As the most effective platform to woo customers, social media has become indispensable for all businesses, big or small. Be it Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or any other networking site, companies are spending their time, effort, and money to catch, engage, and subsequently convert their potential clients.
And why shouldn’t this be central to marketing today, when more than half of the world’s population is on social networking sites? Besides, a majority of around 3 billion users are either millennials or those who have a pretty good disposable income, and these generally constitute the target groups of almost all businesses.
However, engaging prospects on social media isn’t easy. These platforms are so crowded with advertisers that you need to be really creative in order to grab the users’ attention. Since the wall of every user is constantly flooded with posts, they will simply scroll on without a second glance unless you offer something quite captivating.
This blog highlights 4 vital tricks, which, if followed, will significantly help you in gaining more traction among your targeted users.
So, here we go:
1. Focus on Images & Videos
Technically speaking, our mind processes an image 60,000 times faster compared to text. Naturally, pictures have the potential to convey larger messages with greater efficacy at a faster pace. In addition to this, the retention of a message is much higher compared to written words.
Statistically speaking, a post with visuals receives 2.3 times more engagement than those without one. Tweets with a photo receive 35% more retweets and the figure is the same for Facebook in terms of shares.
This makes visuals not just something nice to have, or an added advantage, but a necessity that must be included in every post.
When it comes to videos, they actually have become a phenomenon. Mark Zuckerberg once said, “I think video is a megatrend, almost as big as mobile.” And if we look at the estimates, videos are going to constitute 80% of the entire internet traffic by as early as 2020.
Not paying the required attention to images and videos may prove costly.
2. Organize Contests and Giveaways More Frequently
You may have reservations about “Free Lunches” but trust us, they actually work in the digital world. People like gifts, and giveaways effectively exploit this attraction.
If you think giveaways may result in losses for you, perhaps you need to change the way you go about offering them.
Many businesses are offering free gifts and prizes to their users, but they do not choose the winner merely on the basis of a right answer to a question. Rather, they make it mandatory for users to like their page, share their posts with as many people as possible depending on their reach, and only then they pick a winner.
This way, the winner acts more like a salesperson, increasing the visibility of the company and when one compares this with the cost involved, it turns out to be a win-win for both.
3. Strategically Use Hashtags
To put it simply, hashtags increase engagement; in some cases, by as much as 80%. Why? Because they help a user find the posts/tweets related to a particular topic and this is the reason why retweets for tweets with hashtags are much greater in number than those that do not have hashtags.
However, one should be careful about the number of hashtags to use as for each social media platform, the requirement may vary (and the variance isn’t minor).
For example, for Twitter, the maximum limit for hashtags is two. Any attempt to flood a tweet with more hashtags will most likely result in lesser engagement. Studies prove that using more than two hashtags per tweet may lower your engagement by 17%.
However, when it comes to Instagram, two will surely fail to produce the desired effect. In fact, a minimum of 11 is what makes an Instagram post gain more traction.
Interestingly, for Facebook, using no hashtags will prove to be the best policy as of now. But you never know – this may change in future.
4. Always Reply to Users’ Comments
In the past, businesses never had a quick and easy access to what users were thinking about their brand and their products. However, today, users’ responses in the form of likes, retweets etc., particularly comments, serve as a great medium to take a peep into their hearts and minds.
Needless to say, you should not treat the comment section simply as a way to understand your target audience’s mind. You should use it as a tool to strengthen your relations with your users, and create loyal customers.
By replying to each and every comment, good or bad, you can ensure that your credibility increases. By tagging a user in the comment section, you make it a point that your reply gets seen by all the connections in that user’s profile. This practice will help you a lot in the future.
To sum it up, you should make conscious decisions vis-a-vis your social media activities to find out what is working and what is not. Depending on your findings, you may apply some, or all of the above-mentioned points to make your future social media activities work wonders for you and your business.