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There is no any doubt that social media is now an integral part of our daily lives.

As the use of social media is witnessing exponential growth, so is the number of companies using social media platforms to bolster the growth of their brands and services.

But the issue is not as simple as it appears.

Your target audience is spread across numerous social media platforms.

So, it is no wonder that the attention of your potential customers is split across numerous social media networks.

This is making engagement a veritable challenge.

One answer is to develop third party applications and tools to address this conundrum of reaching out to the target audience.

Without proper tools, social media is an overwhelming space.

If you are a marketer, you need to engage with followers, add value to contents, and continuously rake in new customers.

So which are the best tools marketers must use for SMO or Social Media Optimization?

Before we list the tools, it is important to get an idea as to which features these tools must have.

It is not possible to make an exhaustive list because strategies evolve over time. In any case, here are a few features SMO tools must have.

With the above in mind, here is a representative list of top 15 social media tools.

1. BuzzSumo

BuzzSumo

This is the perfect tool to dissect your rivals, understand your target audience, and locate the content in your niche that is likely to get the most viewing.

Content, we all know, is a vital part of any digital marketing strategy. Marketers make use of content to entertain, educate, persuade, or convert visitors.

BuzzSumo is among the top social media analytical tools that are driven by in-house powerful social media search engines.

This tool helps marketers find content aligned with their campaigning needs.

And, importantly, BuzzSumo gives you competitor alerts, which means it provides you with insights on which channels and resources your competition is using to reach out to their target audiences.

This app which offers a free trial has plans priced from $39 per month.

2. Hootsuite

This one is considered as one among the best social media tools available in the market.

This tool allows you to save time by - scheduling your posts, helping in content curation, getting reports on the impact of your social media efforts, and performing social media monitoring.

You can schedule and post updates to any page or profile on Google+, Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms from one location.

It is user friendly. After you sign up, you are offered a dashboard with tabs allowing you to organize all the profiles you are connected to.

It offers a free plan, which is ideal for people who want to deal with multiple networks, plan their content, and engage with their audiences.

It has other plans with additional features that are priced per month but billed yearly.

With Premium accounts, you get many options.

3. Buffer

With more than 3 million people using Buffer, this surely is among the top ‘social media management tools’.

A great thing about Buffer is it offers tools for a small time marketer as well as for a large agency.

The chief plus point of Buffer is its capability to schedule your content across several networks for any time slot in the future on the basis of how you decide.

The app is compatible with the three platforms; Browser, Mobile, and Newsreader.

Its Pro plan comes with a monthly price of $15, Premium with $65, and Business with $99.

It also offers consumers a 7 day free trial.

But here is a bright side for consumers.

This social media management platform allows consumers to have a free account to manage one Facebook page or profile, one Twitter, and one LinkedIn account with up to 10 updates.

4. Animoto

The growing popularity of videos should give you an idea why audiences prefer videos to digest content.

It is a wonderful tool for creating short videos to make quick announcements on social media. The templates are professionally structured and user-friendly to customize.

A good thing about this tool is that you can add text all the way through your video - a clear advantage when you want video campaigns without sound.

Animoto is popular among businesspersons, professional photographers, schools, and real estate video makers.

The starting price of this app is $8 per month billed annually. The deployment is via Cloud, SaaS, and the web.

For mobiles, it is via Android and iOS native.

5. Flipagram

Are you keen to create micro-sized 15 second videos specifically for mobiles?

Then, Flipagram is the answer for you. It allows you to create concise video–photo narratives set to music.

This simply means you can create slideshow style videos you can share.

A good feature of this app is you can add pictures from multiple locations, for example, from Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

Free downloads of this app are available on the web.

6. Feedly

It is a great tool to allow the web to work for you by arranging the content you depend on. It offers a fresh minimalistic reading experience optimized for efficiency.

The viewing experience is effortless and the content nippy to load.

Once you load, you can stay up to date with all the topics that matter to you.

You can discover insightful resources in major publications, blogs, YouTube channels, Tweets, and RSS feeds.

This news aggregator application is compatible with various web browsers and mobiles operating on iOS and Android.

Feedly has a free plan that has most of the features that people need. However, an upgrade, Feedly Pro, is available that costs $5 per month or $45 per year.  It has better search and security features.

7. GroundTruth

Geo targeting is all about identifying visitors’ locations by taking the help of the IPs, Wi-Fi or GPS data.

Smart marketers test different campaigns and ideas by taking potential consumers’ locations into account. This approach offers them interesting insights.

They have to match currency, evaluate local offers, and experiment with different languages.

In this regard, GroundTruth is a smart tool for businesses. This company is a global leader in location technology.

They have developed mobile platforms for audience targeting based on where they have been, and also offer insights about your customers with precise location analytics data.

Last year, this leading global technology platform that leverages location announced a new suite of performance based pricing models.

8. Google Social Analytics

Google analytics is a brilliant approach to learn about your website visitors.

The advantages are plenty.

9. Mention

This is a web based application that lets you track product mentions across blogs.

You can create a free plan and get one basic alert and 250 mentions. The upgraded plans are for a consideration but come with a free trial.

The good news is the tool now has new features and overhauls.

You get a geo-location view of brand mentions so that you have information on what your target audience is using and thinking about your brands.

10. SumAll

It is a free all-in-one reporting tool that integrates with numerous sites so that you get a holistic picture of your online presence.

This tool helps you grow your company by automating all of your social media and marketing efforts.

One interesting feature of SumAll is it provides you with a Twitter Audience Insights report that displays an outline of audience shifts, responsiveness, and quality.

In 2014, SumAll was chosen by Business Insider as one of the “10 Coolest New York Enterprise Startups Right Now”.

Interestingly, it is a free app offering users unlimited automations, unlimited data, and unlimited platforms.

The company says this is so since it is still in its launch stage - building products for small businesses.

11. Tagboard

Identifying the right hashtags has a lot relevance to your business.

In the social monitoring and engagement space, hashtags allow you to find the conversation your target audience sticks on to.

It is even more advantageous if you can identify the hashtags of influencers.

One of the best tools for this task is Tagboard.

The job is simple enough. Visit the website

Just input the keywords you want to search in the relevant field and press enter.

From the results you can directly respond to mentions displayed.

Tagboard offers users 3 packages; Base, Premium & Custom

You need to contact the vendor to get prices.

Tagboard is a wonderful tool to feature your own preferred social media from across multiple networks.

12. Crowdbooster

It goes without saying that measuring results is an integral part of any marketing strategy.

Crowdbooster does exactly this.

It allows consumers to easily evaluate and optimize their social media campaigns. In other words, Crowdbooster provides users with real time data which helps them create precise reports and key performance metrics.

One compelling feature of Crowdbooster is it helps you find your most valued followers – this simply means you can get to know who your most ardent fan and retweeter is among thousands.

13. Brand24

Are you vainly spending plenty of hours every week trying to figure out what brand mentions you are getting - both favorable and bad?

If your answer is yes, then stop doing it on your own and get Brand24 to do it for you.

Brand24 provides you with real time information on what consumers are saying about your product/brand.

Brand24 is cloud hosted software that promises users an intelligent platform to track and identify people online who post observations about your brand.

As we all know, comments on social media are shared in quick time. Therefore, Brand24 is crafted for speed to capture those observations in real time. This will allow you to respond quickly to resolve issues on negative comments.

14. Tweroid

It is true you can tweet any time of the day.

After all, Twitter is open 24 x 7.  But is the audience listening to your tweets?

Yes, this is an answer most marketers want.

You can solve this problem with Tweroid. Now you can commence tweeting when others listen.

But is this really possible?

Yes. Unlike with Facebook, there is in fact a way you can get information on how many people are viewing your tweets.

And, Tweroid does it effectively. It is a Twitter analytics tool that is active when users are online.

This social media software offers you complete details of the most appropriate times to tweet.

Signing up for Tweroid is simple. All you need to do is grant the service permission to access your Twitter account.

However, keep in mind that the free version of Tweroid is limited to a 1000 followers only and allows you to generate a report once a month.

With Premium versions available at a price, these restrictions do not apply.

15. Nuzzle

How great it would be if you could create a newsfeed based on what your followers are reading.

No need to bother. Nuzzle will help you out.

From a business point of view, this allows you to be current with your industry and connect with the target audience.

Nuzzle boasts that it is the next-gen news monitoring and research software ideal for researchers, marketers, PR professionals, and businesses.

The New York Times and Time had rated Nuzzle as one of the best apps of the year 2016.

Nuzzle applications are available on both Apple App Play Store and the Google Play Store.

A word of advice

There are numerous widely used systems in each social media platform. It is your job to find out which system best fits your business needs. It is for this reason that you shouldn’t unquestioningly go for the most hyped systems. Read reviews and take into account the factors that are essential for your business. It makes sense to go for a free trial (if offered) and also get answers to your queries from the maker.

A thorough research is indispensable if you want to land with the best social media management platform for your specific needs.

When you set up a social media account with your digital marketing, it will help build brand awareness, entice customers, and sell more of your products. Most of the time, you may make a few tweaks according to your social media use. The following guide will help you in solving the most noticeable social media problems.

1. Low ranking content in search

Any digital marketer would love his/her content to rank high in Google search results. When your content appears on the search results on the first page, then you will get more traffic. What will you do if your content doesn’t rank high on Google? You may need to review your content and SEO keywords and see if they are truthful for your business. Famoid can help you with your social media pages and keywords appearing most frequently for you to get an idea of the keywords you should be using.

2. Customers not talking about you on social media

Another big issue faced by several brands is their lack of engagement on social media. You may be coming up with good content, without anybody liking it, commenting, or even sharing it. Always know the types of content you post on every social media platform and the kind of audience you’re targeting. For instance, if a long-form update of a video does not do well on Facebook, then you should shift to shorter video posts.

3. Know to reach your target audience

You may have thousands of followers, but you may not know how to attract a particular audience. In social media, you have to listen more than talking to know what’s trending. You can use social media monitoring tools to see where the conversation is taking place on numerous social media platforms, and include your product into those chats.

4. A wrong brand perception

When people are talking about your brand negatively, it becomes a problem. You can choose to insert specific hashtags on social media posts to bring out a particular meaning. Also, take time to understand and adjust to the tone of your posts. You can include a youthful brand to reach the young millennials.

5. Other brands getting all the attention

Even though you may post several times on social media, your rivals and competitors will always get many shares and likes. You can take a quick look at the platforms that your competitors are using, their type of content, and what it does for their fans. After checking your competitor’s content, you can decide to pick a few tricks and use it to increase your followers or target audience. Maybe you didn’t know how to cross-promote or share different Instagram photos on multiple social platforms as your rival.

Final thought

For you to succeed in the social media world, you have to take challenges as stepping stones to your next opportunities. You have to explore new social media tools like Famoid to help you achieve your primary business goals. You have to be smarter when it comes to social media to be able to build your brand awareness and increase fans.

Ian Cleary is a leading digital and content marketing expert, credited with having helped many organizations make the best use of advanced marketing technologies and tools to achieve their goals in the quickest possible time. The founder of RazorSocial, a reputable provider of digital and social marketing services, Ian has unrivaled experience in providing high quality consultancy, training, and executive coaching in the area of marketing.

Ian is also an internationally acclaimed thought leader on social media and content marketing and has profound understanding of marketing technology and how to leverage its powers to drive a business to growth and success. He has a brilliant record of providing smart advice for helping businesses achieve their goals. Many B2B businesses have been able to achieve increased traffic and enhanced sales by implementing the inbound and outbound marketing strategies recommended by RazorSocial.

This Dublin-based marketing genius is also a much in-demand keynote speaker and is a popular face at marketing conferences around the world. He was listed as the 8th Most Influential Person in Social Media by Onalytica in 2016 and ranks among the top 100 Online Marketers of 2018. He is also a contributing author to Digital Marketing Superstars, an Entrepreneur.com publication. He is the winner of the Best Social Media Blog Annual Blog Award from 2013 to 2016, given by Social Media Examiner.

Ian Cleary’s blogs have been published in Forbes, VentureBeat, Entrepreneur.com, Huffington Post, Social Media Examiner, MarketingProfs, and many other popular publications. 

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What inspired you to pursue content marketing as a career?

I had a background in technology of about 15 years, and I was looking to do something internationally. I had no ideas whatsoever, so I decided to start a blog because I thought I could grow an international audience because I’m based in Ireland.

I looked at all the top social media and content marketing professionals. Most of the top ones were based in the U.S. and so I focused on the U.S. market. I thought that the content side would be an opportunity to build my brand, build authority, learn more about content marketing and social media, and yeah, it really worked.

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You’ve been listed on CMWorld’s Hall of Fame, a top global marketer by Brand24.Which content marketing thought leaders and professionals have inspired you through the years?

There’s a collection actually. Mark Schaffer would be one among those. I think he’s a really smart guy. I love his vision of where things are going in the industry and I actually like him as a person as well. He gives a lot and, for him, it’s about educating an audience and not getting anything in return. He just likes writing and creating content.

I really like Jay Baer because he’s a super nice guy and a great business guy as well. He’s got a constant stream of new ideas all the time and is always moving the industry forward.

I’ve followed Kim Garst through the years and have admired what she has done on her own and as part of her company. She ran a conference and has done online events and is always on the forefront of new things. When social video came out, she was one of the first people to jump on it. We always keep an eye on what Kim is doing.

What is Razor Social all about? And what are you, and your team, currently working on and developing there?

Razor Social is an agency. We provide a mix of consultancy services and training services, and I speak at events as well. We work with a range of brands. A lot of them are big brands. We’ve ended up working with because of our blog and because I speak at events. They’ll actually approach us and ask if we’ll work with them.

I’ve worked on some influencer programs. Recently, I’ve done some retraining programs for a company - running communities. Also, we started managing some large digital projects because I have a technical and a marketing background. I’ve tried to explore further and leverage that because I have more experience in technology and marketing. Speaking leads to more business because I get profiled at events. You build your brand, and then on the back of that, you get consultancy and training. You build those connections up.

In the last ten months, I’ve been busy developing a software tool. It’s an email outreach tool called Outreach Plus. When I was building the business, I was reaching out to a lot of people and I wanted a tool that would enable me to reach out and make it a lot easier to track correspondences and see what people are opening and responding and replying to. We built Outreach Plus as a solution and we’ve spent the last ten months working on that.

What are some of your favorite social media channels to use?

To me, my favorite is Slack because you can join various communities. I’m a member of a few good communities on Slack and they’re really enjoyable because they’re interactive. Rather than interacting on Facebook, more interaction should be on Slack.

I’m also a member of a few WhatsApp groups. To be on a WhatsApp group, you want to have a small group of people that you want to interact and hear from on a regular basis.

Do you think there’s a real future for AI marketing integrations? 

Yeah, I’ve actually just seen that Christopher Penn is doing a session on how to optimize your content and get better results through the use of AI.I think there’s going to be massive developments around AI. The challenge I think at the moment is that every software company is going to put AI on their list. Whether people are going to want AI or not, it’s really getting some building in some really smart tech into the current software. There is actually real intelligence in it but I think there’s definitely a future for it even for figuring out what content to write about, what content to rank, and how to promote that content. I think there are loads of opportunities for AI, and there’s going to be a real thrill for it in the industry for sure.

What other content marketing trends worked this year?

AI is probably the biggest one. Also, video just keeps growing and growing. I think that a lot of video will fail and we’ll eventually figure what’s going to work in terms of video. We look at a lot of Facebook channels. The average viewing time is only a couple of seconds.90% of people don’t switch on the sound, and so you can’t say video is working for most people.

If you had a TV channel and the average viewing time is two seconds and 90% of people don’t switch on the sound, you’d say, “Oh that doesn’t work.”I think that video is going to continue to grow but in the right areas. I think there need to be changes on Facebook and eventually there will be videos that are separate from the news feed. On the news feed, you’re just flicking through and you don’t necessarily have time to watch videos as well.

Ranking content has always about link building and I think it’s gradually moving away from that. SEMRush did a report recently and said that the number one factor for SEO was direct visits to the website. People are typing in your name and going to the website because nobody types in the name of a spam website. If it’s a popular website, you’ll type in the name. I think that over time the importance of that link building stuff will reduce and go further down the list and building your brand through the likes of content will become increasingly important because people will need to know who you are, recognize you as a brand, and that’s going to have huge implications in the SEO industry and how we optimize content. I think that’s an area that’s going to change a lot this year. 

Are there misapplied tactics?

People have jumped onto the new platforms far too quickly. You can see platforms disappearing. For example, Snapchat was a platform that marketers felt they should be on but most people didn’t want to be on it. They just jumped onto Snapchat and I think there’s a lot of time wasted in that. There are other platforms like that as well. I think jumping on these new platforms too quickly is not the way to go. People need to sit back and think about their strategy. They should concentrate on their audience and focus on that instead of spreading themselves too thinly across too many platforms and channels. I think people are realizing that you just can’t be on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Snapchat… all those channels.

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Don’t you think that today the mechanism and infrastructure for a small company trying to do is marketing specifically when an influencer like you comes in and says I use a particular app/tool? Don’t you think there is a need to simplify it to an extent today? Aren’t we getting caught up in the business of marketing and isn’t that to some extent another layer?

Yes, I talked to entrepreneurs recently regarding whether we should be on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and all those channels. I say, just go back to the basics in terms of marketing perspective. You know you want to engage with your current and potential customers. So what's the best way of having a conversation with current potential customers?

Suppose you're not on Twitter or Facebook or any of those channels, and instead,you might just have a Slack group. Let’s say, well, my audience is used to Slack, they like engaging on Slack. And so I’m going to build a small interactive community on Slack rather than getting $10,000 on Facebook.

I think those days are gone, the big numbers are gone. You need get a smaller, more interactive audience and that becomes a group that supports and helps write your message. So, if you’ve got a good group of a hundred people and everybody supports each other when you have a new release or a new product or something, there will be a lot of people that are prepared to help out. They'll share with their private groups as well. I guess there's a lot of dark social too, so where people are sharing a private group you won't be able to see it.

So, if you want to get stuff shared, you need to build relationships with the right people. That's where you found your own communities and then they're part of bigger communities and they'll help share the message on dark social channels.

We get caught up with all these channels and all these tools and stuff, like the basics of you know you want to your customers and potential customers are online we know that online we know they're interacting with other talking on the all the different channels but how do you get them to engage in conversation. Helping you build a small community of highly interactive cup in community rather than your ten thousand pounds and nobody's seen content you know so.

Do you have any tips for marketers looking to start a blog for the first time? 

It goes back to quality content. You know that you're much better off writing less quantity of higher quality content than churning out regular content.

I need to start a blog and so I am going to need content. I'd the first thing you do is build your strategy first. Invest a significant amount of time in building up strategy and look what people are searching for or what a lot of people interested in. Then, start building up your content and spread it out over a couple of months. Also, look in terms of what's your normal day’s content and what's your strategic contact point. That can be a bigger piece of content, such as a video research report, which will be a big piece of content. So, a lot of work goes into it which will help bring lots of value. 

I would say, overall, let's build out a strategy, have a document of plan, plan the content and then add higher quality content. So, don't publish unless you are actually proud of the content. If in doubt, don’t publish it. 

[bctt tweet="Quality over quantity - that kind of is like the name of the game. It's so true but a lot of people just forget that." username="relevance"]

When people are searching, they might come across a blog post on your site. If that's not good quality, there is a potential customer rating that content. So, you need to look at your own content to make sure to update the older content. So, whatever content you have on your site is always good quality. 

What kind of concert promotion tools would you recommend? 

First of all, any blog post in need of good social sharing and welfare plugin has a social sharing plugin called social welfare. That’s really good because when you're sharing content out, you can actually tell if there's a specific image that you want to be shared with Pinterest, with Facebook, or with Twitter, and any specific text you want shared.

So, when somebody clicks that Pinterest share button, you get a really good image and you get the right text for Pinterest. That means that when people are sharing content from our site, it's actually going to look as if it’s according to that platform and will have the right message.

For paid promotions, I use Facebook ads. If I have a blog post I know will actually bill subscribers and generate potential sales, then I invest in Facebook ads to drive more traffic.

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Facebook had a bit of a rough year. User faith is down. Stocks are down. So do you think marketers should use it?

I think from a Facebook business page point of view or for a new business starting up, you're not going to get traction. It's like the effort you put in is not going to be worth it. Suppose you've been in the entertainment industry, you might have a much better chance of getting engagement on Facebook. So you have a Facebook page and a Facebook group. These are good interactional Facebook groups. But, Facebook is going to start charging for these groups and eventually people will see less content on Facebook groups. So that may not be the best way to go forward.

I still use my personal profile because that's where it connects me to a lot of friends, and I need it for events and stuff. That's where you have got lots of engagement interaction. I really like that but if a new platform came along and my friends moved to that, I'd move quickly enough. I don't think we are loyal to Facebook. We just go with our friends where they are at the moment.I mean you can't guarantee that Google will be around forever or Facebook will be around forever. Facebook is not even that old, it has been there for just ten or eleven years.

So, last but not least, do you have any upcoming projects or speaking engagements that you're working on? Is there anything you’d like to announce? 

I suppose one part of the service we're trying to explore is more towards marketing tech or marketing knowledge of both. So, we're looking to build services around that in terms of helping Brown's with digital projects, kind of like the whole project management area. I will be speaking about that in social Travel somewhere in the next two weeks at Belfast.

Right, well, those are all the questions I have for you today. Thanks a lot.

You can follow Ian Cleary on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Influencer marketing is growing big and is projected to hit revenues of 5-10 billion dollars in the next two years. Brands are becoming reliant on social media influencers for sharing tips and recommending their products and services to a larger and more genuine audience.

The increasing ROI from the influencer activities have made the brands collaborate and increasingly spend more on content creators, and micro and macro influencers.

Now, if you thought that becoming a social media influencer is an easy and fun job, you’ve got it all wrong. Social media influencers are 100% committed to their job and market brands that align with their personality.

So, let us get into the ways and tips on becoming a social media influencer and making it big online.

1. Find your niche

Just because travel blogs and accounts are a hit among people, you cannot become a social media influencer in traveling if you are simply not interested in it.

Your first task is to find a topic that interests you. If you are passionate about dancing, then you can go ahead with it.

Travel, fitness, style, music, dance, acting, sports, stories, food, online gaming, shopping - there are many topics to select from. While some may be too common, others may be quite different.

But be cautious that you have to be comfortable putting it forth to the audience.

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2. Prepare

Man draws on whiteboard to prepare for something, a crucial step to becoming a social media influencer

Follow the top blogs and articles to see what improvements can be made. Try to familiarize yourself with all the new things about it.

[bctt tweet="When you have selected your niche, you need to research about the subject. Consume everything you know about it." username="relevance"]

Carefully analyze other social media influencers in this area and assess how they go about their task and what uniqueness they offer to their followers that get them more likes and comments.

3. Be unique

Social media influencers need to have unique plans that will set them apart from the rest.

Some ideas may click while others may fail miserably. But always try to incorporate different things that will set the tone for you to be different.

Do your research on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram to get ideas and suggestions.

Unboxing was a unique concept that rapidly gained popularity. So, you never know what and when something clicks.

Your aim is to try to be as unique as possible.

Also Read:Influencer Marketing: From Mystery to Data Science

4. Plan it out

Once you have done your research on your topic, the next step would be to formulate a plan.

Take help from your friends. Ask them for input and feedback.

Make a checklist of all the things that you have to do, like creating social media accounts, content strategy for your profile, videos, topics, followers, and so on. Make a rough schedule of what and how you would post the content.

Get to know the features and operations of popular social media accounts. Know how to schedule posts and plan the frequency of posts on each social media account. Learn about the usage of hashtags by following popular accounts.

5. Create accounts on popular social media sites

There are so many social media platforms to choose from and create your account. Decide on your target audience and then decide on creating accounts. Some platforms enable sharing simultaneously on their other social media accounts.

Another important aspect is social media optimization. Your profile should be filled out properly so that you are able to score high on search engine page results.

Your profile has to be captivating with the right content and images. Try to keep your profile name across all accounts.

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6. Build a real community

Once you create an account and set your profile, the next step is to get followers.

First, fill in the account with good posts. Start with a few followers who are your friends and relatives. Gradually, start building a community by inviting people who follow similar interests.

[bctt tweet="Aggressive marketing is the order of the day. Be actively engaged in forums and other similar groups." username="relevance"]

Attend webinars, answer questions on Quora, tweet through your Twitter account, and share ideas on LinkedIn.

As you grow, engage with your followers and see what they expect from you.

7. Network with and follow like-minded people

An influencer grows when they have loyal and authentic followers. As an influencer, you are as good as your followers.

But do not make the mistake of buying likes and followers on your social media accounts. They will guarantee you followers, but they remain inactive.

Never hurry to get the quantity of followers. Focus on the quality followers first and keep them engaged. This will help you to grow organically.

Also Read:Get Started With Youtube Influencer Marketing

8. Experiment and Grow

Social media influencing is all about experimenting. You cannot afford to be ignorant about the latest developments on social media.

Stay ahead of your competitors. Research and innovate for ideas. Repost photos of customers wearing your promoted products so that you are able to gain their trust. Use location tags and hashtags, and provide a story behind the post. Reference your other social media profiles in the post.

You can gradually start your own website and blogs. Provide links to your website through your social media accounts.

9. Collaborate with other influencers and brands

Two people sit at a table and collaborate, collaboration is a crucial step to becoming a social media influencer

Being a social media influencer doesn’t mean that you promote brands left, right and center. The brand you choose to promote has to align with your personality.

Work closely with other social media influencers so that you are able to get followers from them as well. It is a win-win situation for both.

Guest posting on other websites increases your visibility and this, in turn, increases the traffic to your account.

10. Be consistent

Graphic of a hand drawing a line to an end goal to illustrate consistency, a crucial tip to becoming a social media influencer

Influencing is hard, but don’t let any setbacks hinder your growth. This is one of the most important tips to becoming a social media influencer. Along with being consistent, you have to work hard. Influencing takes both time and dedication.

[bctt tweet="Consistency is the key to grow organically. Post regularly to keep your followers engaged." username="relevance"]

Make good use of social media features to cross-promote your other accounts. Always look out for trending topics and new features to follow.

And, do not forget to answer the queries raised by followers in the comments section. Engaging your followers through opinion and comment makes them trust you and become loyal.

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Conclusion

Social media influencers cannot afford slackness. With intense competition all around, they have to keep themselves updated all the while. A million followers can be a reality provided you work hard towards the goal.

The community has the power to decide if you can become a famous celebrity social media influencer. With consistent planning and a focus on these tips, you can become a social media influencer too!

When it comes to your marketing campaigns, arguably no element is more important than that of audience analysis. Why? Understanding precisely who is buying your products or patronizing your services is essential to creating promotional materials that stick. You could spend thousands of dollars on slick print materials and invest in a robust web design only to find that, ultimately, the campaign fails to have the effect you intend because the people you need to pick up your white paper or click on your landing page aren’t doing so.

Yet, the reality is that we live in the era of Big Data that continues to see unparalleled and unprecedented growth. This means that every second presents an opportunity for us to capture information on our buyers, both those who are completing the checkout process and who might still be on the fence. From the links they click to the products they peruse, there’s no shortage of information to store, and forward-thinking brands are those that take the steps to do so.

So, how can business leaders make sense of all of these inputs? When stored disparately, they’re nothing more than facts and talking points. For instance, you may know that more females buy your products than men, or that the average web visitor spends 10 minutes clicking around on the various subpages inside your website. These are all valuable insights, but unless they’re aggravated together and used to form a cohesive analysis, they’ll do little more than remain on our data servers, unused to their full potential.

This is where buyer personas come in. Put simply, these are comprehensive representations of your target audience members. They incorporate features such as gender, age range, ethnicity, occupation, average household income, geographical location and more. In a nutshell, creating a buyer persona or a set of personas for your company is akin to taking everything you know about what works in your niche and coming up with the ideal person who is most likely to make a purchase from your specific company.

To this end, simply stating that your product is hot with “Millennials” or “Stay-at-Home Moms” won’t cut it anymore. Now, it’s not enough to generically categorize the persons you most want to attract into a lump grouping. To do so is to grossly underestimate the myriad personality types, preferences, buying habits and interests that comprise an entire demographic. The good news? If you have a social media presence, your business already has everything it needs to develop composite buyer personas that can help jumpstart more effective and targeted marketing campaigns. To this end, let’s discuss a few ways your business can leverage these platforms to learn more about interested buyers as well as the traits they possess and share.

1. The Power of Facebook Insights

More than 70 million advertisers currently use Facebook to market their wares. That means that, regardless of how unique or specific your business listing is, there’s a large probability that it will get lost amid the sea of like-minded competitors. You might understand the reasons why creating buyer personas is so important, but you may not realize how Facebook can get you there. Yet, it’s still beneficial to have a presence on the largest social media network in the world and here’s why: As soon as you create a business account, you’ll have instant access to Facebook Insights.

This simple dashboard holds within it a treasure trove of valuable customer data. From here, you can quickly see the kinds of people who visit your page the most often. These will include touch points such as gender, age, primary language and more. Though these characteristics are somewhat generalized, they are still important as they help you cut through the billions of people who use Facebook to find those who are actively engaged with your business. These numbers and percentages represent real people behind a keyboard or a smart screen, who are clicking on your links, commenting on or liking your posts, and sharing them with others. In short, they are the people who are actually interested in what you have to say.

From here, you can adjust the messages you send out to better appeal to these web visitors. You can also create the basis of your buyer persona, using information specifically around age, gender and location. From here, for instance, you may be able to tell that your Facebook posts are resonating the most with men between the ages of 25 and 40 located in the United States. Though it’s not incredibly specific, this insight is the backbone of your persona, which you’ll build upon in subsequent steps.

If you want to keep the analysis within Facebook, you might consider using a specialty app to integrate a poll onto your page. From here, you can survey your followers on the type of current contact that interests them the most, as well as what they’d like to see in the future. From that quick step, you’ve now narrowed your buyer persona down by interest.

From here, you can further leverage the power of Facebook to boost both your ads and your sponsored posts, targeting them to appeal to certain, defined audience type. This makes them instantly more effective, as they’re pinpointed to target the type of people who have already expressed an interest in your company or ones similar to it.

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2. Leveraging Twitter Analytics

You may already be using Twitter Analytics to know how effective your posts are and to discern your level and rate of follower engagement. Yet, you may not realize that this same tool can provide immense detail on exactly who is accessing your tweets. From within your Analytics page, visit the “Followers” tab. This resource works similarly to how the Facebook Insights dashboard does, grouping your followers primarily by age range, location and language. Yet, while you may be tempted to dismiss this data as you already have it elsewhere, take a second look at it.

Does it follow what you’re seeing on Facebook? It may, but conversely, your ideal Twitter audience member might be entirely different from someone who finds you on Facebook. Though there is no hard and fast data around the type of people who use one social media platform over another, there is research around what each demographic prefers. For instance, a recent Pew Research Center survey found that Americans between the ages of 18 to 24 are most likely to use platforms including Twitter, Snapchat and Instagram in addition to Facebook.

Image via Pew Research Center: Social Media Use in 2018

One way that Twitter Analytics distinguishes itself from Facebook Insights is the addition of an “Interests” tab. From here, your active audience members are further broken down by interest type. Ideally, you’ll want those interests to line up with the kinds of products and services your business provides.

For instance, if you’re a music production company, then “music” should be toward the top of this list. Otherwise, you may need to drastically adjust your messaging to appeal to the diverse list of subjects that pique your audience’s attention. Why is this step important? Research reveals that 67% of Twitter followers actively buy from the brands they follow on the platform. Thus, reaching them via the content that grabs their attention is worth the extra time it takes to conduct that research.


Image via Fedobe: How to Use Twitter to Brand Your Business

You can also see the kinds of devices that your visitors are using to access your Twitter content. This can be helpful if you’re in the process of making your site more responsive or mobile-friendly. Knowing whether iOS or Android devices are preferred can make a major difference in how you choose to lay out your site. It can also play into your mobile checkout capabilities, as well.

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3. Finding Topics of Interest through LinkedIn

Now that you understand more clearly who’s buying your products, clicking on your profiles and reading your Facebook and Twitter posts, you’re ready to create and curate outreach messages that are most likely to reach them. Yet, unless your content is strategically developed, your conversation could fail to convert. This is where LinkedIn can prove helpful.

After reviewing your Facebook Insights, polls and and Twitter Analytics, you’ll have a clearer picture of what interests your followers. Using this knowledge, head to LinkedIn and search for groups that center around these topics. For instance, if your followers are interested in sports medicine, you can search for this topic on the left-hand search bar and then sort by either “content” or “groups” (under the “More” tab) to find out what people in the industry are saying about this topic.

Consider the recent case study of UPS. While the brand’s customers are geographically wide-reaching, many of them share a common concern: eco-responsibility and sustainability. The company listened and launched a campaign to deliver packages in some locations via bike. Below is the LinkedIn post revealing the campaign.


Image via Social Media Examiner: Four LinkedIn Mini Case Studies

This is just one example of how brands can listen in on the conversations taking place around their industry and specialized niche, then leverage that information to create innovative and personalized campaigns. Within the groups, you can find active discussions around current hot topics, questions and trends that can prove valuable fodder for jumpstarting your content campaign. What are people wondering about, sharing and passionately discussing? Knowing the answers to these kinds of questions can help you create messages that are most likely to resonate within these communities.

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Compiling Social Media Insights into Complete Buyer Personas

Once you’ve leveraged social media to get a clear picture of who your active social media listeners and participants are, you’re one step closer to creating a thorough buyer persona. Though the information provided via each platform is relatively surface-level, when they are used in conjunction with one another, valuable insights can be found.

Start with Facebook Insights to get a basic view of what content is popular and who’s at home, at work or on the train accessing your data. From there, visit the Twitter Analytics page to find out what these audience members are interested in, what devices they’re using to find and share your content from anywhere around the world. Then, bring it all together with LinkedIn groups and content pages, where you can find those data points worth talking about. When utilized comprehensively, these myriad social media platforms can act as the portal you need to get closer access to the buyers you need to reach the most.

Business to business PR continues to evolve. Today, in B2B public relations and social media, thought leadership continues to lead the march, as smart public relations practitioners and marketing pros work together to build credibility, share of voice, visibility and their clients’ expert positioning.

It’s true, social media’s most obvious application is in the consumer products and services sector. However, B2B companies cannot afford to overlook this important content marketing, influencer marketing and reputation management tool. When evaluating priorities, we’ve heard countless business to business marketing executives say they view social media as a luxury or a nuisance, but rarely a priority.

The social channel has distinct advantages in the B2B PR and marketing universe that many do not realize. Regardless of whether organization markets to other businesses in the professional services, healthcare, food manufacturing, insurance, animal health, education, or nonprofit/association markets, PR and social media serve and support three primary roles, which can protect a brand, as well as effectively promote it through industry thought leadership (yes, B2B companies can build brands too!).

Driving Website Traffic

One benefit of B2B public relations and social, is that search engines value these channels and the fresh content they hold as credible and important. What’s more, when quality content resides on a media website, regardless of industry, Google recognizes the authority of that site. If your online marketing team effectively synopsizes, optimizes, syndicates and promotes these articles through smart SEO tactics, the results can be significant. We’ve seen search traffic increase by 20% to 30% by consistently leveraging PR results and content.

The days of hiring a content machine to pump out dozens of articles each week are over. Google’s algorithm is far too smart for that outdated tactic, which relied on quantity over quality. Conversely, PR content such as news releases, white papers and media placements (including bylined articles, business features and trend stories) are highly influential and powerful. The repurposed value is significantly greater than the impact an article has when it first runs. In fact, we counsel businesses marketing to other businesses that 80% of the power of public relations today comes from repurpose saying and leveraging PR content and media placements. That’s where measurement comes in as well. If you are promoting articles online, you can easily determine the impact by evaluating social sharing, website traffic to specific landing pages, social follower growth, conference/tradeshow appointments, online sentiment and other predetermined, measurable outcomes.

Protecting Your Reputation Online

Taking proactive measures to manage content on the web can significantly affect inquiries and conversions. Articles, news releases, white papers and other PR-driven content that’s consistently and strategically secured and distributed, can go far to manage a reputation online.

Industry bylined articles, positioning a company as an expert in their field, can lend credibility and shape perception too. If a business regularly secures coverage in their respective trade publications (as well as in vertical trades that reflect their respective customer bases), it should be repurposed and leveraged to positively impact awareness, image and conversion rates.

Social reputations can also be improved through the dissemination of PR content/results. LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are some of the primary channels we utilize in our B2B public relations practice. Connecting with industry influencers on LinkedIn and other social channels is an important activity. Identifying conference and tradeshow keynote and breakout session speakers, and engaging in conversations with them, can lead to strategic partnerships and social mentions, which can not only drive awareness but fortify the company’s image.

Content Marketing & Sales Support

Many companies distribute sell sheets, brochures, flash drives and other digital and print materials to get the attention of the buyer. While PR content can serve to enhance and protect an online reputation, build thought leadership and drive website traffic, another primary benefit in the world of B2B marketing is its credibility in the sales process. Since media placements are considered third-party endorsements, they offer credibility and demonstrate authority. The smartest B2B marketers we’ve partnered with understand this and, at every sales meeting, have a PR agency representative address the new business development team to share tools that can help them influence decision-makers and close deals.

Another smart sales initiative is to regularly send PR articles and news releases to stakeholders including referral sources, existing and prospective customers, distributors and all sales reps, via email and direct mail. Through marketing automation software, such as SharpSpring, Act-On or Hubspot, you can track the read-through rates and efficacy of the content you serve up. This is where PR fuses not only with online marketing but with direct marketing and sales. This is the accountability that’s been missing in the world of PR since its inception in the 1920s and 30s.

Due to the power of the Internet and its relevance today, B2B public relations is not only more measurable but it’s more accountable now than ever before. If you are marketing to other businesses, put PR to work to boost website traffic, reputation, content marketing, thought leadership and sales. You won’t regret it.

Are you influenced by social media posts? Is it likely that you have changed your mind over something you deeply believed in because some SM feeds suggested otherwise?

New social media survey data seems to suggest that we are being subtly or subconsciously influenced to change out set views on specific subjects by social media content.

A recent survey says that a small percentage of adults admitted that they have changed their views over the past year because they were impressed and influenced by some content in their social feeds. The survey says that social media content can influence persons irrespective of their age, political affiliations and demographic. However, data reveals that some groups are more likely to change their views than others because of digital content.

While younger minds are more likely to change their views on certain topics, the older minds have more hardened opinions that are less likely to be influenced by SM posts. The high percentage of young minds that appears to be more easily influenced by social media could probably an indicator of their ability to accept changes more easily that the senior SM users. They do not want to be seen as someone with a view that’s different from the majority view. This is especially true when there are strong opinions on a specific subject. Their previously held opinions could easily get influenced by majoritarian online views on that subject.

Recent data about how influencers impact views on social media channels also suggest that men are more likely to relate to influencers than women and heed their advice.

Social media is a big world that marketers can tap into to increase their outreach. Today, many social media marketers take human psychology into consideration when they promote a brand on social media. In technical language, we call that neuromarketing.

It is very likely that you must have come across this new marketing term known as neuromarketing several times while reading articles and blogs on modern marketing techniques. There is a constant effort among today’s marketers to find sure-fire ways of making an advertisement and running it successfully. Neuromarketing is one more effort in that direction.

A comprehensive study of neuromarketing must include how it is used by organizations to promote their marketing efforts and its real impact in the modern marketing arena. You might be surprised to note that neuromarketing is not exactly a current day marketing strategy. The term was first introduced way back in 2002 when researchers began analyzing neural activity and examined brain activity when consumers viewed advertisements or examined products.

The very idea of getting an opportunity to take a look inside people’s brain to understand what makes them take the buying decision was very exciting and interesting. It was a revolutionary idea as reading the mind of consumers was and still is a highly desired aspect for marketers and for researchers.

Neuromarketing is a process of studying the consumer behavior by application of various tools. It is a technique that probes deep into the non-conscious actions performed by a consumer and how these reactions influence the buying behavior.

One of the reasons for the growing interest in neuromarketing among modern marketers is because through this process they hope to find clear ways of influencing buying behavior and decisions.  They are hopeful that with some authentic research on the subject, they can somehow control the subconscious minds and make them buy the products and services they want to sell.

How Neuromarketing Works

Neuromarketing is an extremely broad and complex subject and that’s why it does not work in a uni-directional manner. It is all about understanding the working of the mind of a consumer and performing an action to bring about a positive outcome.

Marketers know that the minds of consumers are difficult to decipher. It works differently in different conditions. There is a specific science involved in what drives their buying moves. Neuromarketers is aiming to use this for their benefits.

Neuromarketing Decoded

Neuromarketing is the study of customer behavior and how it affects the buying pattern of a target audience. This study of customer behavior has played a significant role in social media marketing and its results are pivotal in setting an effective marketing strategy that can convert more leads into clients.

The idea of neuromarketing was coined by Gerald Zaltman in the year 1990. He based his study on the principles of neuroscience and after more than two and a half decades, the principles of neuroscience still remain the same. Today, neuroscience is a full-fledged discipline that focuses on human behavior to learn about different human traits.

The medium of marketing however, has changed over the course of time. While traditional ad platforms (TV and radio) are still in the scene, they are no longer the primary choice of marketers due to the evolution of the digital media platform and social media is a big part of this platform.

Social media marketing is one of the pillars of digital marketing. Using the podium of social media, brands can penetrate into a big market and attract more leads to their brand.

This article is going to share some of the ways brands are using the principles of neuromarketing to promote their brand on social media. Have a look:

1. Moosejaw (Humanize Your Brand)

People like to engage in a brand that has a unique voice. Your leads see your brand as a personality that has certain traits and characteristics. A brand that has a vague voice fails to connect with target audiences and ultimately loses the appeal to attract leads.

IMAGE COURTESY: WWW.TWITTER.COM

Moosejaw is an outdoor recreation apparel company. The brand has a sense of humor that shines through its profile on Twitter. It makes use of light humor in its post to engage with leads and it is funny. The brand owes a part of its success to its personality that clearly comes across on social media.

2. Airbnb (Press the Emotion Buttons)

People are motivated more by the emotional value of a brand than any other factor. According to a study by Harvard Business Review (HBR), the emotional connection is a more influential factor in attracting leads than customer satisfaction.

The same philosophy applies when it comes to social media marketing. People get influenced more by an emotional trigger than any other factor.

Airbnb is a hospitality business. When the brand entered the New York market, it suffered a solid resistance from the hotel business. To put the word out to the general public, it ran an ad campaign with the slogan: “New Yorkers Agree: Airbnb is great for New York City”. To make the impact even stronger, the brand created a video of Carol Williams who was one of its hosts.

In this YouTube video by Airbnb, the brand shares the story of Carol Williams and how Airbnb helps her survive the financial crunch after the demise of her husband. Airbnb named the video “Meet Carol”. The video gained more than 300K views on YouTube and helped promote the message of the brand.

3. Nature Made (Give a Social Proof)

People are reluctant to try new things unless they have a social proof. Psychology defines it as “herd behavior”. The stock exchange market trend is a good example of this type of behavior.

It is commonplace to see investors putting their money in the market and taking it out. The decision of the investors is based on the current trend of the market. If the market goes up, the investors will likely put in more money. If it goes down, they will certainly take it out.

This is a perfect example of herd behavior and one psychological trait you can practice in your social media marketing.

Nature Made is a vitamin and supplement brand. In this Facebook post, the brand features the USP (United States Pharmacopeial) certificate that endorses the purity of ingredients in its products. The post struck a chord with the audience and contributed to its sales.

4. Charmin (Add Humor)

Humor is one psychological element in marketing that always sells. Everyone wants to associate with a brand that has a humorous personality. The trend is particularly popular among Millenials and Generation Z. According to Chegg, 80% of college kids can easily recall an ad that has the element of humor.

Now, this is really funny. This ad by Charmin shows that the brand has a sense of humor. The brand uses puns and repartee in its Twitter posts and it really makes the audience crack up. The impressive number of followers the brand has owes to its humorous side.

5. Starbucks (Create a Sense of Reciprocity)

Reciprocity is the act of giving back to someone who has done you a favor. Brands have been using this psychological trigger to promote their products. Often, the brands use this technique to build email lists of potential leads.

Starbucks was quick to notice this psychological trait of humans and started a campaign to attract more leads. It encouraged people to share the hashtag “#Tweetacoffee” to one of their friends. In return, the company offered a free cup of coffee to the friend. The campaign resonated with its audience and helped the company generate $180,000 in sales.

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6. H & M (Join Hands with an Influencer)

Influencer marketing is the hottest trend in social media. According to Influencer Marketing Hub, businesses earn $6.50 dollars for every $1 dollar that is spent on influencer marketing, so why is influencer marketing so successful?

The answer is simple. Humans have a tendency to trust industry experts. We have an innate trait to trust the advice of an authority in an industry. The common observation of this behavior can be seen in our daily life when we seek the advice from our seniors to validate our decisions.

Psychology in Social Media

Psychology in Social Media

H & M is an upmarket apparel company that joined fashion bloggers to promote its brand. The company partnered with blogger Julie Sariñana and model Ela Velden to showcase their outfits on Instagram. The campaign was indeed tactical in its approach, i.e. to spread the word of mouth publicity and it achieved its goal due to the presence of the industry experts.

Some so-called neuromarketing experts have been peddling the idea that neuromarketing can be effectively used to predict the outcome of a campaign in a foolproof manner and in a more reliable manner than traditional research and marketing ways. That is slightly off the mark. Neuromarketing can complement conventional marketing methods to obtain a more rounded vision of the consumer’s reaction.

Neuromarketing is a process to promote a brand that is based on the psychological traits of a target audience. As you can see in the above examples, several brands were able to promote their products by using many different facets of neuromarketing.  I hope you can effectively market your brand on social media using this study of human psychology.

When Twitter purchased Periscope in 2015, it began a new era of social media marketing we know today as “live streaming”. The experts dubbed it as the next big thing since it was an inexpensive and effective marketing technique and they knew that they have a new trend in the making.

Today, vloggers, social media marketers, and influencers can use live streaming to interact with their audience in real-time without needing support of teleprompter or visual cues. They can roam around their workspace or outdoor setting to film an event or share their experience about an event. On the other hand, the viewers will get to see an event as it happens.

Being myself a social media marketer, I consider “live streaming” as a game changer in social media marketing and I’ve strong reasons to believe that. Some of them worth a mention here:

According to Live Stream, 80% of people are likely to watch a video than read a blog. On the other hand, the website shares that 81% more people watched live streaming in 2016 than they watched in 2015.

DaCast reveals that video content marketers attract 41% higher traffic than others, while it has 135% more reach compared to a photo post. When it comes to people on the go, the source has some more fascinating facts. According to the website, 92% of mobile users share videos, while live streaming has 114% more mobile views than other forms of content.

Statista reveals that there is a marked increase (28%) in the percentage of internet users who used live streaming on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram during the period of 9 months, starting from third quarter of 2016 to second quarter of 2017.

Live broadcasters are also in good books of search engines. Part of the fact is associated with the revision of algorithms of major social media websites that want to synchronize their platform with search queries for live streaming.

Facebook is the first one to make the changes as it updated its algorithm in 2016 to make more live videos rank higher on Facebook Graph Search results.

The aforementioned statistics lend credibility to the viability of live streaming as a marketing tool. Let’s now forecast its role in future as a social media marketing tool:

Live Streaming Market

Research and Market predicts that the live streaming industry is going to reach $70 billion in 2021. The market figure was $30.29 billion in 2016. Perhaps more importantly for brands, ad revenues from streaming are expected to hit $5 billion in 2020.

Live streaming is turning more heads on social media than any other form of content marketing. Today, social media marketers are tuning in Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter to interact with people through live video.

IMAGE COURTESY: WWW.STATISTA.COM

In this chart by Statista, Facebook Live has the highest percentage of users (17%) who indulged in live streaming during November 2016. The next popular platforms were YouTube (16%), and Periscope (9%). Twitter ranks at 4th with 19% of the market share.

Let’s now take an in-depth analysis of each of these popular live streaming platforms one by one:

Facebook Live

Facebook is currently the leading platform for broadcasting live videos. In fact, 1 in every 5 videos is live on Facebook. On the other hand, the promotion rate of live videos (78%) exceeded the overall video posts on Facebook (72%). This bodes well for the social media marketers who want to share real-time experiences of their products, workspace, and people.

IMAGE COURTESY: WWW. TRENDS.GOOGLE.COM

This graph shows the trend of Facebook Live over the timespan of two years. According to the graph, the search for Facebook Live videos continues to incline since the time of its launch in August 2015. The platform saw a 300% rise from media companies who want to leverage the live streaming feature of the website.

But the Facebook Live is not just about getting higher traffic or earning more views. It is about entering a world of opportunities where you can position yourself or your brand in front of a gigantic audience. The platform offers a level-playing field to everyone to earn big bucks. No matter if you are a newbie vlogger or a big brand, you can equally get benefitted from Facebook Live.

The platform is also a “go-to” place for many social media influencers to make money. As a matter of fact, celebrities and publishers earned $50 million from Facebook Live. On the other hand, the source also reveals that social media influencers got a sizable share of the pie with $2.2 million, while the growing trend of influencer marketing has led to a 20% increase in likes, views, and shares on the profiles of social media celebrities.

The figures speak for themselves and we can say that Facebook Live will become bigger and better in the coming years.

YouTube Live

A hotspot for social media marketers, vloggers, and influencers, YouTube is another strong contender in the league of the top live streaming platforms. The platform has a particular liking in the American region where it was the primary source to view live streaming videos during June 2016 and November 2016.

With over 1.5 billion users, YouTube is currently the second largest social media website and this creates a big opportunity for anyone to do good marketing. Many people and companies turn to YouTube Live to pitch their business or personal brand.

YouTube Live is also a great medium to broadcast gaming competition. In 2015, YouTube launched “YouTube Gaming” which opened new avenues for the broadcasters to entertain the gaming enthusiasts. The move was strategic as YouTube wanted to supersede the eSports market which is dominated by Twitch, a company owned by Amazon.

IMAGE COURTESY: WWW.STATISTA.COM

In this survey by Statista, Daniel Middleton is the highest earning YouTube star who runs one of the most subscribed YouTube channels. His YouTube channel DanTDMcame got immense popularity after he started broadcasting live videos of video gaming competition.

The increasing number of audience on YouTube Live gives us solid ground to predict that the future is looking promising for YouTube Live.

Periscope

When Twitter acquired Periscope in 2015 even before its launch, the eyebrows were raised and many people were skeptical of the decision. But the time proved it a right move as live streaming became the hottest thing in social media marketing by 2016. Today, Periscope is the 4th most widely used platform for live streaming.

Periscope gained further traction when Toyota launched its concept car “Concept-i” using Periscope 360. The video got instant popularity and attracted more than 1 million views.

Airbnb was quick to follow the trend. The website for hospitality service used the live streaming feature to take the audience on a virtual tour of Kauai in order to give them a view of the property. The video got a whopping 3.6 millions of views.

As more brands are using Periscope, it seems likely that more businesses will connect to Twitter to showcase their products. Besides, Twitter has a huge audience to tempt any brand or social media personality. With more than 330 million active users, it offers big wiggle room for live broadcasters to position their brand.

Now let’s recap the whole thing.

Based on the statistics and data from the above analysis, we can deduce that live streaming is here to stay. The brands are already making use of this powerful technique to promote their business and products. As more businesses, influencers and social media celebrities are joining hands on the live streaming platforms, we can say that it will take control of the social media in the future.

 

Social media marketing is crucial for the success of your business. A successful social media marketing strategy involves all the steps that you have put in action in order to succeed on the various platforms. With millions of users, social media has become the number one option for business owners, entrepreneurs, freelancers and everyone who want to increase their sales.

People check their Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts while they are waiting in line, before going to bed or when they are checking the photos of their friends. Everybody has a smart device that they can’t live without. Building and improving your plan on social media platforms increase your brand’s exposure. By reaching your target clients exactly where they will be, you are going to get more leads. As your clients decide to buy your products or services, you are going to establish your social media presence and have a fan base of loyal satisfied customers. They might even refer your business to other potential customers.

How to Build a Winning Social Media Marketing Strategy?

The best thing about social media is that it can be used to market any service regardless of the size of your business. Some people can even start with a zero budget or by spending a very small amount of money. Today, the question is not whether to use social media or not. People are always asking about the best and most efficient ways to use social media platforms. Here are some steps that you can use to make it work.

1. Set the Right Goals

Without goals, there is no plan. You should make sure that your goals are specific, measurable, relevant and attainable. Having a specific and scientific framework will help you track your goals and assess any deviation from the plan in order to take the right action.

The most important thing is to make sure that your social media posts are generating leads that will increase the conversion rate and make sense within your overall content roadmap. You can use social media to create brand awareness, increase customer’s loyalty and eventually increase your sales through referrals.

2. Revise your Current Social Media Presence

You probably already have one or several accounts on different platforms.

For example, which networks or apps are you currently active on? Do you feel that you are achieving any success? Do you need to improve your marketing plan or start a new one from scratch? These questions can be answered by studying different analytics.

Evaluating your current plan will show what is working and what isn’t. The point is not just to have an account on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. The point is to make sure that they are helping you realize your current and future business goals. If an account is outdated or doesn’t offer what you need, then you might need to discard it and start a new one, with a new image and message.

3. Get to Know your Audience

You should ask yourself what your audience needs to see on different platforms so you can create the kind of content that they will find useful and interesting. Be specific about the answers as this will help you to improve your social media marketing plan.

Different demographics use various social media platforms. By getting to know your potential clients you will be able to pick the right medium or app in order to establish your online presence. Different social media analytics will offer relevant information about your current followers. This will give you an idea of where you should do more effort to reach more people.

4. Study your Competitors’ Performance

Chances are that your competitors are already using social media. Take a look at their pages and profiles. Are they more successful than you? Are they keeping their audience engaged? What are they doing differently?

Analyzing the performance of your competitors, knowing what they are doing right and what they are doing wrong will give you some useful information about what to expect. Every industry is different and such information will help you set the right goals. This also gives you an idea of where you can put in more effort. For example, if your number one competitor is already killing it on Facebook, you can build and improve your social media presence on Instagram or Twitter.

You can get inspired by successful business stories while keeping your brand unique. Different platforms are full of inspirational success stories that you can learn from, and not necessarily copy.

5. Work on your Social Media Mission Statement

A mission statement states what exactly you plan to use your social media accounts for. It should reflect your brand’s identity and should be directly related to your business goals.

As you create your mission statement, you should think about your ideal target customer. What do your customers need? What are they looking for? People should feel that you are an expert because this will make them trust your profile and the information you post. Your mission statement will keep you and all your employees focused on the most important goals.

6. Create the Right Social Media Content

You need to post useful content that will keep your target customers engaged and interested. Think about what they need, the questions they ask, and the reasons why they want to check your social media page.

All your social media content should be optimized for SEO. Using the right keywords, meta titles, descriptions, images and videos will offer your followers and target customers with the information they need. You should pay attention to all the comments, likes, and retweets. Responding to them will increase your customers’ loyalty.

Make sure that everything you post is optimized for SEO. Allow your followers to share your content easily on their profiles and across different platforms. This way, you will guarantee that more people are going to check your posts.

7. Create a Calendar

Being consistent is one of the main keys to success. Your followers need to see that you are serious about your business because this is how they will trust your brand. Successful specialists leverage tools that can boost their business performance. Different social media management tools can help you schedule posts ahead of time and even set time for engaging with your followers. People love to check new content especially if it gets posted regularly.

Planning ahead helps you to save time and effort. For example, you can try to post different kinds of posts that serve various purposes. You can decide on the number of posts that you wish to create in order to divert customers to your website, the number that should result in live engagements and the posts that you can use to promote your business directly.

Creating a successful plan is all about tracking your performance. Give your actions time to work then re-evaluate the whole process. Make the necessary adjustments and tweaks in order to refine your current strategy. You can simply ask your followers for direct feedback. See what they think about your current strategy and consider their suggestions. You can also rely on the numbers to help you identify the successful actions from the ones that failed. All your employees should work as one team towards achieving one goal - success.

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