Social media is one of the fastest growing marketing channels. In fact, did you know that Instagram is projected to hit 1 billion monthly active users in 2018? It's phenomenal if you step back and think about it...
We wanted to start 2018 the right way, so in order to provide insight into social media marketing, we went to an expert. Meet Benjamin Dell, Founder and CEO of Missinglettr.
Missinglettr is a marketing tool that helps bloggers create social media marketing campaigns within minutes. Check out the the tool in action below.
The Interview
1. We think your tool is fantastic with the capabilities it offers! Given what you've seen, could you suggest some social media tips that every SMB would want to leverage in their social strategy?
One of the most common mistakes I see business make, is that they fail to implement a straight forward and consistent social marketing strategy for their blog posts. Most will tweet about their blog posts on the day they publish them. Very few will remember to send another one out a few days later and almost none of them will do anything beyond that.
Potential engagement and clicks back to their site are being left on the table as a result.
What we recommend doing, is come up with a basic calendar for each blog post, to help you schedule social content for the next few months.
So for example, you might send something on day 0, day 7, 30 etc. Missinglettr does all of this for you, but if you have the spare time you can just as easily do it yourself. Just remember to follow-through with it ;)
2. Sometimes SMB's mistakenly define social media success as having a large base of followers. While that could be helpful, it isn't the whole story. Let's focus on the data to define success. How can an SMB measure the success of their social efforts and what should they be focused on?
Great question and I entirely agree. It’s far better to have a small but loyal and engaged following, than a large fragment and disconnected one.
Focus on putting out quality, natural (non spammy) content and then track either how many people are clicking links back to your site or to be even more focused, how many are engaging with your content (linking, replying etc).
I’d personally much rather 10 quality replies to my social posts within a week, than 20,000 followers and no replies or likes.
3. Let's keep the focus on the social following. What are some tips on how to increase engagement with them? What type of social media content engages best?
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Keep things natural (i.e. use your usual tone of voice and writing style),
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Keep it relevant (what sort of content do those in your industry tend to gravitate towards)
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Be consistent (i.e. make sure they see you as a consistent voice in the space).
Combine these three things and you will see your engagement, trust and social worth go up.
4. Last question, if you were to look into your crystal ball, what future social media marketing trends do you see on the horizon?
Interestingly, Facebook is already starting to do this… and that’s the principle of emphasizing natural, value driven content.
Content that engages, not sells. Content that feels like it belongs, rather than forces itself upon you.
In short - we’ve seen the age of automation for automations sake. The quality and value of well thought out content is where we’ll end up circling back to. The marketing automation tools that will survive, are those that help amplify already great content.
For more tips and tricks on leveraging Instagram for your business, see the links below!