For the thousands of social media opportunities in cyberspace, there are tens of thousands of ways to take advantage of them with your brand. That might include blogging which can generate 55% more traffic and 70% more leads than those that who don’t.
Of course, there’s Facebook and Twitter — the jack-of-all-trades social media. But have you checked out the vertical social networks (VSN)? Doximity and PatientsLikeMe, for example, focus on the healthcare industry. Honest Buildings is designed for the real estate and building trade, while Learnist and the like are geared toward education, and nets such as GovLoop speak to people in the public sector. These networks offer highly segmented user base, specific topics covered in-depth and high specialization.
IT Central Station is an example of a social network geared toward a specific profession — IT workers — and provides a forum for open and focused discussion on the particular issues and challenges that IT professionals face. Other social networks specialize in specific age brackets (like Grom Social catering to the Tween crowd) and super-specialized social networks like Catmoji — for cat lovers. The great thing about VSN’s is that it offers a new way to target specific audiences, identify influencers, generate leads, find qualified job candidates, promote events, etc.
There is a social network for every taste and demographic these days, and social businesses should take notice of the potential opportunities these very focused audiences provide.
The Allure of Great Copy
In the fleeting world of web engagement, great content marketing builds a relationship with it’s audience, captivates them and compels them to take action. The secret to persuasive content is to choose your ideal audience. Understand exactly who you’re writing for and what makes them tick. Answer their questions and make them smile. Hold an imaginary conversation together. Have some fun. And show them your passion for your business and what they’ll get out of that passion.
According to B2B Content Marketing: 2014 Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends, roughly 93 percent of organizations do content marketing. What is content marketing? It’s the practice of creating and sharing relevant and valuable content to acquire, maintain and engage your target market.
Many marketers mistake this to mean producing articles, reports, ebooks and blog posts talking about their products and services. This isn’t content marketing. This is selling, or egocentric content marketing. By the same token, content marketing doesn’t mean you need to churn out content from scratch. And, it isn’t just posting the title of the article and a link. We know many tools to help create high quality articles and focused topics that will engage the reader and encourage peer sharing.
Visuals: Get Noticed and Get Results.
Did you know 65% of your audience are visual learners? Visuals are processed 60,000 times faster than text. That’s why it’s no surprise the most recent trend is the dominance of visual content. Facebook has turned its walls into timelines. Instagram became so popular that Facebook bought it for a cool $1 billion. And Pinterest–the online photo scrapbooking site–is now the number three most visited social network in the country. Impressive. That’s why the images you post in social media need to be professional, impactful and memorable. Even shareable!
Aim for the very best imagery you can put out there. Show before and afters to demonstrate your product’s effectiveness. Show your customers enjoying your product. Share stats or tell a story with an infographic or via Slideshare. Entertain. If you’re shooting still photos, consider video to post to Vine, YouTube, Vimeo or others. Record testimonials. All the while, make sure they represent your brand in the very best light. Stay consistent in messaging and image quality.