5 Tips For Kickstarting Social Success
Is your brand just kicking off and you need to bring more awareness to it? Or have you been around for a while and are ready to enter the world of social media advertising? Either way, here are 5 things you should make sure you do from the start. These tips will get you well on your way to social success.
1. Find New Customers
This might seem obvious, but many growing brands with smaller budgets mistakenly prioritize existing customers or website visitors. Think about marketing like a funnel. At the top of the funnel you have all of the people that know about your brand but haven’t taken any further action. Next, you have those who have been to the site but haven’t done much else. Finally, at the tip of the funnel you have people who have viewed products and added to their cart but not yet purchased.
The goal is to move customers through this funnel swiftly and lose as few as possible during the process, resulting in a purchase. This then moves the customer into a retention audience, which could be thought of as a little inverted triangle at the bottom of the funnel.
Targeting this retention audience can bring you strong a strong ROI, but there is a limited number of people in this pool. Once they've all made a purchase, then what?
Herein lies the importance of new customers: continue to feed the funnel and add to the retention audience. Find people who fit your demographic, have the right interests, live in the right location, or seem to match your current audience. This is the only way to truly keep purchases flowing.
2. Make Your Ads Eye Catching With Movement.
Facebook and Instagram are flooded with content, so make your ads stand out with movement. (And it doesn’t have to be a complicated produced film!)
If you have a designer or have basic design capabilities, piece together multiple images or add small features to images that add movement. Whether flipping photos, flashing words, or changing text, you will still catch that extra glance from a potential customer. Video also works well when it is easily digestible and short enough to get the point across quickly.
If you don’t have these skills, Facebook makes it pretty easy. You can make videos from your photos directly in the platform, add sound, and change the style. You could also use Instagram Reels to create something fun with multiple snippets, text, and other effects. Don’t be afraid to experiment because oftentimes, these formats will benefit you more than a plain picture that gets lost in the sea of the feed.
3. Keep Your Copy Short & Sweet.
Nobody has time to read a whole story about your brand (nor do they want to!). Keep your copy short and just include what is most important.
In ten words, what is the message you need to get across? If you can avoid that “expand text” click, do it. Your site should have everything a customer needs to understand what you do or sell once they get there, so you just need to get them there. Be enticing. Offer something special. Leave them wanting to know more but give them enough to be curious. Let your website do the rest.
4. Stay Current.
What is new with your brand? Do you have new products or a sale? The people want to know, especially returning customers. That is what brings them back for more if the lifecycle of their previous purchase is not up.
For example, you have a tea company. Helen buys a couple boxes of it in September to get her through the chilly weather. In October, your new product hits. You just released a delicious new exclusive Oolong tea. Awesome! Let Helen know and maybe she will want to get some of that too even though she already has a variety of your tea and doesn’t necessarily NEED more. Even better… Helen loves your tea. You have a 20% off sale on your traditional Black Tea. That is Helen’s favorite. If she is going to get more, she might as well get more now! Maybe try a free sample with purchase too – oh Helen loves that sample and will need that too.
Get that message in front of your customers right in your ads, don’t make them come looking for it. It often does the trick to get a boost in sales.
5. Have Fun With It.
Of course, social media has its serious moments and posts, but let your ads be a break from that. Whether it is humor, fun copy and images, or an emoji thrown in, your ads don’t have to be 100% professional and serious. Facebook and Instagram are not built to be a professional platform and a majority of organic content is likely updates on people’s lives and adventures. Everyone could use a break from the heavy things for a chuckle or a smile.
At the same time, don’t lose your brand voice. If your brand is a more serious non-profit, for example, it probably isn’t best to crack a joke in your copy or play on words. But a little emoji never hurt anyone! Overall, don’t take yourself too seriously and make it feel as organic and casual as possible.