Social Media Marketing Strategies

1.5 billion.

That’s the total number of users on Facebook alone. Add in LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Snapchat and regional social networks such as Vkontake, Sina Weibo, etc. and you’re looking at an audience of over 2 billion users globally.

With numbers this big, no business can afford to skip social media as a marketing channel. This is why social media marketing spending is expected to exceed $23 billion worldwide this year.

The question remains: what social media marketing strategies actually work in 2016?

We’ll answer this question, and more below.

Social Media Marketing Strategies for Twitter

Despite slow growth over the last few months, Twitter remains one of the most popular social networks around with over 320M monthly active users. With original co-founder Jack Dorsey back as CEO, Twitter is expected to rebound in growth, and for businesses, influence and reach.

Marketing your business on Twitter in 2015, however, is not easy. The original text-only format has seen a number of changes over the years. Twitter now supports video and image files, and even allows you to attach comments to retweets.

Let’s take a look at some strategies that actually work on Twitter today:

1. Target the right kind of followers

A study by researchers at Georgia Tech and University of Michigan revealed that for Twitter users, ‘network overlap’ was the most important factor in deciding what they share. This means that if your followers and you have the same network (i.e. you follow the same people as your followers), there is a good chance you’ll get more shares.

Keep this in mind when you target followers. Instead of blindly adding everyone, only add people who follow the same people as you.

2. Add multimedia to your tweets

Images, GIFs, even videos – it’s all fair game on Twitter in 2015. The famously ‘text-only’ network now heavily focuses on visual content. Use this to your advantage by embellishing your tweets with mini-infographics, GIFs and memes to stand out in the feed.

3. Utilize live streaming

Early this year, Twitter acquired the live streaming startup, Periscope. Periscope allows anyone to broadcast a live stream right inside the Twitter feed. People can join in the broadcast and have conversations via tweets. This is a new and extremely effective way to engage with your followers and foster conversations about your business. Very few marketers are using this tactic at the moment, which means you have first-mover advantage.

This goes for Twitter. Now let’s take a look at what works on Facebook in 2015.

Social Media Marketing Strategies for Facebook

With a user base touching close to 1.5 billion, Facebook seems to show no signs of stopping. It also gobbles up the bulk of all social media marketing spending, taking in over $4 billion in the second quarter of 2015 alone.

Thanks to its superb advertising tool, marketing your business on Facebook is relatively easier. At the same time, recent changes to the news feed have killed organic reach and made it hard for marketers to reach fans without spending money.

Keeping this in mind, here’s how you can market your business on Facebook today:

1. Use the right pictures in your posts

Facebook is increasingly turning into a visual platform. On average, a Facebook post with images will receive twice as many comments, likes or shares as a text-only post. This is why it’s crucial to use pictures on your Facebook posts.

Keep in mind that all your uploaded images meet Facebook’s size guidelines. For best results, pick pictures that are 1200 pixels wide and 628 pixels high. This will render perfectly on both desktops and mobile screens.

2. Upload videos directly to your Facebook page

Facebook recently released started auto-playing videos in the news feed, provided they are hosted on Facebook and not YouTube. This has led to a massive increase in video consumption on the platform. Even without autoplay, the number of videos in the Facebook news feed has increased by 3.6x year-over-year.

The lesson: make more videos, and upload them directly to Facebook to skyrocket engagement.

3. Promote your best posts

This is the secret tactic of the most successful Facebook marketers: they ‘boost’ their best content by spending a small amount on Facebook advertising. This ensures that your content reaches the right audience and gets the push necessary for going ‘viral’.

Social Media Marketing Strategies for Instagram

Facebook acquired Instagram back in 2012 when it had just over 50 million users. Within 3 years, this number has rocketed up to over 300 million, making it the most popular consumer social networking sites after Facebook itself.

Try these tactics to market your business on Instagram:

1. Focus on GIFs

GIFs have been among the most popular content-types on Instagram since the format was introduced last year. In fact, Instagram even launched a GIF-only app called Boomerang to support this format.

GIFs are perfect for marketers because they are short, easy to consume, and can help tell your story quickly. You can compress much more content into a 15 second GIF than in a still image. And since few of your competitors are actually using GIF content, you’ll stand out in the feed when you use them.

2. Advertise your best content

Recently, Facebook started accepting ads on Instagram, giving marketers access to the platform’s massive user base. This is one of the biggest developments in social media marketing in the last few years, and can transform your business if done right.

Promoted content on Instagram works just like Facebook ads – you can target by interest/followers and have CTAs to install apps, buy products, etc. You can test them out right from your Facebook ad manager.

Conclusion

Social media use is growing at a tremendous pace. It is also a field in constant churn with shifting users. Social media marketing strategies that worked two years ago are often ineffective today. This is why it is crucial that you follow the strategies we’ve given above to plan out your marketing better.

What do you think? Are there any marketing strategies we missed in our post? Let us know in the comments below and be sure to contact our content marketing agency for more details!