Social media is all the buzz these days, but nothing beats an out-of-the-box marketing campaign. Engagement levels can hit the roof with creatively crafted and smartly executed social media promotion campaigns.
Social media usage, in general, is hitting an all-time high right now. Be it at the workplace or otherwise.
And why not?
More than 4.14 billion across the globe are using social media as of October 2020.
That’s virtually 53% of the total global population – a goldmine waiting to be tapped into.
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Can Social Media Be Ignored?
Not in this lifetime.
The benefits of social media for business promotion are far too many to count. But, it all boils down to promoting your product.
Not convinced? Here are two reasons why you can’t ignore social media for business promotion:
Grows your Brand
Social media can help you build your brand from obscurity all the way up to a household name.
By setting SMART goals, your brand will go through different growth stages, like getting recognized by your audience without actively thinking of it.
Get them excited about a launch or letting conversations flow from stories you share of the brand and its growth.
Their responses and reactions will act as audience research – insights you can use to improve your services.
Eventually, your brand will build its customer loyalty due to the excellent customer service you offer.
Increase Traffic
Setting up profiles on social media so you can social promote your work is like getting a marketing agency working for you – for free!
The chances of driving traffic through search engines are almost close to nil. Social networks, on the other hand, allow for diverse traffic streams.
You can even establish your brand as a go-to authority or a specific subject-matter expert.
You never know when your cause may go viral!
With just these two steps fulfilled, you are sure to leverage your social media to promote your service and reach your existing audience and retarget newer audiences.
The key here is to utilize social media to your advantage. But hunting down useful tips is time-consuming.
We want to help.
That’s why we’ve rounded up the most important and useful ways on how to promote your work with social media.
Ready?
Let’s get started.
Smart Social Media Promotion Strategies
Content Is King
It’s no secret that more than 47% of buyers interact with three content pieces before purchasing. High-quality content is a significant part of a winning social media marketing strategy.
Without sounding too ‘sales-ey,’ you should focus on consistently putting out content that adds value to your audience, then and there.
This will build trust, add to your credibility, and nurture a relationship to the point where your audience will turn into a strong lead.
A good lead comes from the type of content you are putting out, the platform you choose to put it on, and the kind of engagement your work gets.
Promoting your high-quality content through the right platform makes massive inroads into driving traffic your way.
The right content will generate high interaction with your content, ultimately leading to higher interest in your service.
WebsitePromoter encapsulates this mantra perfectly with its blog.
Leveraging The Right Platform
High-value content is an excellent way to generate interest. But it’s only the first step. The logical step on how to promote social media after that is to put that content in front of the right audience.
Yep, targeting.
Sharing your content with a targeted audience is essential for your success. To decide which is the right platform, you have to consider the business you are in and the customers you seek.
The platform you choose should attract the right audience, just like how flowers attract bees.
Asking questions, taking polls, commenting on other people’s posts, producing content with higher readability are all results of working on the research you’ve gathered about your audience.
Research and format of content should help you zero in on the right platform.
However, if you cannot find the right one, just make sure you have a prominent online presence and then analyze which gets you the most engagement.
A perfect example would be how Top10.com leverages its brand by publishing blog posts with the headline starting with ‘Top 10…’.
Their latest posts Top 10 Year-Round Staycation Ideas That You Can’t Live Without or 10 Hacks to Ensure You Stick to Your Financial New Year’s Resolutions are driving the point home.
- Platform-Specific Content
While cross-posting can help you achieve a prominent online presence, it may not lead to conversions if you fail to customize your content to fit each platform.
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, Snapchat, LinkedIn, TikTok… each of these social media platforms is leveraging its unique style of presenting content to build a loyal audience.
The old-fashioned marketing manager’s one-size-fits-all mentality does not work any longer.
Let me illustrate this for you:
While Instagram thrives on drop-dead gorgeous photos or videos or IGTV that may speak volumes with zero text, LinkedIn updates best serve a professional audience that appreciates well-written, informative, and thought-provoking content.
Similarly, your LinkedIn audience may not appreciate watching you dance to the tunes of WAP, content that would have otherwise gone viral on TikTok.
Dive deeper and tap into that platform’s buyer persona right for you, rather than bouncing off general demographics.
Users of each social media platform like to consume media in a specific format and appreciates it if you take out the time to cater to that need.
eMarketer analyzed this data from a survey conducted across various research firms. You can see for yourself the sheer increase of usage on each platform from the year 2016 through 2020:
Here is an example from Amerisleep’s social media profiles:
Amerisleep’s Instagram page has clean and neat-looking images suitable to the platform-
While Amerisleep’s Twitter handle contains informative and news-worthy media– 
- Cross-Promote On Multiple Channels
While each social media platform has its unique language for engagement with content differing across channels, it’s essential to deliver a consistent brand message across social media platforms.
Unlike cross-posting, cross-promotion involves posting tailor-made messages that make sense to each particular audience. You can use marketing tools to make this process easier.
The most straightforward approach on how to cross-promote in social media is to include links.
Your YouTube Channel page could mention your other social network profiles along with their social links, or change your profile picture with a Snapcode.
If you were searching for an example, Clicdata provides it right here:
Customizing tracking URLs and image formats to suit your social posting could offer better engagement.
Scheduling your social media posts is key to maximum visibility. Each network has core times of engagement, but these times have to be tested and analyzed independently.
Use Branded Hashtags
A branded hashtag could be one of your products, campaigns, a phrase that’s associated with your brand identity, or simply your company’s name.
Anyone who searches for the hashtag can stumble into your social media profile. On a side note, tweets with hashtags get 2x more engagement than without.
With a daily count of more than 500 Million tweets sent and 85 million photos and videos uploaded, there’s hardly room for a branded hashtag to stick out, right?
Wrong.
Brands have gone viral by just using the right hashtag.
Always’, a feminine care products brand, started a campaign with the hashtag #LikeAGirl in 2014. Not only did it go viral, but it also beat a stigma. With 69 million views, the numbers speak for themselves.
Hashtags are a great way to attract new followers. People usually search for hashtags when they wish to discover new products or when they are specifically looking to get updated with recent developments that they may have missed out on.
If you’re looking for inspiration, Twitter’s “Trending” page will lead you to the top-ranked hashtags.
Create Unique Social Media Icons
Use traffic from one channel and divert to another by displaying icons of all the social media platforms you have a presence in.
Social media icons usually look like the logo or the first letter of a particular platform. For example, Whatsapp’s green square icon, Snapchat’s ghost outline, YouTube’s play button triangle, Twitter bird, and Facebook’s F.
These savvy icons can be neatly stacked up against your posts or profile, rather than using the annoying ‘follow us’ sign.
These social media icons can be customized to incorporate flashy graphics and fancy color combinations.
Include Call to Action Buttons
“Don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe. Hit the bell icon for more updates… and don’t forget to follow us on Instagram and Snapchat”.
How many times have you heard your favorite Youtubers using this Call To Action? This is a classic CTA (Call To Action) while also cross-promoting.
Once your content is interactive and adds value to your audience, insert some irresistible CTA (Call To Action) buttons like ‘Click Now,’ ‘Tweet this’ or ‘Sign Up.’
Consumption of good content is likely to bring your audience to a point where you can guide them to take the desired action you intend them to take, directly impacting your conversion rates.
A clear, concise, and succinct CTA is effective enough to draw your audience’s attention towards your desired goal, like a signup process.
You can track the performance of your CTAs by checking UTM parameters. Once you’ve confirmed higher traffic rates, you can social promote it to cash in on it.
Here is how Uber makes their CTA buttons stand out from the rest of the content on its website – contrast:
Despite having three different background images catering to three different audiences, Uber’s CTA buttons look the same with their consistent contrast usage.
Leverage Newsletters and Email Signatures
Newsletters and email signatures are yet another method of promoting your work or even your social media profiles with your subscribers or emailing list.
Below is an extract from edX, an open online course provider’s newsletter. 
The newsletter not only includes its own branded social media icons, but it also facilitates where to download these apps in case you don’t have a profile on there. A subtle promotion media as well as a Call to Action.
Additionally, it leaves a discount on a list of courses as a parting message to the receiver of its newsletter.
Leaving no stone unturned, you should also incorporate elements of social media into your email signature.
Build A Social Community
Social Media promotion is not just a marketing platform; it’s where strangers turn followers and followers turn into loyal customers.
Brands can build a strong fan base by connecting with their audience and piquing their interest and engagement.
Interactions with your customers will provide opportunities to learn about them and their issues. The easiest way to get them hooked and gain their trust is actually to solve their problems.
These folks are most likely your fans now… your cheerleaders even.
They’ll like, share, and promote your content. They will even engage with others within the community and spark exciting conversations on your social media profiles.
Build A Content Calendar
Stay ahead of your posting game and plan & schedule your posts early on. Lack of planning can lead you to muster up repetitive and boring content at the last minute.
It may seem like a herculean task. But believe it or not, it will save you time, energy, confusion, and stress.
Optimal engagement depends not just on how frequently you post but also on what times you post. A content calendar lets you achieve organic reach and a growing audience.
Produce quality content and also keep track of what’s been working and what isn’t. This will enable you to schedule your experiments towards improvements.
Go Social With Your Brand
Social media is here to stay, and the only strategy to stay relevant is to adapt a varied marketing strategy that works with your audience while promoting your brand all the way through.
This exhaustive list of tips and tricks on promotion through social media can boost your marketing strategy while also meeting some kickass people along the way!
