Most marketers usually think that the best way to promote and sell their content is by spending more on marketing. However, more marketing spend does not always translate into more engagement and sales.
And it isn’t like becoming a Digital Marketer is like learning Rocket Science. As more companies are jumping or running towards a digital ecosystem, the requirement for Specialists in the field is at an all-time high. Ad spending on Digital mediums has increased significantly.
Nevertheless, social media Ad spending has continuously grown over time and is set to reach about USD 36 Billion by this year (2017), making for about 16% of all digital ad spending globally. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean that Ad spending is being done as effectively as it should be. In fact, according to a survey done by Adobe, nearly one-fifths of the marketers don’t really know what they are doing.
If you want to make sure that you are effectively, promoting and selling your content on social media, below are some effective ways for you to do so.
There is a right time when to share, not share and what to share!
In order to be effective promoting your content, you need to engage with audiences when they are most active online, and wherever they are most active. Additionally, audiences will usually be looking for certain kinds of content at specific times and days of the week and you need to make yourself aware of this.
Source: blog2social.com
For example, on Facebook, engagement is higher by 18% on Thursday and Friday. On Fridays, Facebook use increases by 10%. Since most people are looking forward to having fun over the weekend, this is a great time to share happy content that will match your audience’s mood.
Make use of imagery
Visuals have been repeatedly proven to be a great way to supplement and complement the content we are trying to present and promote. With visuals, the idea is to make the content easier to digest, share and reference.If you are not already capitalizing on the effectiveness of visual content, then this is probably the one thing that will make a huge difference for you. Statistics show that people process visual content 60,000 times faster than text and content with relevant visuals gets 94% more views.
Source: socialmediatoday.com
Visuals can be used for everything from creating a branded feature image to share your social media posts, to having the core message in the form of a visual.
Optimize your posts for each platform
Since you are not the only marketer trying to compete for attention in a specific social media platform, the more optimized your post is, the more effective it will be.Each social media platform has features that can be utilized to target audiences specifically. This can usually be done through customizing images, videos, headlines and the description of content you want to share.
For example, tagging your content with hashtags is a great way to make your content get discovered more on social media platforms such as Twitter.
Source: Twitter @Airbnb
The Perfect Social Media Post (for driving traffic to your website)
Infographic courtesy of: Exprance.
If you want to further optimize for each social media platform and learn how to use social media to make sales, then here are the key steps to remember. First, you must determine the best way to connect with prospects. You can do this by identifying the right communities to join and creating a persona for yourself there. Once you have successfully established yourself in a community where your prospects participate in, you could connect with them, engage in conversation and ultimately build a relationship. Let me take you through that in detail.
Let’s say you plan to engage in Instagram. In this case, getting the right influencers to help promote your content will be the key. Also, continuously engaging with relevant instagrammers and the relevant hashtags and categories will help.
Whether it is through a shared Pinterest board, a Facebook group or a LinkedIn community, becoming a member of a community will give you more opportunity to naturally share, promote and sell your content. For example, by joining a shared Pinterest board you can quite easily improve your Pinterest boards and grow your following by connecting your other social network profiles, promoting your individual boards, following others, inviting audiences for events or contests, and keeping your audience highly engaged through your content.
Source: blog.bufferapp.com
At the end of the day, you need to enjoy promoting and selling your content just as much as you enjoy creating your content and this is probably the best formula of all for promoting and selling your content most effectively.
If you want to further optimize for each social media platform and learn how to use social media to make sales, then here are the key steps to remember. First, you must determine the best way to connect with prospects. You can do this by identifying the right communities to join and creating a persona for yourself there. Once you have successfully established yourself in a community where your prospects participate in, you could connect with them, engage in conversation and ultimately build a relationship. Let me take you through that in detail.
Engage communities in your chosen social media platform
Depending on your content, your chosen audience and your goals, one or two social media platforms will stand out as a clear favorite. When you find a social media platform that you like, it is a good idea to find a community within the platform that you love to engage.Let’s say you plan to engage in Instagram. In this case, getting the right influencers to help promote your content will be the key. Also, continuously engaging with relevant instagrammers and the relevant hashtags and categories will help.
Whether it is through a shared Pinterest board, a Facebook group or a LinkedIn community, becoming a member of a community will give you more opportunity to naturally share, promote and sell your content. For example, by joining a shared Pinterest board you can quite easily improve your Pinterest boards and grow your following by connecting your other social network profiles, promoting your individual boards, following others, inviting audiences for events or contests, and keeping your audience highly engaged through your content.
Create great content, post it and repeat
There is plenty of evidence to show that reposting content has its advantages. By using multiple images, headlines, hashtags and such, you can gain more traffic. Reposting allows you to, re-engage your audience, and catch new attention by fine-tuning your posts for different audiences and reach different time zones and regions. Source: blog.bufferapp.com
The Bottom-line
There are many other ways you can capitalize on social media in order to effectively promote and sell your content. It is of course up to you to see what best fits your goals, your content and your temperament.At the end of the day, you need to enjoy promoting and selling your content just as much as you enjoy creating your content and this is probably the best formula of all for promoting and selling your content most effectively.
