Beginner’s Guide to Social Media Marketing

It’s never too late to embrace all of the free social media marketing platforms that are at your disposal.

August 15, 2020 3 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Starting a social media marketing plan can be intimidating. There’s Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, Tik Tok, YouTube and so many more. You need to make posts, make ads, comment on other’s posts, interact with your audience, grow your audience and stay authentic the entire time. It can be slightly overwhelming at first. Marketing on social media is only going to continue to grow, so it’s important to keep some of the below tips in mind to expand your business and grow your brand.

Know your product and your customers

Do you know your product from your customer’s point of view? Answering some of these questions is a helpful way to determine your marketing strategy. By figuring out the personality of your ideal customer, you’ll be able to make posts that appeal to them.

What do you sell? Why do you sell it? What are you most known for? What is your brand?

In a bio-persona of your ideal customer, what would they be like? Can you create multiple personas and go through the process of buying your product as this customer?

Using these personas, what words, images, or videos would appeal the most to them?

Using these personas, what would attract them to your social media? What would turn them away from your social media?

Understand each social media platform

Whatever you post needs to be genuine and relevant to each social media platform. Is it a good piece of content for your current following? Is it a competition to get more followers and exposure? Is it a sponsored post to get traffic and conversions? How do your words and images relate to your end goal? Your words should be genuine, well-written, not too long (unless you’re a writer), and interesting. Relate to your audience. Tap into who they are and what they might want to hear.

Remember:

Good pictures, great words

Correct formats for all videos

Be genuine and relatable. Make it personal and ask questions

Engage and interact – comment on other people’s posts, reply to comments left on your posts

Get help if you need it

You don’t have to go this alone. It’s a lot. That’s why there are experts out there to help. Social media marketing agencies can help with anything from your social media posts, to hiring writers, graphic designers, and videographers to produce high-quality, brand-relevant content. Starting out with an agency helps get things off the ground. You’ve already got a business to run, you can hand over the reins to someone who can lead your marketing.

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/353848

The Counterintuitive Way Social Media Can Reduce Stress

August 12, 2020 6 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

It’s no secret that staying off of social media can be good for you — personally, professionally and even physically. We need some time away from our devices to succeed in both our personal and professional lives.

The adverse impacts of social media have been widely discussed. So why does it remain such an important aspect of the way we do business?

A 2019 study from Lancaster University shows that people who are frequent users of social media might even be addicted to it. This remains true even when it causes them stress and creates obvious adverse effects.

Work-related social media use

This is particularly relevant to work-related social media use. Platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and more have become indispensable tools for business, especially with the rise in remote work due to the current health crisis. Entrepreneurs continue to invest in the system, considering it a necessary evil. And in one sense that’s correct: Consistent online engagement is essential for running a business, marketing yourself and staying current in your field.

Of course, you don’t want to become addicted to social media, so it’s crucial to know when to log off. Still, social media use may actually help reduce its negative effects. When one aspect of a social media platform causes stress for a user, the user often attempts to de-stress by going to a different part of the platform.

In short, our psychological instinct to simply switch gears within a social media platform may be the key to staying engaged while simultaneously mitigating stress levels. When one activity is stressing you out, trust your instinct and simply switch to another.

If implemented correctly, this strategy has the potential to make your social media use more productive and efficient, and in the long term can help grow your company. Here are the two ways that you can shift your use of a social media platform so you don’t burn out.

Switch from business to personal, and from personal to business

One of the best ways to use social media consistently and avoid burnout is to switch off between business-related activity and more personal use. Time spent chatting with personal connections or even looking at silly memes may not only give you a much-needed break from the workday, but it can also surprisingly make you more productive.

Here’s why: A constant, dogged pursuit of work tasks without a break may feel productive, but at some point, it’s just “busy.” For enhanced productivity, especially in deep work that requires extended focus, you need to take a break every now and again. A short social connection or a bit of levity can do wonders for both your attitude and your ability to focus.

Taking a bit of time throughout the day to unwind on a social media platform can turbocharge your networking skills and connection-building. Forming those personal connections online could also be a first step to finding new employees, independent contractors and even potential partners.

Personal use of social media on an intermittent basis between business exchanges also helps you to maintain connections you might otherwise lose. Even without in-depth direct communication, you can get a sense of what your peers are doing and whether or not it could relate to your business merely by sharing casual posts and information and responding to their content.

Maintaining connections is important on any social media platform, but it’s especially effective on LinkedIn. Maintain a personal approach and connect with anybody you know, whether it be an old boss, a college professor or even a childhood friend, no matter what their field or profession.

In fact, connections outside of your industry might have different perspectives that can provide invaluable ideas and insights. An acquaintance or follower might be involved with something relevant to your business that you might never have known about otherwise. If so, you have the basis of a connection that will help you reach out directly.

Switch off between advertising and networking

Taking time for personal social media can have surprising business-related benefits, but sometimes you need to stay focused on what will help your company grow.

One of the predominant ways social media helps you in this mission is through paid social advertising, but perhaps not strictly in the traditional sense. Although direct outreach might help you procure new clients or customers, it can quickly become exhausting. Sometimes, it is actually more effective to build and maintain connections with people who already support you. If you’re feeling burnt out on creating content to build your brand, try private messaging with followers or chatting with them in the comments section.

Related: 10 Laws of Social Media Marketing

Direct public contact on social media transforms networking into advertising. That’s true whether you’re adding commentary to a mass post or publicly tweeting a response to somebody who has reached out to you. When communicating with loyal clients on a public platform, all interaction is visible and can attract new clientele if executed properly.

While it is certainly not ideal to spend too much time on social media platforms, you can use these strategies and other ways of moving within a platform to stay productive without getting overwhelmed. If you find yourself feeling truly addicted, it might be time to log off and seek help.

However, in moderation, social media is an effective way to grow and expand your reach. And especially now during the health crisis and shelter-in-place/remote work restrictions, social media can help you and your remote team feel more connected — with each other and the rest of the world.

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https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/354473

What will make your brand stand out on LinkedIn in 2020?

30-second summary:

Brands and marketers are always on the lookout for platforms, strategies, and ways to grow their presence and business.
When platforms like Facebook and Instagram show signs of saturation in terms of organic reach, LinkedIn saves the day.
However, in a crowd of 30 million company pages, to stand out and grow your brand is undoubtedly a tedious task. So how do you stand out?
Co-founder and Director of eSparkBiz Technologies, Harikrishna Kundariya shares the super six of LinkedIn strategies to help you unlock your brands’ true potential.

Brands and marketers keep looking out for platforms that can help their business grow. When platforms like Facebook and Instagram show signs of saturation in terms of organic reach, LinkedIn saves the day.

With over 310 million monthly active users, LinkedIn is everything that someone would need to grow professionally. It has become what Facebook was a few years back in terms of providing opportunities to brands and connecting them to their potential customers.

However, in a crowd of 30 million company pages, to stand out and grow your brand is undoubtedly a tedious task. And in order to unlock the true potential of LinkedIn, you need to stand out. So how to do that?

We’ve listed the best strategies that can make your brand stand out on LinkedIn in 2020.

The top three prerequisites of a great LinkedIn profile

But before proceeding, there are a few prerequisites.

Have an optimized company profile

Before starting with anything, you need a few gears with you and an optimized company page is that gear here. Your page is the first thing that anyone would check before interacting with your brand. Make sure that when someone opens your page, you have sufficient information on it.

Source: M.O.M. LinkedIn Company Page

Here are a few things to consider

Make sure your company page has a profile picture.
Add a background picture.
Fill out all the form fields: Name, LinkedIn Public URL, Website, Company Size, Company Type, Logo, and Tagline.
Add a detailed description of what your company does.
Add up to three hashtags for connecting with your target audience.

Define your goals

Just like any other platform, LinkedIn too needs a strategic approach. And the first step to developing any strategy is by defining a goal or goals. Your goals can be anything like the ones shared below:

Creating awareness regarding your brand.
Generating website traffic.
Boosting your personal brand.
Getting leads.
Making sales.

Define your target audience

Based on your goal, define your target audience. The people who you wish to attract and connect with for achieving your goals. This will help you to create content that will help you execute your marketing strategies and achieve your goals.

Now that you’re done with the prerequisites, it’s time to dive into the strategies.

Six strategies to help you stand out on LinkedIn in 2020

Congratulations, you’re now up to speed with the prerequisites! You’re just six strategies away from having a successful LinkedIn presence.

1. Create posts that are related to your niche

How do you think influencers become influencers? Because they create and share content regularly. And LinkedIn’s algorithm also promotes text-based content more than any other form of content.

So the best way to stand out from the crowd is by sharing text posts as much as you can. However, remember it’s always quality over quantity. Start with three to four posts per week. You can share your work experiences or struggle stories or basic tips and tricks related to your profession.

LinkedIn, the employment-oriented online service that primarily serves as one of the world’s largest social media platforms for working professionals is a great example. Their content strategy is variety-packed, but here’s a quick look at the content types they actively publish.

A simple two-liner post that is data-backed and relevant to their audience as well as the current climate.

The post share below is purely an engagement based one but it successfully struck the chords with 5K+ professionals in just a week.

In addition to these, LinkedIn also shows its audience that it has strong values and has a voice by sharing valuable posts. However, how you choose to create content would solely depend on how your brand stands and how you’d want to connect with your audience.

Source: LinkedIn Company Page

2. Stay consistent

The biggest thing that will set you apart from your competitors is the level of your consistency. Treat your LinkedIn company page as an extension to your website. Update it from time to time. Create and share insightful posts and make sure that you engage with your audience as much as possible.

Set a posting schedule and strictly adhere to it but remember it’s always quality over quantity. So create a schedule based on your availability of resources.

3. Create videos

Videos are the latest feature on LinkedIn and so the scope of growing video content creators is more right now.

Source: Microsoft LinkedIn Company Page

You can create videos on anything that is related to your niche. People love videos because they don’t need to put any effort to watch a video and get the takeaways. There are several video creators on LinkedIn but the number is still a way lesser than text-based content creators.

Also, LinkedIn recently added a new feature of live streaming which is still available to only a few people. Now if you manage to get this feature, it would really help you to boost your LinkedIn profile.

4. Get a good hold of LinkedIn’s three engagement methods

Just like any other platform, even LinkedIn boosts the profiles and pages that have good engagement rates.

LinkedIn has basically three engagement methods that are: like, comment and share. However, there’s one more thing that LinkedIn focuses on while promoting a post which is how many people clicked on “see more” in a post. The more people click on “see more” to read your entire post the more LinkedIn thinks of it as a good post.

So if you want to make people open the entire post, you need to use the first two lines to write a captivating hook.

Also, to boost the engagement rate of your post, make sure your reply to each and every comment. This doesn’t only make the post look good to the algorithm but also boosts your relationship with your audience. You can also tag a few relevant people in your post to seek their opinion.

5. Let your employees be your biggest brand ambassadors

LinkedIn works as a digitized resume for individuals and thus provides them with the option of mentioning the past and present employers. Ask all your employees to clearly mention that they currently work for you. Getting mentioned on the profiles of your employees will help you to establish your brand name as a trusted company.

Source: Microsoft LinkedIn Company Page

Also, you can ask your employees to keep talking about their work experience in your company and provide testimonials that you can showcase on your company page. The more they talk about your brand the more people come to know about your offerings.

6. Use lead magnets

All the above-mentioned strategies are already being used by the top brains on LinkedIn but what is that secret sauce that can help get on the top?

That’s your skill!

Create an irresistible lead magnet for your target audience. This can be anything like an eBook, access to a video series, or a private group. This lead magnet will help you grow your personal brand and make your target audience reach out to you.

A single lead magnet can help you grow your audience base exponentially and generate leads for you.

To wrap up

So these were the six strategies that can be used to grow your brand on LinkedIn. However, no matter what platform you choose it’s necessary to understand the importance of consistency. Now based on your goals and audience type, choose your strategies wisely and start unlocking the true potential of LinkedIn for your business.

Harikrishna Kundariya Co-founder and Director of eSparkBiz Technologies, a mobile app development company. His 8+ experience enables him to provide digital solutions to new start-ups based on IoT and chatbot. You can connect with him on LinkedIn.

More about:

https://www.searchenginewatch.com/2020/08/12/what-will-make-your-brand-stand-out-on-linkedin-in-2020/

TikTok has 45 Days to Sell or Get Out of USA via @martinibuster

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6 Ways to Engage Your Organic Search Traffic on Social Media via @GaryLHenderson

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Top 5 Podcast Strategies

The creator and host of “Startup Story” unpacks the five strategies that helped his podcast appear on the Apple Podcast charts after just two months.

August 3, 2020 3 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

There are more than one million podcasts in Apple Podcasts. But simply hitting “record” and starting a podcast will not lead to long-term success or being ranked highly on the Apple Podcast charts. In this video, “Startup Story” creator and host James McKinney unpacks the five strategies that helped his podcast appear on the Apple Podcast charts after just two months.

With Spotify’s acquisition of “The Joe Rogan Experience,” podcasting has become more popular than ever. That said, less than 50 percent of the 1.1 million podcasts on the Apple Podcast platform have released new episodes in the last 90 days. While there might be many factors leading to this, poor execution is undeniably one of them.

Employing these strategies won’t guarantee a successful podcasting journey, but they will provide you the clarity you need to ensure your show starts in the right direction.

The five strategies for podcast success

#5 Be a listener

Listen to podcasts to understand their nuances. Think about your three favorites podcasts. What do you enjoy about them? Is it the audio quality and production? Or do you prefer something raw and gritty? Is there explicit language or you can listen to it around your kids?

The content of a podcast matters, but there’s more to what makes a podcast your favorite. Think through the elements you like about your favorite podcasts and make a list of what you want to bring into your own.

#4 Be consistent

User experience is important. Your audience needs to know what to expect and when to expect it, so deliver a consistent experience to your listener. Nail down your format by addressing these elements:

Serial or evergreen?
Your thoughts vs interview-based?
How will you spend the first 15 minutes of each episode?
What’s each episode’s flow? You should aim to have the same format every time
Ads: where and how many per episode?
What days will you release your show? Your audience will expect a schedule so they know when to find new episodes

As to scheduling, create a backlog of episodes before launch so you’re not scrambling to put something together last-minute.

#3. Be social

Your audience will want to interact with you. One way to engage your listeners is by offering to read Apple Podcast reviews in future episodes. This achieves three things:

Quicker growth, as listener reviews are important to ranking
Shows listeners that you care
Demonstrates that you follow through on what you say you will do

Leverage social media for promotion and engagement. Consistently mention your social accounts during episodes. The people who continue to listen will listen to connect with you in some way.

#2 Be clear who your listener is

Spend time thinking through the personas of your listener. Be specific about your intended listeners, whether male, female, or both. Name them and ensure you’re delivering maximum value to that listener. Give them reasons to keep coming back.

#1 Be authentic

Be intentional about being authentic. Most likely, you like your favorite podcasts because of the host or something the host does — something authentic. Don’t mimic. Personas will burn you out and are unsustainable for the long-haul. Be yourself. You’ll find your audience as long as you remain authentic.

https://www.entrepreneur.com/video/353982

8 Engagement Triggers to Leverage in PPC Campaigns via @michellemsem

[unable to retrieve full-text content]https://feedpress.me/link/13962/13765345/375829

TikTok Starts $200 Million Fund to Pay Users for Content via @MattGSouthern

[unable to retrieve full-text content]https://feedpress.me/link/13962/13758758/375687

A Breakdown of Every Major Social Media Platform for Business Owners

How every social media platform can play a big part in expanding your brand.

July 24, 2020 5 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

A study from QUOTED reveals the average time spent on social media in North America is 2 hours and 6 minutes. Adults spend 2 hours and 55 minutes on their cell phones a day. It goes without saying that if you are not utilizing social media platforms for your business, there is major leverage that is being missed out on.

Harness the power of social media

Below is a breakdown of each of the major five social media platforms and how they should be used for your business.

Instagram

This was originally a platform for sharing pictures, but it has evolved into nearly the top social media platform. The majority of users on Instagram are between 16 and 24, and the users’ attention spans are extremely low. The first type of content that you should be publishing on Instagram are very high-quality pictures from photo shoots, family photos, team photos, etc.

The second type of content that you should be posting on Instagram is video content. Now there are a lot of things to consider when filming, editing and planning an Instagram video. You have to make sure that the video starts with a hook that will make the viewer enticed to keep watching after 3 seconds of listening. The video has to be up to date with Instagram’s formats. Currently, the formats are if the video is under a minute in length then the video format ideally should be 4:5 format with a 1:1 format thumbnail at the first frame of the video. This formatting will allow the video to look perfect on your Instagram profile and takes up the full screen when people are scrolling through their main feed. If the video is over a minute in length, it can be posted on IGTV which comes with many different formatting challenges. Ideally, this piece of content should be in 9:16 format with the first 20 seconds of the video in a 4:5 frame and finally with a 1:1 format thumbnail. This will allow the video to look perfect on your Instagram profile, main feed and IGTV channel.

It’s understandable that these are a lot of things to take into consideration for editing a proper Instagram post, which is why people hire full-service social media agencies like @vaynermedia to help. But it is something that anyone can do themselves if they are willing to invest a little time and attention.

TikTok

This platform has become an absolute beast over the past couple of years and the content output from content creators has been exponentially increasing. The number one way to get viewers and followers on this platform is by posting consistent content along with TikTok’s trends that can be found on the Tik Tok trending page. Now, most people think that this content involves childish stuff that will devalue their brand but quite simply those are ones that are not willing to think outside of the box for their content. Personal and business brands should be finding unique ways to give value in their industry that coincide with the Tik Tok trend, and give real value about world events, money and wealth in a TikTok-friendly format.

LinkedIn began as just a place to have an online resume, but it has evolved into a platform as big and similar to Facebook. LinkedIn is a major place that every business professional should be with a profile and should be posting content as much as possible! The type of content that should be posting is written and video content of short lessons learned, updates to your job/profession, mentor advice, knowledge of upgrading your life and anything brings a connection to you and your business.

YouTube

This platform has become the biggest social media platform since it’s beginning in 2005 and since it’s owned by Google now it will most likely be around the longest. It’s the platform that has completely taken over TV. And with Google behind it, video is becoming the most powerful search engine result. This is why the most important aspect of YouTube videos is SEO (Search Engine Optimization.) There is so much content that is published on YouTube daily that it’s much more than good quality content that will get you views and subscribers. In fact, it has become customary that the content posted on YouTube is always of the highest caliber. The important aspect of creating a YouTube video is to reverse engineer your content from filming to publishing. You should be creating every video with the YouTube title at the top of your mind. The YouTube title should be very strategic and targeting search-friendly titles that will gain a lot of search traffic over the long term. The title of the video should be about major problems in your industry that people are constantly searching for. When creating the video, you will always need to have someone edit your videos to ensure the highest quality possible, with simple things like a branded intro and outro. The video needs to have a hook, like other social media platforms. The hook for YouTube videos involves the thumbnail, the first 15 seconds of your video, and your title. These three components of the hook will single-handedly determine the performance of your YouTube video.

Twitter

Twitter is like a massive unfiltered news outlet. A lot of very political influencers are heavily on Twitter because it’s an easy way to publish updates and give their thoughts on situations with a simple Tweet. Analyzing one business that does very unique Twitter marketing to bring in business is @wendys. In every Tweet and reply, they are very cheeky, funny and straightforward, which is exactly what the Twitter audience is looking for.

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/353622

7 Social Media Marketing Myths, Busted

July 23, 2020 5 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

One of your greatest foes as an entrepreneur is misinformation. There is a lot of erroneous advice online, especially when it comes to social media marketing. Unfortunately, much of this guidance seems reasonable on paper. Without the right research or knowledge, you may end up unwittingly endangering the future of your business. Here are seven common social media marketing myths you need to watch out for.

1. Negative feedback can be safely ignored

Social media marketing isn’t just about promoting the positive parts of your brand. It also involves managing any and all negative feedback directed at your business. Ignore those snipes and jabs and they will fester online, convincing consumers to ignore your brand at a time when you need every single customer to help your company grow. When you find negative feedback, answer it — strategically. Respond to all comments quickly. Not only can you tamp down on negative feedback before it gains any ground, but quick responses will show that you listen and respond to customer concerns, even if they are negative.

Matt Broussard, content creator and chef at Spiceology in Spokane, commands more than three million followers on TikTok, and as he shares, “All feedback, both positive and negative, has merit. As a chef, that’s what I live on: how a dish is, what it needs, how I can improve it, etc. I don’t push off negative comments, because that helps fuel how I iterate my recipes.”

2. Email is no longer relevant

Social media marketing should not be considered a replacement for other methods, but rather a tool to augment your customer reach. Email still has a role to play in your marketing campaigns, so keep those recipient lists and e-marketing campaigns around. They are still worth your time.

3. All content represents thought leadership

Content marketing is an integral part of social media marketing. The social platform is what you use to efficiently distribute content to your users, and the content itself is responsible for perpetuating and developing your brand. However, many entrepreneurs falsely equate all content with thought leadership.

Your best content is what will likely give you that kind of authority over your audience. Some of it will revolve around answering questions or giving the market exactly what they asked for. This is less about thought leadership than appealing to your audience directly. The distinction is important, because without it, you may create content that doesn’t reinforce your brand’s authority and trustworthiness.

4. Social media and content marketing are two different campaigns

This is another notion that is simply untrue. Social media marketing gives you a platform from which you can more easily distribute your content. One does not work well without the other, and understanding this is critical.

5. Content topics must be limited to protect your secrets

Small businesses and startups are inherently starting off on the back foot. No matter how good your idea is, no matter what industry you are in, you are fighting to gain attention in a world filled with larger, more established footprints and personalities. You might be advised to limit the information your content contains in an effort to protect your secrets, but you shouldn’t.

First, much of what you privilege is already known by the competition or can easily be reverse-engineered from your product. Second, knowledge is not enough for someone to defeat or overcome your own presence. If knowledge was all it took, book readers would rule every field. Do not hesitate to share what you know with your audience and trust in your ability to execute. Your readers will love you for your openness and confidence.

6. Social media marketing is primarily for generating new customers

Sure, social media can give you new customers, but that should never be its primary purpose. Research has revealed that followers of corporate social media accounts were fans before they joined. They were not converted by the existence of the profile, making social media marketing closer to “preaching to the choir” rather than a recruitment strategy. Social media marketing is better used as a way to retain your current market, not as simply an expansion strategy. Understanding this can help you drive a relevant strategy to your growing audience.

7. Social media metrics cannot be measured

If you are looking for a singular number to track that tells you how effective the campaign is, you will not find one. However, there is much to measure, from clicks to customer behavior. All that information can tell you if your current campaign is profitable or if you need to switch gears. You just need to identify which metrics generated by your campaign are most important to your goals.

As Spiceology’s Broussard notes, “Metrics can absolutely be measured via the form of ongoing awareness, especially when it comes to brand partnerships. Long-term consumer awareness is inevitable and comes with undeniable value, even if it’s sometimes harder to quantify.”

Social media marketing is effective, but only if you do it right. The myriad myths you face can keep you from achieving the kind of success that can help your startup thrive. Cut through the lies to ensure you have the right social strategy to persevere.

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/353127