Expanding Reach with New Promotional Channels for Social Media Marketing
The obvious way to expand your marketing reach is by finding new customer groups. Still, this can be a challenging process, so if you’re looking to expand your marketing strategy on a smaller scale, you’ll find it easier exploring new promotional channels for your marketing mix.
Basic social media marketing tasks should already be part of any business’ promotional strategy. If you’re already familiar with the Facebook posts and Twitter tweets, the techniques below will help you upgrade your social presence.
Change your Posting Strategy
If you’ve been having the same routine for social posts, sharing promotional quotes on Monday, blog posts on Tuesdays etc., you can try and mix it up a little. Even if your current efforts seem to bring results, keep in mind that it’s possible an untested strategy may push your numbers even higher.
Take the time to analyse your competitors’ social channels to see what works for them. Use the acquired insights to augment your own campaigns and test it out. In the worst case scenario, you can always go back to your original strategy if the new strategy fails to improve your results.
Expand to Another Platform
If you feel like you ran out of options on Twitter and Facebook, try out a new platform. Get a new account on Pinterest, Instagram or Tumblr and test the waters.
You will want to pick the platforms that are still relevant for your target audience. But don’t wait for ideal conditions for you to try something new. Break out of the routine and give a new social platform a shot. If you don’t see results after a month’s worth of effort give it up and move on to a new platform or adopt a new strategy.
Start Up Paid Advertising
Most companies start their social media promotion campaigns with free posts on platforms like Facebook or Twitter. In some cases it may be getting harder to get messages to your audience. To expand your reach, a logical step would be to use paid advertising on these platforms. It’s not an innovative way of marketing, but it’s one that works well for most businesses.
If you start with paid social advertising, there are a few things you need to keep in mind:
- Start on the social platform that you know well and already have the most organic success. Generally, businesses have one social channel that outperforms all the other — start there with your paid advertising efforts.
- Have a clear idea about your budget and expectations. Paid social ads are best used as a tool for generating immediate brand awareness.
- Learning a new paid advertising program can be challenging and time-consuming. So instead of wasting effort that may be better spent elsewhere, either look for campaign templates that you can apply to your own accounts or look for an experienced third party to help set up your initial round of campaigns.
