Most businesses today recognize that social media is key to growth. If you’re not even on one platform, you’ll find it hard to reach potential customers. It might also deter some who are interested but can’t find much about your company.
While important, it’s still daunting to many to figure out the best ways to use it. How do you know the right platforms to use? What type of content should you post? These questions can make social media a confusing and overwhelming thing to use.
Below, you’ll discover some of the best social media ad strategies and platforms to use for your marketing strategy.
Why is Social Media Important in Retail?
There are a few reasons why social media is crucial in retail. Some of them being that it:
- Encourages more engagement.
- Boosts online sales.
- Helps you build unique customer relationships.
- Shows off your brand’s personality.
5 Social Media Ad Strategies
1. Work with Influencers
It can be a bit of an investment, but collaborating with influencers is an excellent way to expand your base. They can do reviews of your product which can give you superb publicity.
You can hire an influencer simply by sending a message to them or contacting them through their site. While some might decline, reaching out to numerous ones increases your chances for success.
If you don’t have the funds to pay a popular influencer, reach out simply to customers. In exchange for an honest review that they post, they’ll receive a free product they can keep.
It might seem too good to be true, but this can make a world of difference on social media. It gets your name out and shows that you’re serious.
2. Create Catchy Ads
Most people won’t take the time to look at a generic and boring ad. If you want to catch someone’s attention on social media, you need to be creative and bold. However, you need to do this in a way that reflects your brand’s personality.
As you make ads, consider your brand’s theme. You want to show off colors and words encompassing who you are as a business. For instance, if your brand revolves around minimalism, you don’t necessarily want bright and trendy hues and words. You’d want to use neutral tones and a subdued vocabulary.
Remember that you don’t want to plague the ad with text. You want to include only essential keywords and phrases to catch one’s attention. Too much information will make someone scroll by.
3. Post Often But Don’t Spam
You want to make sure to always post on your pages. But, at the same time, you don’t want to spam followers with a handful of posts each day. Ideally, post about one picture or update a day. This shows you’re available daily but aren’t overdoing things.
4. Follow Trends
Some businesses tend to shy away from social media trends because they think it might be cringey or put them in a bad light. If done right, trends are a great way to boost your way out of the competition.
People will watch trends and see how certain users interpret them. This is your chance to show off your products and services. Be sure to watch competitors though to see what they’re doing. This can give you a general idea of what you can do better.
To find trends, keep track of influencers in your industry. Their job is to stay relevant, so you’ll often learn of trends through them. Apart from this, check out various social media platforms. See what others are talking about a lot and make your posts revolve around them. Google Trends is a useful way to do this as it will give you a keyword to research.
5. Always Interact With Users
If someone leaves a comment or message, be sure to get back to them. Many businesses make the mistake of not taking these seriously. This is a problem as it shows poor communication and a lack of courtesy, especially if they’re interested in buying something.
4 Best Social Media Platforms for Retail
1. Instagram
Perhaps one of the best social media options for retail is Instagram. This is one of the most-used platforms, so you’ll reach a lot of people. Because it’s based on pictures and videos, you can show off your items visually.
Keep in mind though that because it revolves around images, you need to create high-quality content. If someone stops by your page and sees blurry and compressed images, they’ll likely move on.
Besides posting photos, use the Stories feature. You can use this to post more often, especially if it’s quick photos or videos that don’t match your overall Instagram layout.
2. Facebook
This social media platform remains a good option for businesses. Because most people have a Facebook page, you’ll have a better chance of reaching people. Apart from this, you can make a specific business page, so you can track traffic and other insights. It’s also pretty easy to use.
The one key perk of Facebook is that it gives you more filters than other platforms. Because of this, you have a better chance of reaching your target audience.
Facebook also connects to Messenger (a messaging system). With this, customers can contact you instantly with questions or comments. You can then quickly reply back.
3. Snapchat
If you want to reach a younger demographic, Snapchat is the way to go. Almost every user is under 35 and there are over 332 million daily active users.
This option is similar to Instagram as you can post pictures and videos. The main difference though is that these disappear after a day. You can also post to your Story to keep users updated on things. Better yet, you can include a link to your site that people can quickly visit.
4. YouTube
If you want to create high-quality and in-depth content, YouTube is a great option. This allows you to design visually pleasing videos to capture a potential customer’s attention. You can create long ones to post on your channel or capture Shorts (those that are a minute or less).
A good thing about YouTube is that since it’s owned by Google, you’ll get unique metrics exclusive to it. For instance, you can do keyword research and include these in your title or video description. This gives you a better chance of standing out.
Social media is essential in today’s world for businesses, but it can be tricky to use. By keeping the information above in mind, you can stand out from the crowd and create a strong social media presence.
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