We all know that social media is an effective marketing platform, but to position yourself ahead of the pack and stay there, you must use tools that make you more efficient while getting your message out to your target audience. Here are 3 social media tools your business should be using, but probably isn't:
Twitter Chat
A twitter chat is a group of people getting together for 30 minutes to an hour at the same time every week for a conversation relating to a unique pre-determined hashtag. Anyone who includes the hashtag in their tweet is part of the conversation.
Participating in or hosting Twitter chats is a great way to connect and network with like-minded people. You can also use Twitter chats as a customer service tool. By creating a hashtag like #[YourCompanyName]CustomerService, and publishing that as one of the ways you receive and respond to customer questions, you can help customers not just through your answers to their questions, but the responses of other customers who may have experienced the same issue. Of course, not all customers are comfortable with Twitter, so you'll still need other forms of customer service too.
There are some rules of engagement on Twitter chats. For example, participants must use the hashtag in every tweet or their comments won't be displayed as part of the conversation. A good way to prevent this from happening by accident is to use a third-party app like tchat.io.
Another rule of thumb is to not use chats to blatantly market yourself or your products. Of course, participating in Twitter chats is a marketing tool, but it's an inbound tool, not outbound. If a chat participant wants to pursue a relationship beyond the chat, they certainly can. In fact, that's part of the beauty of Twitter chats.
Lumen5
Video content is still critical to your digital marketing success. People prefer watching a video to reading just about anything. When we talk to clients about this, one of the big push-backs is the misconception that creating a social video is hard and time-consuming. Creating social video can be hard and time-consuming. But it doesn't have to be.
Lumen5 is an online video maker designed for brands and businesses to produce engaging video content for social posts, stories, and ads. Their goal is to enable anyone without training or experience to easily create amazing videos in minutes.
When creating social video remember to use sub-titles. Many people will watch your video with their sound off. Also, keep in mind, many people will watch your video on a mobile device and this is one of those times when size matters.
Facebook Live
This may still come as a shock to some of you, but Facebook Live can be used by your business. It's not just a tool used to share fun family moments in real-time. The reality is, Facebook live video is a great way to share information and engage with your fans. Here are some examples of how businesses and organizations use it:
- Dunkin’ Donuts' gives fans a peek into the Dunkin’ Donuts kitchens. And, who doesn't want to know how the donuts are made?
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art takes its fans on walks through the museum. This has been a tremendous way for them to publicize exhibits that are coming.
- The ASPCA is known for finding creative ways to use Facebook Live. Whether it's promoting Adopt a Shelter Dog Month or something else, you can count on the ASPCA coming up with something creative for their next livestream
Anything you can do with pre-recorded video, you can do with Facebook Live. And you can re-purpose your live videos by saving and uploading them to your blog, website, other social media pages, your YouTube channel, or wherever.
Staying abreast of new social media tools isn't one of those things that would just be nice to do. It's something you must do if you want to stay ahead of the competition. For more ideas on how to use social media to your best advantage, contact us today.
Please note: The Friedman Group is an inbound marketing agency based in Denver, Colorado, and we work with professionals and business owners across the U.S. Our digital marketing services include: inbound marketing, social media marketing, email marketing, and digital marketing strategy and implementation.
