Showing posts with label Branding. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Branding. Show all posts

Friday, April 4, 2025

Using Social Media To Market Yourself?


One of the most common questions I get asked is how business owners can use social media to market themselves..



There seems to be a lot of information out there, in terms of how to use social media to market yourself.

With new tools being made available all the time, and older tools acquiring new features (I’m looking at you Instagram!), it’s enough to make anyone’s head spin.


The good news is, you can use social media in small ways to market yourself. At the end of the day, it’s a whole lot of little actions that can add up over time in a big way. Keep that in mind, as you implement social media using these simple, small tactics:

1. Show Behind-the-Scenes

Do you want to know what audiences on social media love? Behind-the-scenes content! I’m serious—they eat it up!


I’m going to go out on a limb here, and assume that the reason why behind-the-scenes content is so popular is because we crave to see public figures and businesses that are willing to pull back the curtain and show us their real lives. In the intangible yet constantly connected digital world, we ironically crave to make real connections.


One of the ways you can do this is by using the Stories feature on Instagram or Snapchat (if you’re still into it). For example, I make short videos, where I explain marketing concepts as I’m working on them. This gives a behind-the-scenes look into my business as well as provides value for social media followers. It doesn’t take a whole lot to do this either; the videos are literally 10 seconds long. It’s simply a matter of remembering to do it.

2. Live-stream While You're Working

A few days ago, I was interviewing the founder of a local meetup group for freelancers for my podcast. I posted about it on Instagram, and I instantly received requests to live-stream the interview. Since the people asked for it, we gave it to them.


It ended up being an excellent idea. Not only did I show viewers how I set up for a podcast interview (that’s the behind-the-scenes stuff I was talking about above), we also took live questions from the audience while I was recording. This was a hit—and all we had to do was fire-up Instagram and start recording a live video of something we were already doing anyway!


So, rather than trying to invent new content all the time, you can use social media to show people what you’re already up to.

3. Share Wins

Another small way you can use social media is to share wins with your audience, as they happen in real-time. Did you get featured in the press? Snap a picture of the article and post it on social. Did you hit a new milestone? Post about it on Facebook. Did a client text you an amazing testimonial? Ask them for permission to use it, take a screenshot of it, and put it on Instagram.

Guest Authored By Amanda Abella. Amanda is a full-time writer who specializes in online business and finance. She's also an online business coach and the Amazon best-selling author of Make Money Your Honey. Follow Amanda on Twitter.





The Bottom Line

It’s not difficult to use social media to market yourself, if you remember that it’s all about small actions adding up over time.

Using social media in some of the aforementioned ways can help you take things one step at a time and eliminate any potential for becoming overwhelmed..


    • Authored by:
      Fred Hansen Pied Piper of Social Media Marketing at GetMoreHere.com & CEO of Millennium 7 Publishing Co. in Loveland, Colorado. I work deep in the trenches of social media strategy, community management and trends.  My interests include; online business educator, social media marketing, new marketing technology, skiing, hunting, fishing and The Rolling Stones..-Not necessarily in that order ;)

    Monday, December 10, 2018

    YOUR AI-Driven Social Media Marketing?


    How social media marketers are getting ready for AI-driven networking and branding..

    Social media marketing is growing by leaps and bounds, what with Artificial Intelligence taking center stage. As user experience becomes more and more personalized, social media marketers are using AI to provide a holistic and positive customer experience.



    Back in the day, social media platforms were a fun place where we would share photos or find an event or follow a friend.

    But connecting with brands or businesses required a proper phone call or to visit their respective website.

    Fast-forward to the present date; the scenario has experienced a mega-shift, what with consumers now connecting with brands directly on social media platforms. Studies show that consumers are more inclined towards those brands who are taking the lead in resolving issues real-time and in a thorough manner. Infact, 42% of respondents in an Edison Research Study reported of expecting a reply from a brand within an hour.

    Chatbots are stealing the limelight in this, by answering customer queries instantly using natural language. This is not just helping in keeping the interested lead in the loop and triggering a sense of priority but is also giving human marketers time to build a better content and social media marketing strategy.



    The focus of social media marketing has shifted from mass engagement to personalized interaction.

    Today, brands have a massive amount of data about their customer base, thanks to big data. Their need of the hour is to engage each lead with relevant content or information.

    Thus, the primary challenge in social media marketing is to segment this large chunk of data to do targeted content marketing based on lead behaviour and engagement.

    While an advanced marketing automation tool is enabling marketers to do dynamic segmentation, social media marketers are all set to leverage the potential of AI in social networking and business branding.



    Why do marketers need to turn to AI for social media marketing?

    One of my fellow marketers said, "It's because the whos-who of digital industry is doing it". Sadly, that reason is not good enough or does justice to the enormous potential AI has brought in for social media marketers. To get a clear idea, let's start from the start!

    You see, social media networks are dominating our lives. We spend almost 80% of our time on these networking sites. What with video-based social media marketing taking the cup this year in terms of consumer engagement on social platforms, marketers are exploring newer ways to connect with their ideal prospects. While all these read rosy, the problem is the huge amount of unstructured social data that marketers have, clubbed with a myriad of social influencers influencing consumers' buying decisions. Marketers are not left with many choices but explore AI-based tools to leverage the full power of social networking.



    Quoting Lux Narayan, the CEO of Unmetric, an AI-powered social media metrics company -


    According to Narayan, there are six core areas where AI is leaving a strong impact on social media marketing; an impact that is hard to ignore in this customer-centric-marketing-era.

    1. Content creation
    2. Consumer intelligence
    3. Customer service
    4. Influencer marketing
    5. Content optimization
    6. Competitive intelligence

    There is no doubt that Narayan has himself revealed the reasons why social media marketers are getting inclined heavily towards AI-based marketing and branding.



    So, how are social media marketers are exploring the impact of AI on social networking and branding?

    Doing data-driven social marketing merged with creative ideas will help you get the attention of your target prospects. And yes, Social media is where you can build your brand image. There are about 3.2 billions of people active on social media platforms. You don't need to shout out to your target audience but let them find you and connect with you on-the-go. The more personalized your social strategy will be, the better will your ideal buyers connect with your brand. So, put your creative hats on and let's get ready for the future.

    Machine learning and artificial intelligence are two ideas that marketers are breaking down into bits and pieces to make use. But the essential question is how it will come into use in social media marketing? The answer is social media networking and social ads.

    Let's be honest here. Despite various arguments, no other marketing channel has grasped AI better than social. AI defines the content you see, the ads you get, and monitors how you connect with your contacts. This is one primary reason why you should be cautious while building content for social platforms.



    Social media giant, Facebook, is the living proof of this.

    It does not need to optimize the time of the day or do elaborate keyword research, but run an algorithm that is individual customer-specific.

    When you run an ad on Facebook, you must know that AI is at play in deciding who will see your ads and when and how. Infact, learning to sync your Facebook ads is very crucial for all marketers.

    Create Facebook ads with your ideal specifications and leave the rest to the algorithm.

    I am asking you to believe me blindly. For one, you can test yourself and see. Otherwise, trust this update from Facebook's business news portal where Facebook ad relevancy score is as high as 7 on an average.



    What is Ad Relevance Score and why it should matter?

    Relevancy score is calculated based on the reviews your brand receives, both positive and negative, to your ads. The more your ad receives positive feedback, the higher is the relevancy score. It is usually defined between 1-10, 10 being the highest.

    The sole reason why relevancy score is important is that it helps in reducing your cost of reaching your target audience.

    This testifies the fact that Facebook ads, when set up properly, can give you more reach to your target audience and that too lot faster. However, negative reviews can bring down your relevancy scores drastically. Infact, social media is one place where things escalate real fast - be it good or bad. For instance, remember the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 Scandal where the company had to recall all the Note 7 handsets after various reports of batteries exploding. The news spread like fire on the brand's social media page, bringing a 30-point drop in its BrandIndex rating.



    Such incidents like that of Samsung’s is accidental, but the whole point here is, your social brand image can get largely impacted by a single negative review, giving way to trolls and memes.

    Brands can find themselves in sudden nightmares if product hoax stories or product disasters or trolls from competitors make way into social media. Luckily, AI is on its way to curating conversation flows and content to manage such fiascos. Using various filtering systems, AI systems are capable of monitoring millions of user comments across a large range of platforms and predict an emergency long before it occurs in real-time.

    Lesson 101: Ethical companies do not usually vet comments that are offensive or inappropriate. When they get intimidation of an emergency spinning up, social media marketers can immediately work to release official statements addressing the impending issues and bringing forth transparency. This not just offers assurance to consumers but uplifts the brand's image. Infact, social media marketers are using chatbots and machine learning to send personalized messages to consumers who raise a concern.



    Effective social media marketing is a pointer to a brand's strength, and social media followers and conversations are telling metrics of that brand's success.

    Guest Authored By Pritha Bose. Pritha is the Marketing Content Specialist at Aritic where she writes and edits for their marketing and sales blog. She has an eye for details and likes to do in-depth research for her articles. In her free time, Pritha likes to travel and post pictures of beautiful locales on her Instagram profile. Follow Pritha on Twitter.





    While many argue that AI will take away the human element from the conversation, the reality is a lot different.

    Bots are adding the much-needed personalization by replicating and automating repetitive functions, allowing human marketers to focus their energy on providing a more holistic and positive customer experience..


    • Post Crafted By:
      Fred Hansen Pied Piper of Social Media Marketing at GetMoreHere.com & CEO of Millennium 7 Publishing Co. in Loveland, CO. where I work deep in the trenches of social media strategy, community management and trends.  My interests include; online business educator, social media marketing, new marketing technology, skiing, hunting, fishing and The Rolling Stones..-Not necessarily in that order ;)

    Wednesday, April 25, 2018

    YOUR Social Media Virtual Storefront?


    Treat your social media like the storefront you want customers to see.

    Your virtual storefront needs to be as inviting as the real one..



    Running a startup in the social media space has led to numerous conversations with founders, professionals and others about the significance and value of social media.

    Social media is the digital representation of your brand. Whether you like it or not. It's the easiest way to communicate with your customers, users or fans of your brand. It's also the easiest way to shape the perception of your brand.

    I began to realize some intriguing similarities between how a business owner would treat the physical representation of a business such as a storefront and its representation on social media.



    Name

    One of the most exciting moments for a business owner is naming his or her business. It's typically an "AHA" moment when the right words roll off your tongue. Then you start to immediately think about the next steps in protecting your name.

    But what about social media handles on Instagram, Twitter, Youtube, etc.? It's important to make sure you reserve the name of your business on all social media platforms as soon as you can.

    This goes for your personal brand online as well. The brand consistency makes it easy for your fans to be able to discover your brand and engage. I've seen businesses (personal and company) begging Instagram owners with particular handles to retrieve them.



    Location

    Location is critical for any storefront. Deciding where to establish your business has an impact on the type of customer you will attract, how your storefront is perceived and how respected it is. When considering "location" for your social media content consider what your primary platforms are.

    If you are creating content geared towards business professionals perhaps you should consider making LinkedIn a primary focus. That isn't to say there aren't business professionals on Twitter or Instagram, but there's a chance you can build an audience more quickly through Linkedin with written content appealing to a"business-centric" platform. If you are in the fashion industry or building a attractive aesthetic is important Instagram should play a role. Knowing where to focus your attention is crucial. Long form video content may make Youtube compelling. On the other hand short digestible video clips may be better served on Instagram.



    Aesthetic/Brand

    Think about all the business establishments you have gone to. If the decor seemed off or the branding wasn't well put together it would be quite noticeable. Whether it was the color scheme, logo, lighting, etc. These all play a role on our thoughts about the business.

    It can be somewhat of an indicator to us as to how seriously the company cares about its perception and may even affect our spending behavior. The same applies to social media. How carefully a brand depicts itself on Instagram gives users a good idea of how seriously they take their brand and its perception.

    On Instagram use consistent editing with regards to content (video or images). Consider following a particular style or format and stick with it. On Twitter use hashtags associated with your brand to help people keep tabs.



    Consistent Content/Product

    Consistency is key. Imagine going to a restaurant and every time you went they didn't have what you wanted on the menu. "Sorry we ran out."

    It would be pretty annoying and not to mention frustrating. Or every time you went to your favorite boutique shop for that shirt you want to wear on a date and they don't have it in stock. On social media if you aren't consistently creating and posting it makes it difficult to justify users or fans coming to your page. They never know if there will be content for them to consume or if you are just on hiatus. It doesn't always have to be original content. You can repost content and give credit to the original creator as well. Just make sure to have a content creation schedule and stick to the schedule.

    Guest Authored By Kofi Frimpong. Kofi is founder of Getsocianado.com, matching vetted social media mangers with brands (personal or business). Kofi is formerly the founder of Brandslip, an influencer agency with clients including Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures, 20th Century Fox and the NBA. Follow Kofi on Twitter.





    "An e-newsletter allows you to gather up all the interesting information about your business or industry and deliver it in a neat, simplistic package to your customers or clients.." -ZachThompson


      • Post Crafted By:
        Fred Hansen Pied Piper of Social Media Marketing at YourWorldBrand.com & CEO of Millennium 7 Publishing Co. in Loveland, Colorado. I work deep in the trenches of social media strategy, community management and trends.  My interests include; online business educator, social media marketing, new marketing technology, skiing, hunting, fishing and The Rolling Stones..-Not necessarily in that order ;)