“In today’s market, REAL trumps PERFECT because real is what creates TRUST … and trust is what makes WOM recommendations work. Consumers who trust your brand are much more likely to become Brand Advocates, knowing you will consistently deliver on your product and service promises. In fact, 76% of consumers recommended companies they trust to a friend or colleague (source: Edelman).

One key way to gain consumers’ trust is to build authentic relationships with them. Give consumers ongoing chances to interact with you and your brand, so they can see that you always tell the truth. Don’t waste your valuable marketing time making things up because your consumers will sense that you are not telling the truth. Do your products and services have all perfect recommendations, as your brand claims?

Maybe – but unlikely. 100% on-time delivery? Maybe – but unlikely.

Of course, you don’t need to announce your errors or be proud of performance inconsistencies, but if consumers bring them up publicly, consider NOT filtering those conversations out of the media. Speak directly to any issues consumers have with your brand, and let your problem-solving conversations be public. These authentic conversations are the ones that build ongoing relationships – the ones that create Brand Advocates.

In my opinion, our new marketers’ motto should be “LESS fabrication, MORE facilitation.” In other words, don’t waste resources whitewashing your brand. Put your resources instead into giving Advocates the tools to tell their truth about your brand… because that is what consumers trust and what they trust, they will buy. “LESS fabrication, MORE facilitation” = a boost to your ROR (Return on Relationship). True authenticity is one major thing that can set your brand apart from the rest of today’s highly competitive market. Relationships are like muscle tissue… the more they are engaged, the stronger and more valuable they become.”

“Focus on relationships. While many brands try to make social channels about numbers – get more followers, then drive more fans to a website, and convert more fans into paying customers – I prefer to play the long game. My goal is to create real, meaningful relationships with individual stakeholders and influencers.

I spend time every day working with influencers and looking for ways to help them just as I would for any friend or neighbor. In return, they’re more than eager to help me out in any number of ways. We have real conversations together and are able to use social media in very genuine ways.”

“Build your community so you can get their reactions to your potential upcoming events and/or future offers.”

“Get active where their target audience is. Daily. Post new original content, share new content. Engage with your users and potential clients. Team up with bloggers, experts, and influencers in your niche or industry.

So the #1 strategy to have an impact on social media, long-term is to get active.

There’s no other SECRET than this! Try it and you’ll thank me for it later.”

“Every single brand; small to large, should create a written social media strategic plan to make their social media impactful. This strategic plan should include several general social media goals, results of an internal social media audit, including an audit of their website, a competitors analysis, content calendar ideas and end with 3, 6 and 12-month goals & objectives.

‘You can’t measure what you don’t know. Know where you are now, in order to measure impact in 3, 6 and 12 months.’

With this written plan in hand, the brand can execute campaigns, try different tactics and keep measuring results and adjust as they go! Doing this one thing first will make a huge impact on the overall effectiveness of any brand’s social media marketing efforts.”

“That’s like asking what’s the right medicine for a sick patient. Well, depends on what the particular ailment is, since everyone coming into the hospital of social media has a different ailment.

The most useful, practical answer is to build a 3×3 grid, something almost nobody is aware of, but everyone needs to do, no matter their industry or how small they are.

A 3×3 grid lets your structure your BEST content into a 3 part #AEC funnel– for awareness, engagement, and conversion. The idea of having your “greatest hits” is to have evergreen content that will keep performing for you. We have posts that are 3 years old on Facebook which are still driving sales for us.

You know how in SEO you have some posts that might be years old, but still rank well and drive you a ton of business? Why wouldn’t it be the same thing on Facebook?

Without your 3×3 grid, you’ll be forced to keep making new content every single day, then having to throw it away and start over. What a huge waste of time!

Of course, if you have a 3×3 grid, you have to be willing to spend a dollar a day to drive traffic to it. It’s a paid game now and remarketing is the most powerful part of ads.

Thus, your content strategy MUST have a paid component if you wish to drive reach, sales, or other forms of impact.”

“I firmly believe that authenticity on social media is absolutely key to building a movement, increasing impact, and making connections. The best way to humanize your brand and showcase your impact is through storytelling. You need a system to collect, craft, and share stories that relate to your brand and your organization, on a regular basis. Storytelling content can include mission moments, behind-the-scenes, photo collages, live stream broadcasts, tweet chats, and more.

With the crowded and noisy social media landscape changing too rapidly, and with our attention spans getting shorter every day, telling authentic stories on social media can make your brand stand out and help you attract your ideal customer. Storytelling on social media is also an effective tool to challenge cultural stereotypes, to connect with diverse audiences, and best of all, to inspire people to take action.”

“Stop thinking about “direct ROI” from social media, that will come once you build your community. People don’t buy from people that promote their products and services all the time, they buy from those that add value to their lives whom they like. If your content gets them to think, or keeps them motivated, or connects them to resources they would have never found out about, you’re doing it right.

First, build your community, build trust, once you have their trust, that is when people will buy. Social media is the first step in getting people interested, the next step is getting them on your email list and THAT is when you start trying to sell to them. Using email marketing you can see what they react to and what they are interested in and market to them directly.”

“With so many platforms to choose from, it can be overwhelming just to know where to start with social media marketing. But you need to start because digital Darwinism isn’t waiting around. However, just diving in headfirst with a scattershot approach is highly unlikely to yield results.

The single, most important thing any brand can do to ensure their social media has maximum impact, is to devise a clear content strategy.

Without it, it’s going to be very hard to gain traction.

This requires a little bit of work upfront, but it will give your marketing campaign a foundation to build upon, and targets to aim for, allowing you to track and measure the success of your activities.

Some key aspects include:

Identifying your audience – research the current market, your competitors and their followers. Find your niche and draw up audience personas that detail just what problems your customers have, and how you are going to solve them.

Developing your brand voice – find the platform that works best for your company, image and goals. It may need to be adjusted from one platform to another, but ultimately your brand voice must be consistent, and more importantly, it must resonate with your audience.

Plan content creation and delivery – ensure your company can create the images, graphics and copy to keep each social media channel active on a regular basis. An editorial calendar will help keep on track and scheduling tools will make publishing easier.

Ultimately, with a strong strategy, a brand can harness the power of social media to forge stronger connections with their customers, which generates higher profits in the long-run.”

“To make your social media impactful, you need to build deep relationships with others.

It’s called SOCIAL media, not media.

That means your platform needs to be dedicated to being social and building relationships.”

“Engage Engage Engage. Don’t ignore anyone who follows you, always share your knowledge, assist others by sharing their content and show behind the scenes of what you are up to.

Be authentic and watch those followers come!

Twitter is a great way to build your own army of marketeers who will do your marketing for you.”

“BE AUTHENTIC! THAT IS SOCIAL MEDIA 101

Simply do what you can with what you have – Don’t try to be “ALL THINGS TO ALL PEOPLE”

Focus on what you loooooove and be the best version of yourself possible.

When time allows add some of the other platforms but, for now, really focus on one or two.”

“Study your followers and target audience and create content that addresses their needs or is useful to them. 

That is the most important step a brand can take to make a bigger impact with their social media strategies. It shouldn’t always be about promoting your products or services.

It should be more about offering them content that interests them and benefits them.”

“One thing I would recommend is focusing on creating and publishing posts that stand out and make a visual impact.

This means embedding videos and infographics, creating visual quotes and including graphs, charts, and striking images. 

By creating visually stunning content you can improve its chances of making a bigger and hopefully longer lasting impact.”

“We call it the emotional quotient. A brand needs to evoke a strong feeling from its social media content. It allows the follower to feel good, creates a call to action, makes them think about social issues and gives your brand an identity that they can remember.

Proctor and Gamble, the soap people have created unbelievable youtube ads that barely identify it’s brand but points out the use of its products throughout the videos. My marketing class students laugh when they see tear up after presenting them the videos in class.”

“The most important thing is to get a consistent stream of highly targeted followers interested in what you have to say/offer.

I know, it’s easy to say but…

There’s one super effective strategy that works on every social media platform.

Since I started following this strategy – my social profiles started growing exponentially.

Let’s dive into it. It’s not a rocket science. It’s much easier than you think.

Step #1: Find 10 influencers in your topic

Step #2: Find people who follow those influencers (it’s very easy on Instagram, Twitter and even on Pinterest).

Step #3: Start engaging with them (write meaningful comments under their posts, like them, follow them, connect with them through direct messages). You’ll get on their radar, get their attention and build relationships with them. They are the right people for your business. They are already qualified because they showed interest in your topic by following those influencers.

Remember, it’s not about numbers. Most of the brands need only qualified people ready to engage with them and buy from them.

Quality beats quantity.

I’ve published a step by step guide teaching this and others strategies more in-depth on my blog.

And there’s one more thing you need to do to make sure your social media strategy works in the long run.

Consistency!

People tend to forget quickly. Create a content calendar, decide how often you’re going to post (at least one per day) and stick to the plan.”

“To make social media more impactful, I think brands need to focus more on their audience and less on their products and services. So many brands use their social networks as a free method to announce company updates and product launches. Unfortunately, that strategy no longer works. People want meaningful connections and conversations on social media. Social media is a two-way communication platform, not a one-way broadcast channel.

One simple way to focus more on your audience is to ask questions. Not only will asking questions help you increase engagement through more likes and comments, but questions start a conversation with your audience, allowing you to get to know one another on a deeper level. Unfortunately, thinking of creative questions to ask can be very difficult and time-consuming, which is why I’ve compiled 65 social media questions that increase engagement.”

“It’s important that brands get involved in conversations and not just try to sell their products.

Brands should make an effort to tell stories, highlight their customers and help them in any way they can.

In this way, they will be viewed as being a part of the conversation and not trying to dominate it.

They should unleash their employees so they can participate in social media and become employee advocates.”

“Remember that you are there to build relationships, and not to sell, sell, sell. Don’t be the boor at the cocktail party who thrusts his business card into your hand and pins you into the corner to hear his sales pitch.

The emphasis in social networking needs to be on the word social. You’re mixing and mingling with others, some of whom you’re interested in getting to know better.

Relationships aren’t built with a flurry of hashtagged posts sent from your favorite automation platform; they are built the same way online as offline. When we spend the time to discover our common interests, likes and dislikes, and pet peeves, we make real connections that lead to mutually-profitable relationships.”

“Tell stories and craft an emotional connection to what you offer. 

Your product or services solve a problem so build stories around it. 

Also, show the ‘heart’ of your brand by getting involved in the social causes that you deeply believe in.”

“If you want to have an impact, you need to figure out how to connect with your audience on a deeper level. When you’re putting out blog posts or social media posts, always start with putting your customer first. What do they care about? What keeps them up at night? What type of stories can they relate to?

The number one rule is to make your content about your customer. Research and test different ideas based on your customer profile. Pay attention to the data, and it will how you what your ideal clients want from you. When you start to see trends, pay attention to them and start giving your customers more of the stuff they’re showing you they like.”

“There is no 1 specific thing that brands can do as it will vary depending on the needs of your audience, but above all social media should be used to build connections by providing value. Value can take the form of so many things: inspirational quotes, funny videos, tutorials, informational blog articles, motivational podcasts, a space to connect with other audience members, access to resources, and more. They key is to understand your audience well enough to know exactly what is going to provide the most value, and in the format that they want.

This is why businesses get so frustrated with social media performance – an article comes out telling them that XYZ content is the key to success so they begin producing that content and it gets them nowhere because they haven’t taken the time to find out if that’s what their audience wants. Social media isn’t a quick win and there is no simple one-size-fits-all formula. Take the time to get to know your audience, do your market research, experiment with content formats and then listen to the feedback you’re getting to drive future value-providing content.”

“Make it about your audience, not your brand.

How can your brand deliver to your audience what they want/need?

Bridge that gap and your brand’s social media will be impactful.”

“Add value. 

Ensure there is a reason why the channels exist. 

This can be anything from entertainment to helping people achieve their goals – but have a clear mission and go after it.”

“That question is pretty deep, underground, & stimulating! We believe if every brand could “Educate, Enlighten, Empower, & Entertain” their Audiences, every day, like a mantra, or as a “Daily ritual of Business Culture,” then their Social Media Presence will come ALIVE automagically! Not just that, PERKS INTENDED.

It’s about Serving a Definite Value Online, Give & Get, Create & Contribute Mutual Value for the Greater Good. It’s not about us, it’s about them. Personalize & Utilize Individual Social Media Platforms as Per their Core Purpose. If your audience, community, customers, or clients on social media consume your brand/product/services as “Experience,” that’s Social Media Evolution.

“Personalize” the Social Media Experience for your clients, community, customers, audiences, & the entire Social Media Sphere.”

“More photos, videos and overall personality is what will earn your business new social media strides. Take people “behind the curtain” of your work through your posts, stories, videos and photos. Share about what makes your brand what it is. Think about what types of content you like to see, as a user, on your favorite social media profiles.

Yes, you can still be promotional about your business and what you sell, but you also need to naturally attract and engage with users in ways that are both relevant to your business as well as relevant to your customers’ interests and needs”

“Stop making it about you. Stop worrying about what you need to get out of it, or what kinds of increases you’re seeing in your vanity metrics. The number of followers you have doesn’t matter. What does matter is the effort you put into creating the content you share there.

If you pump out junk content because you think that’s what you’re supposed to do, you’ll never make an impact. You do that by understanding who your followers are and how to serve them up content that doesn’t just engage them, but that has some type of valuable impact on their lives.”

“To make your brand social media more impactful, be human. Brands that are stiff and corporate don’t resonate well in social media, so do everything you can to humanize your brand and make it accessible to your potential customers and clients. 

Be as transparent as you possibly can be, engage with your audience (vs. being an unresponsive “billboard” in your posts), share your behind-the-scenes content and news about your company, and show gratitude for your community: celebrate their wins along with your own company news. 

If you imagine your brand as a human and create content in their voice, it will ultimately have far more success than a standard corporate brand.”

“Storytelling!

It’s 2018, consumers want to experience and feel part of the process. Tell a good story don’t sell to people. Developing content or campaigns think about the story behind the brand. By being creative and engaging, the brand can craft content and message that is targeted to the audiences on each relevant channel.

This should help you craft ideas around content and message for your channels.”

“Take a look at your social media channels and make sure they are not being used as just “sales channels”. People don’t go to social media to buy things. They use social media for education, entertainment, connection, and information. Before you sell your products online, you have to win their trust. You have to become a source of education and information for your audience. If they trust you, they will buy from you.

How do you do that? By teaching and helping your target audience. Remember teaching is the new marketing. Also, make sure people can clearly see your purpose through your social media content.”

“Talk less about themselves and focus more on connecting, relationship creating and solving problems. My focus is always to educate, entertain and inform my audience. They aren’t on social networks to be SOLD to, they are there to connect with their friends and family, make new friends, connect with new people, network and grow their businesses.

My job is to:

* help my audience achieve their goals by creating content that provides fun and entertainment, so my audience feels good to be with me and enjoys interacting with me

* Educate my audience on things that will help them grow their businesses

* Inform my audience on things that work, that they can use to help them achieve their goals

When I do that, my audience responds to me, connects with me and wants to do business with me because I make them feel empowered then they are with me on social media.”

“Leverage personal profiles.

Organic reach for brands is dead, so unless you want to pay for it, try to build up profiles for people who can be thought leaders for your business.

Also be authentic, social media can be a highlight reel, rather than real life – but try to be yourself, rather a ‘brand’ and I’d like to think people will react more positively.”

“The #1 thing every brand should do is create a consistent profile or page, across all social media platforms. Consistency is the key when it comes to making an impact in the social world. Plus, it makes you look professional and helps improve brand awareness. To begin with, it is important to make use of the right profile and cover photos. Here, it is important to note that the image sizes for varied social channels differ (Facebook profile picture is 170 X 170 pixels, whereas, Twitter profile photo is 400 X 400 pixels). So, ensure that the images you upload are optimized as per the requirements of the social platform.

The next step is to fill out each and every field with the required information about your brand/business – website link, short bio/description, phone number, etc. Lastly, post your best content that is engaging and it will help attract new readers, increasing the count of your social media followers.”

“When building your brand with social media you must remember that your brand must be part of the message. This means you must establish what your brand means and what your company is all about. All your social media must be about maintaining this theme. Even though the messaging can be split between business and social content both should never sway too far away from maintaining the overall theme of what the company does and what it stands for. If your company, for example, sells environmentally friendly products, then you need to show how your products are not only good but how they are good for the environment.

All non-business related messaging should still be themed towards concerns about the environment. This way you establish in your followers’ minds what your business is all about. Having messaging that goes outside of the main theme only causes confusion and will weaken your brand. So to use social media for greater impact for your brand, remember what your brand means for you and your audience.”

“Create a brand that has an authentic voice through social media. There are too many individuals and brands that are trying to ‘fake’ who they are through social media, but they don’t realize that followers can catch on.

Be authentic and real, you’ll have people that love you and people that you hate, but that’s okay. You want to build a loyal following that will be an advocate for your brand!”

“Instead of focusing on blatant self-promotion, aim to make your social newsfeeds feel like a comprehensive resource for those in your industry. It’s a lot easier to follow someone who’s focused on providing value, than someone who’s worried about how many impressions and clicks their sales promotions receive.

By focusing on giving, not getting, the resulting good karma will come back your way. It’s not a short-term plan for success, but no smart marketing strategy focuses on the short-term without considering long-term results.

It’s easiest to implement this strategy by first defining “social media themes” for each day of the week that you’re posting. For example, maybe on Monday you share a useful industry tip, with a branded image asset that aligns your company with what you’re saying—and gets people to stop scrolling for a moment. Then, on Tuesday, you can share something about a product or service you’re offering. Just make sure to follow that up on Wednesday with a useful article or something else that’s not directly related to sales!”

“Every brand needs to have a consistent message that they share across all social media platforms. You need to have a mission, a sense of purpose, a deeper “why” behind why you do what you do (besides the fact that it helps pay the bills) that your audience can connect with.

When you filter everything that you do as a business owner and brand through your “Why”, your social media content and presence will come across as part of a larger whole and you’ll be able to effortlessly attract new people to join your movement, champion your cause, and become a part of your business.”

“Every brand needs a strategy for their social media profiles so that they are consistent with their timings and all contents reflect the brand’s identity.

Without consistency, it’s really tough to become known as a brand and win the trust of followers.

That strategy obviously should include a paid advertising section, as the organic reach on social media is limited. One can turn to Dennis Yu’s $1-per-day strategy for Facebook Ads to get started.”

“The most important thing for every brand when it comes to social media is having a vision. This vision needs to incorporate brand core values, short and long-term goals and the strategy behind achieving those goals. We are no longer in the days where simply broadcasting a call to action or automating all posts will generate any results, in fact, if you do only those things, it is frowned upon by the average social media user.

So, have a vision. Know what you want out of social media. And make sure you are giving your audience the value and positive interaction they crave. If you do that, you will build a loyal following and grow your brand. Win-win.”

“The main thing to focus on is creating a real community. 

Trying to gain fake or low-quality followers will not help with the interaction of posts etc.

Having 20,000+ followers but only 2 likes on your post, it doesn’t quite add up. So focus on getting in front of real people, who have a real interest in what you do.”

“Creating a call to action is the most commonly missed opportunity on social media ads. Content marketing also is great by promoting educational resources such as tutorials, white papers, cheat sheets, etc. Providing this type of value to your audience will keep them coming back as they look for updates.

Lastly, it’s important to give great customer service through social media. Respond to queries, reviews and comments customers leave on your page in a timely fashion — even if they aren’t favorable. Your honest and authentic responses will show you care about your customers and increase your following.”

“Community engagement and referral by providing value to your followers”

“A majority of the entrepreneurs regard social media marketing based majorly on the organic influence, but as for my strategy is concerned, I pay for it. I am using social media quite frequently as a paid marketing channel. Paid ads on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram & other websites pool in a lot of micro-targeted traffic to my brand’s websites.

This is one of the best social media marketing strategies that I believe works wonderfully for all brands who are investing in it. Apparently, Paid Promotions do have their drawbacks in some instances (unless you optimize your ads and landing pages and ensure that they are aligned with the purpose of your target buyer persona), but I think this is indeed one of the best moves that a business can take for amplifying its social reach.”

“One important thing a brand should do to make its social media impactful is to spend some time looking at the insights (stats), on all its social media accounts. Once a platform that is working for you is identified, efforts should be concentrated on that platform. That is one of the strategies we adopted at Charity eCards UK.

Brands, especially small brands, need to recognize the fact that having a presence on all social media platform is not always the best strategy. instead of having a mediocre presence on all platforms, why not concentrate your efforts on one or two platforms, where your audiences are? One of the largest pub chains in the UK, JD Wetherspoon recently told its 44,000 twitter followers that it is shutting down all its social media accounts.

One of the reasons the company gave was that managing thousands of social media accounts is too demanding. The company could have adopted the strategy suggested above: Identify one platform, focus its resources on that platform and kept its brand alive on that platform.”

“Focus on your niche! It’s easy to get sidetracked when the pressure is on to publish something new every day, or multiple times daily. However, straying too far from your niche or posting conflicting messages can cause confusion with your followers.

In some cases, it can even cause a backlash. Don’t be afraid to test the water but first think about what you are trying to achieve, on both Social media and in the bigger picture. If it doesn’t seem right, hold off publishing for a few hours or even days. If then it still doesn’t fit then don’t publish it.”

“Just get published.

Far too many brands focus on the small stuff and take too long to create and publish content.

Stop worrying about logos & colors etc, or whether you have your lipstick on. Just get out there and create & publish content.

These days people are far more interested in seeing the ‘real’ people behind a business, rather than a polished version of the same.

Be a problem solver and take consistent action to add the most value you can to your marketplace and your impact will take care of itself!”

“Be yourself. People are drawn to people. People grow to know, like and trust other people. Not companies. You are the person behind, in, and in front of your company, so it just makes sense to be yourself rather than try to emulate those you “think” are successful and important. They aren’t you.

Being yourself is simply a matter of sharing YOUR brilliance and expertise, showing people who you are, what you (your brand) stand for, and not compromising on your beliefs and intentions just because someone else might not agree with, or like, them. Being who you really are on social media will attract those who resonate with you and are a good fit.

People can tell if you’re being fake or if you’re simply someone who follows and mimics others. Your brand is the sum total of who and what you are, not just your logo and the colors you use on your website. You are your brand, so make sure it represents who you truly are inside and out.

“Be unique and authentic. Don’t copy the latest trend as every consumer will recognize what you are doing. No more photos of backward facing models in poppy fields reaching for the sun, or wine glasses reflecting a diorama.

Show your brand or if an influencer, show YOU. If video, live videos, unedited resonate 100 times more than scripted, edited ones with perfect fade-outs. Be messy, be real and honest. If you screw up, fess up. Your public will appreciate it and identify more closely with you and your brand. Perfection on social is so passe.”

“Brands, in my opinion, have not understood well the power of these platforms. Most of them are not able to find the right direction. Even a few who are using it aggressively are not using it wisely.

Just posting anything and everything doesn’t suffice the purpose. I am sure, more than 90 percent of the brands that are using social media platforms have no technique or knowledge to measure the return for each of the post that goes from their account to a social media platform.

In addition, responsiveness is very important. Especially catching the negative vibes and addressing those immediately.”

“Go live because very few do that. And a lot of them do not do it properly. So there is a LOT to gain by going live and having a manus and have practiced what you will say and also ask your audience about so you make them involved in your live performance.

If you wanna be impactful on social media you really need to show up and make a great show. Lots of brands are being questioned these years because there is so much fake going on. So show up live and do it well, so your followers know that you are real!

Be you and be live :-)”

“Impactful? Be honest and trustworthy in whatever you do or nobody believes in you. Avoid self-censorship.”