-mind for your customers, we can’t deny the fact that social media is changing continuously. As social media dons a different cape each day, brands should also know how to quickly adapt to these different personas.
If you are a business owner or a marketer trying hard to keep up with the ever-changing landscape on social media, you are in the right place. In this blog, we are going to talk about social media hacks that help brands stay up-to-date with what’s happening on social media. We’ll talk about strategies that help your brand shine through the competition.
Are you ready to shake up your social media approach? Let’s begin.
3 data-backed reasons why brands should take social media seriously
- There has been a 10% year-over-year growth in social media usage globally. With people spending an increasing amount of time on social media, it makes perfect sense for brands to meet their target customers wherever they are.
- About 90% of Instagram users follow at least one business account on the platform. That indicates a shift in the way people use social media. It’s no more just a medium of personal communication but also a platform for people to connect with brands.
- About 62.3% of Instagram users reportedly use the platform to know more about a brand they like or to research a brand they plan to buy from. So, your social media page should be a hub for education, entertainment, and personalized communication. That’s when it becomes an identifier of your brand.
In addition to all these reasons, social media also helps you closely monitor your industry, track brand mentions, and nurtured better customer relationships. On the whole, equipped with the right social media hacks, you can establish your brand’s journey toward success.
What are these social media hacks we’ve been talking about? Let’s get to them without further ado.
6 game-changing social media hacks you need for your brand
1. The sweet spot between narrowcasting and broadcasting
By focusing only on one social media platform, you are not reaping the maximum benefits of social media. But at the same time, trying to be on all platforms can be overwhelming.
Most social media users use about 7 social media platforms on average each month. The key is to identify overlaps in terms of your audience preferences and therefore shortlist platforms that put together bring maximum results.
Then comes the topic of what to post. While you can repurpose your content across platforms, remember to tweak them. Also, add content formats that do well on specific platforms.
We’ll explain this with an example. Let’s look at the social media pages of Netflix, an exemplary brand when it comes to social media marketing.
Netflix on Twitter
Netflix on Instagram
On Netflix’s Twitter page, you’ll find a lot of interactive content including text-only Tweets that initiate conversations in the form of text-only posts, images, and videos.
And on Instagram, Netflix keeps up with the trends through its Reels. It shares behind-the-scenes content, bloopers from sets, teasers, and a whole lot more.
Netflix’s YouTube page is a whole different scene. That’s where the brand shares its upcoming trailers, celebrity interview, and everything else. As you can see, the brand does not just expand its presence across channels but also intuitively personalizes content for each platform. All these are based on the ways in which people use different platforms.
Kimp Tip: When you have a designated design team working on all your marketing designs, it becomes so much simpler to repurpose your content to suit different platforms. This way you can reuse your idea but create different design formats for different audiences. And that’s possible with an unlimited design subscription like Kimp.
2. Automation – the key to convenient social media marketing
We spoke about keeping up with social media consumption patterns and finding the right mix of social media platforms for your brand. But when you have more than one social media page to handle, things start getting more complicated. After all, the algorithm is not the same everywhere.
From the number of characters supported in a text post to the file formats a lot of different variables exist. So, manually posting content on different platforms can be tedious. Moreover, the ideal time for posting also varies from one platform to another. Considering all these factors, the easiest way to streamline your social media content schedules will be to use an automation tool like Buffer, HootSuite, or BuzzSumo.
These tools help you manage all your social media profiles from one place and conveniently schedule content. Tracking notifications and finding and responding to messages in the same place is an added benefit.
Therefore, taking into account the rapid pace of social media growth, one of the must-know social media hacks for brands is to invest in a good social media automation tool.
3. Identify and keep track of the right KPIs
One brand might prioritize “follows” on social media while another might look for an increase in likes and shares. What’s your brand’s goal when it comes to social media marketing? Identify this and track the relevant parameters that indicate progress in the intended direction.
For example, let’s say that your brand’s goal is to increase visibility for new customer acquisition. For this, you need to work on increasing the number of shares on your posts. And one way to do this is through the incorporation of visually engaging content like infographics. Because infographics help break complicated concepts into a simple and visually engaging format that’s suitable for social media.
Infographics are said to be shared 3 times more than several other visual formats. How can you confirm if the infographic you post does its job? By tracking the number of shares. And if you do not see the anticipated results, it could indicate that you need to work on your content quality or spend time identifying the right topics for your infographics.
Even in this aspect, a social media automation tool like the ones we spoke about in the previous section can be quite useful. Instead of visiting individual platforms and posts to know the kind of engagement they get, you can get cumulative analytics and comprehensive reports to help understand the performance of your posts.
Kimp Tip: As a rule of thumb, revisit your social media analytics on a monthly basis before you plan the content calendar for an upcoming month. This helps you incorporate more posts that consistently bring better engagement on your social media pages.
4. The power of paid advertising for brands
Paid advertising is expected to reach US$268.70bn in the year 2023. Brands are spending on social media ads in order to boost their visibility and bring in new leads. Are you? If not, now is a good time to start.
You might have the most aesthetic social media feed and a collection of the most engaging content. But unless you attract the attention of the right social media users, all these attributes will not make much impact. That’s where paid ads come in handy.
Is a post doing exceptionally well in terms of engagement? Boost it and let more people see what people are talking about your brand. Have a big event coming up? Use social media Story posts to reach a relevant audience with a quick link to the event landing page. Bring in more event registrations this way. The ways in which you can use paid ads are practically endless. Hence, one of the most important social media hacks is to pay serious attention to paid advertising on social media.
If all these do not sound convincing enough, you should also hear this. Apple is a brand often seen as the epitome of inspiration for branding. And so a marketing strategy that Apple adopts is definitely worth exploring, don’t you agree? Apple spends about $100 million on Twitter ads annually. Reiterating that this figure’s just on Twitter. Similarly, brands around the world consistently allot a huge portion of their marketing budget to social media advertising.
Kimp Tip: Paid ads need to be in different formats and the design needs to be spot-on. After all, you just one get chance sometimes. Use creative visuals and the right blend of your brand elements for maximum impact.
Need help designing your social media ads? Get Kimp.
5. Don’t underestimate shoppable content
Why did e-commerce become a popular trend? Before e-commerce, people used the internet to find out more about a product they wish to purchase. And then they had to visit a physical store to purchase the product. But when ecommerce was introduced, they could research the product and shop for it all from the comforts of their home. That meant a reduction in the time and effort spent shopping.
A similar reason can be cited for the growing popularity of social commerce as well. The social commerce market is projected to reach $1.3 trillion in 2023. And the fact that more and more brands are creating shoppable content on social media is proof of this fact. That comes as a sign to remind you that one of the critical social media hacks is to accommodate social media shopping if you haven’t already.
Shoppable content can come in several forms. Instagram Shops, for example, lets you create collections and conveniently shoppable landing pages. You can then tag respective products in your posts and make it easier for customers to shop for products they see in your Reels and other posts.
By adding the convenience factor to shopping, you are increasing your conversions through social media. And customers like the seamless shopping experience you provide in the process.
6. Time to add more videos
Launching a new product? Use a video teaser to create anticipation. Promoting an event? Create a video showcasing highlights from the previous year’s event. Want to build awareness for a product? Create a demonstration video for the same. Need to keep your audience engaged? Create explainer videos that show your expertise in the realm.
As you can see, there are several kinds of videos you can create for several purposes. And all these are known to perform much better than most other content formats on social media. The fact that video is the way forward when it comes to social media growth needs no introduction.
About 91% of consumers expect brands to increase their video content. And one of the best social media hacks is to fulfill customer expectations with respect to content formats. So, if you do not already have a strong video content plan for your social media, now is a good time to start working on it.
Kimp Tip: Several platforms like Instagram and TikTok have popularized the trend of short-form videos. These bite-sized content pieces can add great value to your social media pages by increasing your reach and engaging your audience regularly. But at the same time, to establish your brand’s authority in the market and also to educate your consumers, you also need long-form videos. YouTube is a great channel to share long-form content.
Need to design creative short-form videos for your social media pages or edit your long-form videos to align them with your brand? Get a Kimp Video subscription.
Unlock the full potential of social media with these hacks + a Kimp subscription
There’s always something new with social media marketing. Adopt these easy hacks and keep an eye out for any emerging trends and social media features that will benefit your brand. Remember that for a successful social media strategy, “set and forget” doesn’t work. You need to continuously monitor and adapt to what the market brings new. Automation in all forms can simplify your job along the way. For social media monitoring, scheduling and analytics tools like HootSuite as discussed a little while ago make a big difference. And for designs, a dependable unlimited design subscription, like Kimp, is a great option.
Register now for a free 7-day trial.