Franchise PowerUp 
Anybody who is trying to achieve success out of social media marketing knows that part of the goal is to increase traffic to your…what? Landing page? Blog? Website? It all depends on what you’re trying to achieve. There are some fundamental things you need to know about social media marketing that will help you hit your goals – no matter what they are. Call this your Facebook marketing guide 2017 – working smarter, not harder.
Do You Need To Invest In Social?
This statistic highlights the traffic share of social media visits in the United States. As of the fourth quarter of 2016, social media accounted for 3.1 percent of site visits in the United States.
Sure, you can generate social media traffic, but how can you convert that traffic to the place you want your users to go? Social media users don’t like to leave the social media interface. But, there are several Facebook marketing tips for 2017 that can help you achieve conversions without a ton of effort.
Hootsuite tells us that social media ad budgets have doubled across the globe. In the U.S. only, $31 billion was allocated to social media advertising in 2016. By 2019, it’s expected to increase exponentially. But how do you do this? How do you create the type of content your audience wants to see?
Define Who You Are Writing For and Why
- Most Facebook marketing tips tell you to seek out your audience and get to know them. They are not autonomous masses. They are people. They have personalities and likes and dislikes. This is one of the fundamental truths in content marketing best practices. Tune into that and you will be on your way to successful, connective social media marketing. Define your goals to understand what you expect from your social activity. Make them clear and SMART.
- Most social media platforms have tools to help you identify your existing audience, and to help you reach your intended audience. You can do a little of your own research, too. Pay attention to who is responding to your post and take the time to find out what groups they’re in and what other pages they like. Since social media is just that – social – you have to find the balance between delivering the content you want to communicate your message and the content your audience most wants to see. A set-it-and-forget-it social media content generator won’t work, because even if you can employe social media automation, you still need to engage with your users. If they respond to your content, you’re doing it right. And when they respond to your content, you need to respond to them.
Develop a Content Plan
It’s been proven that consistency wins the social media game almost every time. You need a social media posting schedule. The best balance, at least for Facebook, for example 2 educational posts (blog post and infographics) on Monday and Wednesday, 2 promotions on Tuesday and Thursday, one poll, one contest, and pure visual posts scattered in between. Don’t post more than twice a day on Facebook, unless you’re running a special promotion. It’s best to set up a content marketing guide for anyone who is posting content to your social plan so that you make sure you hit all the different types of posts you should be sharing.
You can download these excel tables for free here.
3C Post Formula
In the content you are sharing, it’s important to have three things to keep the traffic going to your website, landing page, or whenever you want it to go. This hold true for Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. You need:
- A compelling visual element
- A catching headline
- A compelling call to action (CTA)
Take a look at this webinar promotion:
50% out of all attendees of the webinar were from Facebook. You can monitor traffic you receive to your landing pages either with Google Analytics, Facebook or with PromoRepublic’s Statistics.
Remember, no good promotion can be done without Paid Ads. Read this tutorial to learn how to boost your posts on Facebook. Add this to the list of Facebook marketing tips for 2017 – you have to spend a little bit of money for exposure that will move the needle in terms of traffic and conversions.
This is the formula for conversion on any medium, and it works for social media, too. Keep in mind that Instagram still won’t let us link in our individual posts, so there you are only able to put your link in your bio, and make sure your image and CTA are strong enough that your followers will want to click.
For the best traffic, however, Facebook and Twitter are still your best bets, for now. In content marketing, learning what is current and what is changing can mean the difference between a successful social marketing campaign and…well…you know.
Types of content
The key to succeeding with social media marketing is to diversify your content. Think about it. If you are marketing on a particular social media channel it is just that – a channel. And while not every single post you make is going to be seen by every single follower you have, if someone were to click on your social media profile, your content needs to be cohesive and diversified. Some of the types of content you should be posting include:
- Promotions: discount, special offer, company news etc
- Blog Posts
- Visuals: infographics, videos, GIFs, memes
- Q&A
Promotions: discount, special offer, company news
This type of content is the best one to drive traffic to your website or landing pages. Nevertheless, I don’t recommend you to use much of it as 1. You will be too salesy and can be quickly unfollowed, 2. Offering too much discounts and special offers can make your product seem worths nothing. Also pay attention to the Facebook post 2017 size requirements – you can only have a certain amount of text in a visual post, so adjust your content accordingly.
Think over your promotions and offer them on special days, such as holidays significant events. Social media marketing automation from PromoRepublic can help you stay on top of your content calendar so that you don’t miss an opportunity to connect with your audience but don’t forget to engage with them as they engage with you.
Blog Posts
Yes, I know you are not a writer, but believe me – you need to run a blog for these simple reasons:
- You must be an influencer in your field
- You must teach and help your customers
- You can’t run special offers every day to drive traffic to your site!
If you don’t know how to promote your blog on social, dive into this step-by-step tutorial, where I share my secrets with you.
Visuals: infographics, videos, GIFs, memes
I’m sure you know that social media is almost about visuals. You also know that we, humans, accept visual elements first and just after read texts. To make people want to tap the link and visit your site, you need to make them want your caption to the post. Every second account is stuffed with great visuals, you know that it’s a common practice to hire a designer for creating these stunning pictures! Thank God you have PromoRepublic, but believe me, even this is not enough to win this tough social media competition.
Year 2017 is a year of new visual formats: Instagram Stories, Snapchat Videos, Facebook Live (sometimes, YouTube is seemed to be lost). Experiment with Gifs, create infographics, search for memes, launch live videos and stand out of your competitors accounts. Remember – if they like your visual, they will read your post.
Q&A Posts
Do you know your audience? Do you know what they like about your brand and what not? Have you learned what content type they expect to see on your page? And at least do you know what topics must be covered on the blog you run for them? If not, you are among those thousands of social media marketers whose marketing is a chore. They receive 2 likes per post a week (from wife and a neighbour), but they do post every single day. Probably they have some brand awareness, but is your client interested in this way of marketing? I’m sure you want traffic and conversions, and for this you need to know your audience as good as you know your children. How? Ask them. Q&A stands for Question and Answer. Make it regular: once a week ask them about their preferences, hobbies, favorite social network, or feature of your product/service they like most.
Where to Find Inspiration
This seems like a tall order, doesn’t it? If you’re a professional social media marketer, you may manage multiple channels for multiple brands. If you’re a small business owner, you may have a ton of other responsibilities to take care of. And, if you’re an agency, social media marketing might not be your biggest money maker yet. Either way, you don’t want to spend hundreds of human hours and resources coming up with content ideas that may or may not work. Sure, we give you plenty of categorical options above, but where do you find out what to write, what image to post, and what headline to use?
PromoRepublic’s Posts Ideas is a super, easy-to-use tool that lets you add stunning visual content that has pre-loaded headlines (in lots and lots of templates) that you can just add your logo to and go. You can create your own content too, but it’s crucial to take advantage of PromoRepublic’s professionally-designed templates to amp up your social media marketing without spending a lot of time and brainpower. The content calendar that PromoRepublic offers really does make it so easy.
How to schedule and monitor results
You can’t operate a social media account in a vacuum. It doesn’t do to come up with a content plan and continue with it without monitoring your results. The true way to create an optimal content plan that generates stable traffic is to test it, measure it, and then refine it if needed. Social media is a science, just like any other marketing tool, and you have to keep track of how your content performs before you can deem it “optimal,” right?
- Once you’ve scheduled your posts with PromoRepublic’s auto scheduler (and reposted blog content with the reposting tool, because you have to), you need to monitor the reach – the traffic you get from your efforts.
- PromoRepublic offers helpful analytics to help you monitor your reach and the success of your posts, and if you’re using a different social media tool or posting direct to social with different types of content, you may want to avail yourself of the channel’s individual insights. Facebook Insights and Twitter insights are helpful and can help you see if your titles, images and calls-to-action are working the way you want them to. If they’re not? It’s time to switch things up, do some A/B testing, and examine your audience to find out what you could be doing better.
There is no magic potion to make your social deliver results. It takes effort and strategy, and a strong social media marketing guide, but with PromoRepublic at your fingertips, you’re likely to succeed. Happy marketing!
