The Key Social Media Platforms:
A Complete Marketing Guide
digitalmarketinginstitute.com
Table of Contents:
1.
Introduction to Social Media Marketing
2.
Facebook
3.
Instagram
4.
Twitter
5.
YouTube
6.
Snapchat
7.
Pinterest
8.
The Future of Social Media
9.
Implementing Your Overall Social Media Strategy
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1. Introduction to Social
Media Marketing
By definition, social media marketing is a form of digital marketing that
utilizes social networking platforms to increase brand and product exposure,
and cultivate relationships with consumers. Social media came into existence
when platforms like Friendster, Myspace and LinkedIn launched in the early
2000s. By 2004, when Facebook launched for college students, behaviors
that were once only relevant in real life became commonplace online –
everyone was collecting digital friends, and then sharing their ‘status’, photos
and comments for everyone to see.
Following the launch of YouTube and Twitter, in 2005 and 2006 respectively,
brands quickly began trying to figure out ways to engage these burgeoning
audiences in an authentic way. Facebook soon responded to this business
need by launching Pages and Facebook ads, while other platforms followed
suit with their own advertising offerings, as well as verified and business
accounts.
Soon, social media users began to regularly leverage the platforms to share
their support for brands – or air their grievances – forcing brands and
businesses to pay attention and recognize the value of social media not
only for marketing, but for customer service. With the launch of Tumblr, rich
media began to take precedent in 2007, later becoming king in 2010 with
the launch of Instagram. In 2012, social media marketing swelled – Facebook
saw the value of visuals and purchased Instagram for $1 billion, while also
solidifying itself as the leader in the social media space with 1 billion users.
2012 also marked the launch of visual purveyors Pinterest and Snapchat.
Now, with so many platforms on which to divide their time and attention,
social media users began to value shorter, more snack-able content that was
easily consumed on the go via mobile devices. Platforms like Vine – which
was subsequently purchased by Twitter – capitalized on this with its video
content maxing out at six seconds in length. Instagram later added video as
well, and now content that is useful and provides value is essential in order
to achieve engagement.
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In the beginning, one’s ‘friends’ were the center of the social media universe.
Now, social media is more self-centered than ever, as users demand hyperrelevant, personalized content from brands, and cutting-edge technical
innovation from platforms that enable them to augment their own content
through filters, lenses and 360-degree angles.
However, whether friend-focused or self-centered, all forms of digital
marketing operate within the ‘Paid/Owned/Earned ecosystem’, which means
there are platforms and mediums that you pay to market on, mediums that
you own, and ones that are earned through relationship building. Paid media
is a great way to promote content in order to generate more earned media,
and can also be used to drive traffic directly to your owned media properties.
With social media, you can achieve that by using platform-native ads and
paid influencers.
Owned media is an extension of your brand and creates additional avenues
for people to interact with your brand, and your brand’s social media
channels do just that.Earned media is the equivalent of online word of
mouth and is the vehicle that drives traffic, engagement, and sentiment
around a brand. Whenever someone likes, comments on, shares, or reposts
your brand’s content, that is earned media.
Social media marketing has many benefits, particularily the ability to build
relationships with new and existing customers. The agility of social media
enables brands to leverage these relationships as a real-time focus group for
new ideas and products, creating an almost instant feedback loop.
The adaptability of social media also allows for flexibility with your creative
– because of the aforementioned feedback loop, you will know very quickly
whether or not your creative is resonating with the desired audience. Lastly,
due to your ability to build meaningful relationships, quickly adjust creative,
and target for optimal relevance, social media generally yields a higher
return on investment (ROI) than most other marketing channels.
Next we will dive into each of the main social media platforms in detail.
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2. Facebook
Facebook, the largest social platform, enables people to share information
and content with other users around the world. Additionally, Facebook is a
platform for brands and businesses to connect and build relationships with
their consumers.
There are two ways you can engage and share information on Facebook –
through a Profile or a Page:
•
Profiles are for non-commercial use and represent individual people.
Through your Profile, you can amass friends and follow Profiles to see
public updates from people you’re interested in but aren’t friends with.
•
Pages look similar to personal Profiles, but offer unique tools for
businesses, brands and organizations, and are managed by people who
have personal Profiles. You can ‘like’ a Page to see updates from that
business in your News Feed.
As a business, it’s important to set up and maintain a Facebook Page as a
means to connect with your audience and deliver your business objectives.
One needs to first have a personal Profile on Facebook in order to create
and manage a Facebook Page. When creating a Facebook Page for your
business, it’s important to customize the Page in a way that both conveys
your brand identity and engages the target audience.
Your Page name should be the name of your brand or business. Similarly,
the Page’s URL should also be the brand’s name, but should be regional,
if applicable. For the About section, consider optimizing with a general
description, a mission, company information, or your story; the copy should
be brief, yet descriptive. By doing so, your audience can get a sense of
what your Page represents before they decide to like it. Your company’s
description in the ‘About’ section should be full of search engine optimization
(SEO)-friendly keywords relevant to your business.
Also, be sure to include a link to your company website. Having a trackable
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link back to your company’s website is important to be able to better
understand the efficacy of your Facebook Page in driving interest and traffic
to your business.
You should select a profile photo that is easily recognizable – such as your
company’s logo. Think of your cover photo as the portion of your Page that’s
‘above the fold’. If it’s distracting or poor in quality, people will be more likely
to click off the page. Many of the best Facebook cover photos include a
single subject as the focal point. They also use negative (or empty) space as
an advantage to make the subject, any copy placed there, or other elements
unique to Facebook, such as the call to action (CTA) button on Facebook
business Pages, stand out even more. Be careful not to hide content behind
your Profile photo or on the bottom of the photo where your Page name and
CTA button are located. Also, add your business location with a map link to
make it easier for customers to see where you are.
To make your Page more user-friendly, you should customize both the tabs
that appear to visitors in the left column, and the sections that appear in
the middle of your Page. Keep in mind that some tabs and sections can’t
be removed (such as Home, About, Likes, Posts, Photos, and Videos), and
others can’t be reordered (such as Home). You can only remove the following
tabs and sections: Events, Groups, Notes, Services, Shop, Jobs, Offers,
and Reviews. When you reorder the tabs on the left side of your Page, the
sections in the middle of your Page will replicate this order. For example, if
you reorder your Page’s tabs to make the Photos tab appear first, the Photos
section in the middle of your Page will also appear first.
Lastly, take a look at the Partner Apps and Services section to see which
apps are relevant and potentially helpful to your business. If your company
has brick-and-mortar locations, make sure to list them under the Locations
section.
Facebook Page posts are a way to generate engagement with fans and
target audiences. Through Page posts, you can share company news,
product announcements, tips, contests, events, stories, and more. Published
Page posts can be strategically targeted to gain greater distribution, both
organically (through the post composer) and via Facebook ads. Organic posts
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are published to your Page for free and are only visible to a fraction of those
that have liked or subscribed to your Page updates.
If you desire more reach and engagement, you can give your post a boost –
the Boost Post button allows you to quickly create a Facebook ad using your
published post. This ad can appear in different places on Facebook, and you
can show it to an audience of people you define. Boosted posts are also a
way to reach new people who are likely interested in your content but don’t
currently follow you on Facebook. Your boosted post can include a call-toaction button so that you can drive people to take other actions you care
about, like booking an appointment, signing up for a newsletter, getting in
touch with your business, and more.
Targeted, boosted posts can be shown to the audience of your choosing. You
can define a new audience based on things like location, interests, and more.
You can also create a custom audience based on contacts you already have,
or a lookalike audience based on people who’ve already shown interest in
your business Page.
Boosted posts can be placed on the desktop news feed, mobile news feed,
and Instagram. The Audience Network placement is available for boosted
posts that use video in the creative.
The budget for boosted posts is customizable. The boosting fee depends
on how many people you want the post to reach, as the payment depends
on the number of impressions the post gets with time. You can select a
pre-populated budget or set a custom amount. Boosted posts require a
minimum budget of $1 a day. The ad you create will look just like the Page
post it’s based on. The only difference is that your ad will appear with a
‘Sponsored’ label in the top-left corner and will have a CTA button in the
bottom-right corner, if you chose to add one.
So what does an optimized Facebook post look like? Highly engaged
Facebook posts typically are succinct. Attention spans are shorter than ever,
so it’s important to make your point – and make it quickly.
Additionally, being topical and relevant is key to engaging your audience in
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the most impactful way. You need to make clear what you want the audience
to do with the information you’re sharing, so be sure to include an explicit
CTA to get the most out of your post.
Lastly, including rich media in your post is imperative to engaging users in a
cluttered News Feed environment. Posts devoid of photo or video can easily
get lost in a scroll, and Facebook’s algorithm is optimized to showcase posts
that include native photo and video content.
There are four considerations to take note of when trying to enhance your
brand awareness activity on Facebook (and Instagram):
1.
Capture attention quickly: Across all mediums, but especially on
mobile, people make fast decisions about the content they want to
engage with. Capturing people’s attention from the first three seconds is
key to keeping their attention to communicate your message.
2.
Design for sound off: Given that most people will consume video
content in mobile feeds without sound, design your video to
communicate clearly in this environment. Think about the person
watching video in line in a busy coffee shop; they aren’t likely to want to
have sound on, and even if they did turn on sound it would be hard to
hear. Use text overlays and captions to illustrate the key points of your
video’s story.
3.
Frame your visual story: People watch videos on mobile just inches
from their face and often in vertical orientation, rather than turning their
phone to landscape. The way you visually tell a story matters.
4.
Play more: This is the most important consideration. We are still
learning what video content works well in mobile feeds, and the tactics
that make each piece of content successful may be different. Implement
a test-and-learn approach and always remain open to optimization.
Advertisers should also take note of the above when they are using their TV
commercials (TVCs) for brand awareness on mobile feeds. TVCs don’t adapt
well to mobile, so these four considerations are crucial.
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3. Instagram
Now on to Instagram. Instagram is a visual platform (owned by Facebook)
which is used to share moments and communicate one’s point of view to
the world. Like Facebook, there are two types of accounts you can have
on Instagram: Organic and Business. An Organic Instagram account is
more human and familiar to a social media audience. It is able to connect
more easily with other accounts, which allows you to engage and build
relationships over time with people interested in your business.
Organic accounts provide the ability to respond to comments on ads or
posts and move these communications to direct messages. When you
advertise with an Organic account your account name is clickable, meaning
people can visit your Instagram account, learn more about your business,
view your organic posts, and follow your account with ease.
Business accounts provide additional post analytics, allow you to utilize
paid advertising, and share contact and website information to help drive
business results. There is also an increased chance of Business accounts
being discovered through Instagram’s algorithm, and users can immediately
recognize that you are a business. Business accounts provide account
owners the ability to add contact details, a business address, a contact CTA,
and access to robust analytics with the Insights view. The latter provides
analysis of overall impressions, top posts (reach, impressions, engagement),
follower growth, location and demographics.
Instagram filters can be used by marketers on either type of account to make
content more visually arresting and appealing. It’s important to enhance
your content in a way that will encourage users to stop scrolling through
their feed and engage with your post. For marketers, the ‘You’ section of the
Activity feed is a great way to assess what content is resonating with your
followers. Also, depending on who you choose to follow, you can potentially
get great insights on what others are interested in, and when they’re active
on the platform, by reviewing the ‘Following’ section of the Activity feed.
‘Search’ and ‘Explore’ on Instagram can be used by marketers to research
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what type of content is trending and popular across the entire platform,
especially content that is similar to what your business is posting or engaging
with. Consider typing your business name or other keywords relevant to
your business in the search bar to get inspired by other compelling content,
and use this insight to help optimize your posts.
Through your feed or Search and Explore you may come across content that
you’d like to ‘regram’. The benefits of regramming are that:
•
It can highlight other content that promotes your business.
•
It can increase community interaction by showcasing user-generated
content, and thereby encourage community engagement by motivating
followers to post content worthy of being re-shared.
•
It can be used to promote content from other Instagram accounts that
your business owns.
If you choose to regram a piece of content, you must exercise best practices
to show goodwill to the community. First and foremost, you should always
obtain permission from the owner before reposting their content. If you’re
collecting content from a designated hashtag, be sure to clearly state that
the content could be selected for regramming.
After you’ve obtained permission and begin to post, give credit to the owner
by watermarking the content with their username, tagging their handle to
the post, or mentioning their handle in the post caption. Avoid editing the
content with filters or any other customizations other than to give credit
to the owner. You can also leverage third-party tools like Repost or Repost
Whiz, which provide the option to add an owner credit directly onto the
content.
The Instagram Stories feature is a great way for marketers to capture live
events, share exclusive promotions, bring followers behind-the-scenes,
test new ideas, and engage influencers by allowing them to take over your
account. Instagram now makes it very easy to share feed posts in one’s Story
by simply clicking the ‘Direct’ paper plane icon beneath the post.
Similar to Instagram Stories, Instagram Live is a great way to capture live
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events, and adds a greater degree of urgency for followers to engage.
However, when you finish broadcasting a live video on Instagram Stories,
you’ll have the option to share it to your Instagram Story for 24 hours before
it disappears. Alternatively, you can choose to discard it immediately. Sharing
the live video to your Story can also help garner additional engagement, as
live video replays include all the likes and comments from your original live
video. The number of viewers for your live video includes everyone who
watched the live video and the replay.
Another unique and useful feature of Instagram Live is the ability go live
with a friend. To do so, you simply add a guest while you’re broadcasting by
tapping the icon on the bottom right and tapping ‘Add’ to invite anyone who’s
currently watching. Once they join, you’ll see the screen split into two and
your friend pop up right below you. Your viewers can still like and comment
as they follow along. You can remove your guest and add someone else at
any time, or they can also choose to exit on their own.
This tactic can be used to partner with other brands or collaborate with
influencers in an authentic way. Instagram’s latest feature, IGTV, allows
creators to have ‘channels’ and post longer-form videos that exceed the
15-second limit of Story content, or the one-minute limit of Instagram video
posts. IGTV content offers full-screen, vertical video that can be up to an
hour in length.
While Instagram is a great marketing tool for businesses, it does present a
few limitations:
•
Once chronological, the content populated in users’ home feed is now
algorithmically based on user behaviors, making it difficult to share news
that is time-sensitive.
•
When posting video content organically, note there is a 60-second time
limit.
•
Additionally, organic posts don’t offer robust analytics to thoroughly
assess engagement and other performance metrics.
•
Organic posts also don’t allow for clickable links, which makes it
challenging to drive traffic to destinations outside of Instagram.
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However, marketers can overcome these limitations by following these best
practices for posting on Instagram:
•
Keep captions short and utilize them as a concise way to deliver your
message.
•
Don’t use more than three hashtags in the caption – three or more will
detract from the simplicity of the post.
•
Use pictures with your logo visible on the product or packaging, and
ensure the image has a strong focal point so it sends a clear message.
•
Post photos or videos of beautiful and unexpected moments that exude
authenticity and tell a story.
•
All your posts should share your unique business point of view.
•
As mentioned previously, it is a best practice to obtain permission to use
the content if you do not own it.
•
Utilizing social influencers is a great way to promote your content and
expand your reach.
•
Add emojis to your captions to demonstrate authenticity (remember
that Instagram is a mobile-based social media platform).
•
Create a range of content including photos and videos and leverage
the Instagram sister apps, Layout and Boomerang, to create additional
visual interest.
•
Keep your content and posting schedule consistent to give your
followers something to look forward to.
•
Include a CTA to encourage a desired action from your audience.
If you’d like to use more than three hashtags, ‘hidden hashtags’ is a useful
technique to make your posts looks cleaner and less spammy. You can hide
hashtags by manipulating the number of characters in your post caption, or
by inserting line breaks in your caption. While Instagram allows up to 2,200
characters in a caption, it truncates copy at 125 characters, at which point
users will have to click ‘more’ to view the remaining text.
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To hide your hashtags:
•
Type a caption that is 125 characters long.
•
Insert line breaks by clicking to your mobile device’s numeric or special
character keyboard.
•
Insert a period or dot symbol, and press return.
You can insert multiple line breaks or stop at one, and then add your desired
hashtags. It’s not recommended to exceed ten hashtags as it will detract
from your posts discoverability in the Instagram algorithm, and you may
end up being ‘shadow banned’. Shadow banning is when posts from your
account stop showing up in searches for specific hashtags on Instagram. It
can happen for a few reasons, but one of the most common is overusing the
same hashtag in multiple posts. So if you’re using the same 20+ hashtags in
all your captions, you’re potentially putting your content’s visibility at risk.
Play it safe by sticking to the recommended range and varying the hashtags
you use.
Posting Instagram videos comes with a different set of best practices:
•
With videos, it’s important to share your experiences. Show off what’s
happening at your company. Tell your story with video.
•
Show the behind-the-scenes (BTS) of events or even use video for realtime events that highlight community and excitement.
•
Create high-quality videos that share a strong point-of-view. You can use
programs such as iMovie to create premium videos and then post them
to your Instagram account later.
•
Be sure to highlight your brand with your story. In 60 seconds, you can
include a lot about your brand’s leaders, messages, and products.
•
Add hashtags to your video’s captions to make your video more
discoverable. For example, #video has been used over 27 million times,
which means that it’s in demand!
•
Take the time to select a compelling cover photo to help your video
stand out and look nice on your Instagram page.
•
If you have talking points in your video, it’s a good idea to integrate
text overlays. Many people scroll through Instagram news feed while
traveling or in noisy locations, so adding text helps to retain viewers and
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communicate the key takeaways of your video without sound.
As previously discussed, Instagram Stories is a great vehicle to show a raw,
authentic side to your brand as well as using social influencers to assist with
reach and credibility. Let’s walk through some additional best practices for
creating the optimal Instagram Story:
•
Show an authentic side to your brand through sharing photos,
interviews and exclusive BTS content.
•
Use social influencers with your content. Have them create Instagram
Story takeovers, so you can use them to their fullest capabilities to grab
users’ attention and share messaging points.
•
It’s important to use content that is Instagram-centric – do not just
repurpose content from Snapchat.
One way to create Instagram-centric content is by leveraging the native
Instagram tools to add custom elements to your content.
•
Diversify your Story’s content by adding videos and Boomerangs.
•
Add @mentions that notify and highlight targeted users.
•
Include a ‘see more’ link that directs to web content to help drive site
traffic and deeper engagement with your brand.
•
Have a clear narrative about any event you’re promoting. For one-off
events, make sure you let your community know what’s happening and
the events that are taking place through your Instagram Story narrative.
•
Include a CTA like a promo code or website at the end of your stories for
followers to take a direct, trackable action.
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4. Twitter
Twitter is a social network that enables its users to send and read short
(280-character maximum) posts called ‘tweets’ on a public platform. Part
of what differentiates Twitter from the other social platforms is that it is
very conversational in nature due to the fast-paced, real-time dimension
of users’ newsfeeds. Newsfeeds are called ‘timelines’ on Twitter and this
is an important differentiator from other social platforms, as it is the only
remaining platform that publishes posts in chronological order and not
based on an algorithm of user behavior. Twitter also introduced hashtags to
the social sphere, which made it a great place to discover content.
If you want to join the conversation around a major sporting event such
as the World Cup or Super Bowl, awards shows such as the Oscars and
Grammys, popular TV show premieres and finales, a business conference
or music festival, Twitter is a great engagement vehicle due to its real-time
feed (though you must be careful of sponsorship stipulations associated with
major events). People also often take to Twitter seeking immediate customer
service, so it’s important to have service representatives listening and
responding on Twitter regularly. Lastly, Twitter is great for sharing company
news and product updates.
One way to increase engagement on Twitter is to use Twitter Cards. Twitter
Cards allow you to attach rich media to your tweets that do not otherwise
impact the limited character count. Here is a list of the various Twitter Cards
available:
1.
Summary Card: This is the default card. It includes a title, description,
thumbnail image, and a link to your Twitter account.
2.
Summary Card with Large Image: This is the same as the regular
Summary Card, but with a bigger image and some additional
information.
3.
Photo Card: Photo only.
4.
Gallery Card: Includes up to four images.
5.
App Card: Links users to their devices app store to download a specific
mobile app.
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6.
Player Card: Shows video, audio, or media.
7.
Product Card: Shows product details (ideal for ecommerce sites!)
The last two cards are available only through the Twitter Ads dashboard:
8.
Lead Generation Card: Generate leads for products or services.
9.
Website Card: Encourage visitors to click-through to your website.
Twitter Ads is the paid media platform offered and developed on Twitter.
These objective-based campaigns are designed to help you achieve results
that drive action and add value to your business. Twitter Ads can help
businesses:
•
Grow a social following
•
Increase site traffic and sales
•
Grow content engagement
•
Increase video views
•
Increase app installs
•
Generate app re-engagement
•
Develop brand awareness
An optimized tweet first and foremost should be very concise – you must
stay within the designated character count or your tweet will not be
published. Similar to Facebook, your tweet should be topical and relevant
and have an explicit CTA. Keep your tweet simple and to the point for
maximum impact. With regard to hashtags, aim to have no more than two
– the more hashtags used, the less space you have for other commentary
and the more spammy your tweet seems. Just like Facebook, posts with
rich media stand out in the Home timeline, so it is recommended to include
photos, GIFs or video in your tweet.
Here are some other best practices for publishing on Twitter:
1.
Take care when you’re posting as tweets are not editable and need to be
deleted if a mistake is made, losing all accrued engagement.
2.
Tweet in response to existing conversations, using hashtags to increase
discoverability and visibility.
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3.
Add geo-location data to your tweets where appropriate, to make your
message more relevant.
4.
Leverage the Tweet Activity dashboard to track engagement in real-time.
You can compare your tweet activity and followers, and see how they
trend over time. Click on any tweet to get a detailed view of the number
of retweets, replies, likes, follows, or clicks it receives. You can also get
detailed insights into who your audience and engagers are, and even
export your metrics.
5.
As mentioned, character real estate on Twitter is crucial – utilize link
shortening tools to maximize tweet space.
If you have a key message about your business that you do not want to
get lost in user timelines, consider leveraging the ‘Pinned Tweet’ feature.
A pinned tweet becomes the first tweet that users see when visiting your
profile. Here are some examples of tweets that might make sense to pin to
increase visibility, reach and engagement:
•
Current and ongoing promotions
•
Time-sensitive campaigns
•
Alternative ways of reaching you, such as additional Twitter accounts or
your brand’s customer service email account
•
Old content that deserves to be revived
•
Your most recent top-performing tweet
•
A great photo or image
•
Important company announcements, like new hires, new products, and
more
•
A link to a blog post or resource that you created
•
A conference- or event-related tweet
For more Twitter best practices, check out this article with more detailed
tactics.
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5. YouTube
Owned by Google, YouTube is the premier platform for sharing both
short- and long-form video. YouTube’s user interface makes it easy to view
and upload videos (up to 128GB in size, or 12 hours in length, for verified
accounts). YouTube simultaneously democratized content creation and
enabled unprecedented levels of on-demand video consumption.
Brands and businesses can use YouTube to share any video content from
TV commercials and how-to tutorials, to product news, employee interviews,
press features, and more. YouTube channels and videos are prioritized
within Google’s general search result algorithm, so it behooves anyone that
wants to increase their audience and conversions to have a presence on
YouTube, as it will improve their related search results and increase visibility.
Everyone that has a Google account (whether it’s for Gmail or Google
Drive, for example) has the ability to create an account and a channel on
YouTube. With Brand Accounts, multiple people can access and manage an
account through their own Google Accounts without a separate username or
password. Every YouTube account has access to their channel’s analytics in
order to assess and optimize their performance.
The key engagement metrics on YouTube are: video views, watch time/
audience retention, subscribers, and viewer interactions (sharing,
embedding, commenting, liking and linking). Performing well in these metrics
creates more opportunity for channel owners, like custom channel URLs,
better visibility in search results, advertising privileges, and the ability to join
the YouTube Partner Program or a multi-channel network (MCN).
Google’s ownership of YouTube makes search optimization a key tactic
in overall channel optimization and discoverability. With that said, it is
important to consider popular and relevant search keywords when naming
your channel and filling in your ‘About Us’ section, as well as when titling,
tagging, and describing each video you upload.
For example, instead of ‘Company name’, consider ‘Company name:
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Keyword’ with the keyword being your industry, service, product, or any term
that helps further define your brand and heighten discoverability.
The first 48 characters of a YouTube channel ‘About Us’ page show up in
the YouTube search results, so filling this section with the most relevant
description of your channel or business is necessary for users to know
who you are – and also enables YouTube to serve up the most appropriate
content. The ‘About Us Advanced Settings’ gives you 100 more characters
to apply more metatags related to your channel. Providing this additional
context in your channel name and ‘About Us’ teaches YouTube (and Google,
by extension) how to effectively crawl and index your channel, which allows
search engines to better serve search results.
All videos uploaded to YouTube should serve a purpose: they should
inspire, inform/educate, or entertain. If your content falls into one of these
categories, it is likely to be more discoverable (and watchable) because there
is a demand for this type of content, thereby making it highly searched. This
type of content also tends to be the most evergreen, which is important
because videos with a long lifespan of relevancy will have the chance to be
repeatedly engaged with and hit a large audience, because the content will
have deemed useful over time.
According to the YouTube Creator Academy, “subscribers are critical to your
success on YouTube because they tend to spend more time watching your
channel than viewers who are not subscribed”. As mentioned, strong watch
time is critical because channels and videos with higher watch time are more
likely to turn up in search results and recommendations. So it’s important
to build a subscriber base who love your channel and keep coming back for
more.
Subscribers can also opt to receive notifications whenever you publish a
new video. Due to these notifications, subscribers are likely be the first to
see your newly published video, and often drive the video’s initial views
and contribute to increased discovery by non-subscribers. To help increase
subscribers, channel owners should definitely utilize the ‘channel trailer’
feature. The channel trailer is a short (30-60 seconds) video that welcomes
users to your channel by providing a quick description, but also helping
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to convert any skeptical viewers or customers. Make sure you verbally ask
people to subscribe, and reinforce that CTA via text overlays in the video.
To improve audience retention, it’s simple: post longer videos. The longer
and more compelling the video, the longer the potential watch time. Grab
attention quickly in the first 15 seconds, but stretch out the topic’s value
throughout the length of the entire video. Additionally, creating playlists
of relevant videos keep viewers engaged for longer. Prior to publishing, be
sure to customize your videos’ thumbnails – making the thumbnail colorful
and eye-catching with clear text about the video’s content will improve
viewership.
Like the subscription CTA, repeating relevant keywords and underscoring
them via visual text captions will not only bolster the impact of your video
and its key takeaways, it will also optimize your video in the case that a
viewer is watching in a ‘sound-off’ environment. At the end of every video,
you should be encouraging your viewers to interact with your video and
share the content. You can reinforce these engagement CTAs through
YouTube End Cards. These are end screens that connect users to external
websites and other social channels which can strategically bring viewers
further down the engagement funnel with your brand.
For more details on how to organically optimize your YouTube channel,
check out this article.
YouTube also offers paid advertising in the form of TrueView, Bumper,
Display, Overlay, and Sponsored Card ads.
•
TrueView provides video ads that appear before a video, and can be
of different lengths – they are offered in skip-able and non-skip-able
formats.
•
Bumpers are six-second, non-skip-able video ads.
•
Display and Overlay ads are desktop only.
•
Sponsored Cards display content that may be relevant to your video,
such as products featured in the video.
Learn more about the different ad types here.
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When preparing for a video ad campaign, consider these steps:
•
Define what you want people to do after seeing your ad (to go to your
website or YouTube channel, for example). Whatever you choose should
be tied to your business goals.
•
Understand your desired audience’s demographics (location, age,
gender, parental status, household income, and interests) to better
target your ads.
•
Choose long- or short-form ads – YouTube’s ad options allow you to
reach a captive audience before they watch a video (TrueView), show
up when customers search for videos (TrueView Discovery), or create a
short video ad perfect for smartphones (Bumper).
•
Know that you’ll only pay for ads if someone: watches your ad for 30
seconds; watches your entire ad; or clicks on your ad. Most brands start
with an investment of at least $10/day. Learn more about pricing here.
Finally, here are some success stories and additional resources for building
a paid campaign on YouTube.
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6. Snapchat
Snapchat is an image and video messaging, multimedia mobile app that can
be used by marketers for effective, ephemeral storytelling and showcasing
products through its exclusively vertical video format. Snapchat can only be
accessed via mobile devices and accounts must be tied to a phone number.
Snapchat’s unique ‘Discover’ channels provide brands with the ability to
serve ads and collaborate with publishers including BuzzFeed, the Daily Mail,
and The Wall Street Journal. The platform made the use of augmented reality
(AR) mainstream with its facial lenses (which can be sponsored by brands),
as well as other unique personalization and customization capabilities like
geofilters, Bitmojis, and drawing tools that heavily appeal to the muchsought-after Millennial audience.
Snapchat normalized the ‘stories’ feature in social media and ‘Our Story’ is
a large community narrative on Snapchat where users submit their content
to be featured in the global story viewable by all users. Snaps you submit to
Our Story can show up on Snap Map or in Snapchat’s native search, grouped
together with other snaps from the same location, event, or about the same
topic. Snaps that are submitted to Our Story may be viewable for different
amounts of time – some for only a day or two, while others can be seen for
much longer.
Submitting to Our Story is beneficial to marketers because it offers more
reach by exposing your content to a global audience and more potential
followers. Our Story also allows users to share a point of view within a
global context. By simply viewing Our Story, you can learn how others are
producing content and garner key takeaways to your own content strategy.
You can then see what kind of content gets chosen for a global audience,
and use these insights to create content to be featured.
Snapchat’s ‘Discover’ area adds an editorial component to the platform.
Updated daily, it’s a collection of Publisher Stories from top media and
content producers that you can subscribe to updates from. Publishers
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include The Wall Street Journal, Cosmopolitan, Mashable, Vogue, the Daily
Mail and BuzzFeed.
Through Discover, you can:
•
Discover best practices on how to tell a story on Snapchat from an
editorial perspective. Content can include quizzes, games, influencer
content, and much more.
•
Learn the advertising offerings on Snapchat, as there are many ads in
between content on Discover channels.
•
Realize the trending content that optimizes on Snapchat and bring those
elements to your strategy. It’s often celebrity and how-to content.
•
See how media companies are promoting their written content within
the Snapchat platform. Learn how to take long-form content and bring it
to the Snapchat platform.
While the primary engagement metric on Snapchat is views, another unique
way to measure engagement is through screenshots of your published
snaps. Snapchat notifies you when someone takes a screenshot of your
photo or video. The notification appears in your message feed, and as a
marketer, this is a good way to know if your content is resonating with your
audience; a screenshot indicates that users want to save and reference
your snap in the future. Consider posting time-sensitive promotion codes
or exclusive deals and encourage people to screenshot the post before it
disappears in 24 hours as a way to test the value of screenshotting.
Snapchat Lenses provide a fun way to augment your face, voice, or
environment. Marketers should leverage Lenses when appropriate to
show authenticity and knowledge of the platform. Sponsored Lenses are
also a great way for marketers to engage their audience and showcase
new products or highlight events. Data filters can be used by marketers to
emphasize the time of an event or promotion, show how a product works in
particular type of weather or temperature, and more.
Snap Map is a great tool to visualize where there is a concentration of
people, where your friends are, or where there is a featured event or place
of mass interest. As a marketer, it’s a unique way to keep track of events
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and places that matter to your target audience and relevant influencers,
as well as view snaps submitted to Our Story. Snapchat’s universal search
can be used to see breaking news and top stories near you, as well as to
browse stories by categories including animals, travel, attractions, food, and
nightclubs. Search makes it very easy for marketers to quickly find content
that is relevant to their business and target audience.
Custom Stories are collaborative stories that allow multiple Snap accounts
to share snaps together. There are two types of Custom Stories:
•
Group Stories: You and users you choose can create new Stories
together around a specific theme.
•
Geo-fenced Stories: You can create Stories that you and your friends can
add to when you’re at a specific place.
Custom Stories are a great way for marketers to brand company events and
engage consumers and influencers (and their followers) by allowing them to
contribute to the story and diversify the perspectives within the story.
Now let’s talk about the qualities of a fully optimized snap. The best
snaps:
•
Include a clear photo that showcases the product and focal point
•
Are entertaining so that consumers stay throughout the story and want
to learn more
•
Utilize native Snapchat tools to make it creative and interesting
•
Are part of a large narrative that helps tell a dynamic story
•
Include a link to drive your audience to your website or another social
platform
When creating a caption for your snap, remember these key things:
•
Keep it succinct and to the point
•
Ensure it is illustrative of the content you’ve created
•
Use colors that accentuate your photo or video
•
Use different font sizes to keep your content fun and engaging
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Snapchat’s Paperclip function lets you attach a website to a snap that friends
can swipe up to open in Snapchat’s internal browser. Previously, only ad
campaigns and Discover content could include links. But now, any snap
user can simply tap the Paperclip button in the Vertical Toolkit and enter a
link. Marketers can use this function to easily drive traffic to their company
website, share videos, event links, lead generation pages, and more.
Now that we know the components of an optimized snap, let’s discuss the
elements of a Snapchat story optimized for marketing:
•
The best Snapchat stories, obviously, should tell a story.
•
The story should use a mixture of photo and video and involve any
stakeholders key to your business or event.
•
The story should promote your product.
•
Consider having interviews with change-makers to make your story
more compelling.
•
Utilize all of the native filter options – adding geo-filters, data filters and
color demonstrate authenticity.
•
Overall, your story should be entertaining – don’t overload your story
with promotion as that could deter viewership.
As with the other platforms, Snapchat comes with some limitations for
marketers:
•
Content disappears after 24 hours.
•
There are limited analytics available.
•
There is a high barrier to entry for advertising with Snap Ads, starting
at $3,000/month; more custom offerings like Sponsored Lenses start at
$450,000/day.
•
Snapchat is a mobile-only app, and it’s linked to each user’s phone
number. This makes it a bit more challenging to grow a followership and
drive users to content.
•
Lastly, the user experience and interface aren’t particularly intuitive and
can be difficult to understand.
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7. Pinterest
Pinterest is not strictly a social network. It is not like the other platforms that
are built on connections with other people or brands – it is a platform where
users go to curate their best selves, a platform to ‘discover, save, and do’.
Pinterest consists of a network of pins and pin boards that serve as a digital
scrapbook of inspiration and educational content in the form of photos, GIFs
and videos. Pins can also be links to articles and websites which users want
to bookmark for future access.
There are two types of profiles on Pinterest: personal and business. Both
have similar features, but business profiles have access to Pinterest
Analytics. Additionally, if you create a business profile, you’ll get updates
from Pinterest on future products and services built specifically for
businesses.
Pinterest has proven to be a valuable search engine for new ideas and
tutorials. It’s also a planning tool – people use Pinterest to gather ideas and
inspiration for future events. Both of these behavioral insights are important
to keep in mind when conceptualizing content and campaigns on Pinterest.
According to Pinterest Business Best Practices, it’s wise to start saving
Pins that are relevant to upcoming trends, seasons, and holidays about 45
days before the event. For example, if you’re trying to launch a Halloween
campaign, know that search activity on Pinterest related to Halloween might
start as early as August. Want to know what Pinterest users care about
related to Halloween? Pinterest’s search suggests related keywords as you
type – type ‘Halloween’ and see what other words come up to know how you
can create content that serves the need state evidenced by the suggested
keywords.
Outside of cultural heat moments, it’s still a good idea to save pins regularly
– consistent, daily activity is better than publishing content in bulk. Unlike
Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, where the majority of your audience reach
typically happens in the first 24 hours, the reach of your content on Pinterest
will continue to grow over time as Pinners discover and save your pins.
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Similar to YouTube, evergreen topics will increase long-term relevance and
discoverability, and consistently publishing over consecutive months is the
best way to build a dedicated audience.
Audience building is important because Pinterest distributes your content to
your followers first to figure out what’s resonating. The more your followers
engage with your content, the more likely it will appear in other places on
Pinterest – like search results, feeds and recommendations – for all Pinners
to discover. Every pin lives on a ‘board’ that clusters related ideas.
Businesses often sort their boards by product category, interest, or seasonal
topic. When creating boards, the same rules apply as titling YouTube videos
– make sure your board names are specific and relevant to your audience
(and contain good keywords). Doing so optimizes your board for search.
Also, be sure to select a board category to help Pinterest better understand
your content. Pins are organized into columns, so vertical pins take up more
space and tend to stand out more on our platform. The ideal aspect ratio for
a vertical pin is 2:3 – 600px wide x 900px high.
Success on Pinterest is measured via one key metric: saves. When a pinner
‘saves’ your pin, they are demonstrating that it is valuable enough for them
to refer back to later, and depending on the pin’s content, this is a strong
sign of purchase intent. In fact, 93% of Pinners use the platform to plan
purchases, and one in two have made a purchase from a Promoted Pin
(more on that later).
Adding the ‘Save’ button to your website can lead to a fivefold increase in
your Pinterest saves. The Save button makes it easier and faster for people
to save your content. Another tactic for increasing engagement is publishing
a variety of images that appeal to different types of Pinners, but that link to
the same destination. Just add specific descriptions for each pin and it will
improve SEO.
Keep in mind, when someone clicks your pin, they’re looking for more
info about it. It’s therefore important that the pin’s image appears on the
landing page, and the page’s content matches the pin’s description. It’s also
important to confirm that your link works and loads quickly. As with most
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platforms, the majority of Pinterest’s traffic comes from mobile devices, and
when people are using their mobile devices they are likely on the go and in
a more rushed or immediate need state. You don’t want to lose a potential
conversion due to slow site loading time.
However, business profiles do have access to Rich Pins. These provide more
context about an idea because they show extra information directly on a
pin. Think of them as the equivalent of Twitter Cards on Pinterest. There
are four types of Rich Pins: app, product, recipe, and article – each of which
can help provide additional value to Pinners upfront and encourage deeper
engagement without having to take them off the platform.
As previously mentioned, people use Pinterest to plan. Brands and
businesses therefore see great results, because people’s behavior on
Pinterest gives clear signals on what your audience wants – and how to help
them.
Ads on Pinterest are called Promoted Pins. Brands can use Promoted Pins
to achieve a range of marketing goals, from building brand awareness to
boosting in-store sales. Pinterest ads help you reach people while they
actively decide what to do or buy next. An Oracle Data Cloud study showed
that Promoted Pins drive five times more in-store sales than ads on other
platforms. Pinterest ads are presented to pinners like regular pins, but
you pay to ensure they are seen by more people. Any business with access
to the Pinterest Ads Manager can buy this standard ad format to support
marketing goals like awareness, engagement, and traffic. There are a few
other types of Promoted Pins: Video, One-Tap, and App pins.
Learn more about Promoted Pins here and check out Pinterest’s Success
Stories section to see how various brands have used the platform.
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8. The Future of Social Media
So let’s talk about the future. With the launch of IGTV, there is a strong
stake being put into vertical video. Snapchat pioneered vertical video, and
Instagram Stories made it ubiquitous. Now everyone sees the value in
utilizing the entirety of a screen’s real estate and lowering the barrier to
shoot/view by eliminating the need to turn your phone landscape. IGTV
will likely become a strong competitor to YouTube, at least with regard to
enabling quick publishing of more long-form user-generated content (UGC)
that isn’t hyper-produced and polished. IGTV will provide a new avenue for
existing online influencers, and will empower and give a new voice to anyone
who endeavors to dabble in episodic content or vlogging.
Video in general will also continue to grow. Smartphone camera specs will
continue to improve, and drones, AR/VR, and 360°-enabled devices will
become more widely available and affordable, democratizing the ability to
capture dynamic video. This will subsequently up the ante for production
quality, as viewers will grow to have higher expectations for content and will
need more bells and whistles to stay engaged for longer.
Venture Beat posits that there will be a convergence of AR, VR and chatbots
(the virtual assistants many companies have been adopting for efficient
customer servicing). This could be an interesting wager. Facebook Messenger
is the leading chatbot, Facebook purchased Oculus (one of the leaders in
VR), and is bringing VR headsets to the broader consumer market. Overall
though, this is illustrative of a larger endeavor to bridge real-life and digital
experiences into one’s everyday life, integrating AR and VR into day-to-day
tasks like shopping or watching sports, and not just relegating AR and VR to
special events.
However, social media and digital marketing in general can only grow as fast
as consumer technology allows. Part of what allowed social media to grow
so rapidly was the improvement of smartphone technology and functionality
coupled with attainable price points. Suddenly everyone had a smartphone
and was able to download apps and access these platforms on a whim, and
not just while in front of a computer.
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Connectivity is predicted to improve in the coming years with 5G
smartphones becoming more mainstream. Faster phones will allow social
platforms to have more complex functionalities without sacrificing quality.
For example, in addition to faster browsing, 5G phones would offer better
video call quality, UHD and 360° video streaming, and instant connectivity to
the cloud. It will also be interesting to see how facial and voice recognition
will impact how we interact with social apps in the future, especially with
regard to the conversation around privacy and consumer data protection.
Finally, Livestreaming on Facebook and Instagram will remain popular
(despite a previously perceived user preference for on-demand video). The
‘live’ element creates an urgency and exclusivity around content in the same
way that Snapchat’s ephemerality initially created such a flurry of excitement
and interest. Brands and businesses are seeing much success with this
format, despite platforms augmenting algorithms in favor of brands having
to ‘pay-to-play’.
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9. Implementing Your Overall
Social Media Strategy
Now that you know how to maximize each social media platform, let’s
discuss how to leverage each platform to form a cohesive social media
strategy. As a social media marketer, you have to be social at the core. You
need to inspire, facilitate, encourage, and participate in conversations to
help connect with others and subsequently build relationships. Building
relationships in your community increases brand affinity and trust.
Communities are an important component of social media as they:
•
Build engagement – every act of engagement brings your users closer
to your brand, which increases your brand’s visibility on the platform
and attracts more potential customers to your profiles.
•
Create a welcoming, engaged environment that fosters brand affinity
and loyalty; community members will reference your brand as the entity
responsible for their positive experience/growth.
•
Are incubators of inspiration because they encourage members to
share their own stories, which in turn can create connections and inspire
others to action.
•
Foster trust – if you can get your followers to function as a community,
it will be a sign that your brand is trustworthy, and you’ll attract more
followers and earn higher retention rates as a result.
If not already evidenced by the rise of ‘Stories’ as a platform feature,
storytelling is key element of establishing community and garnering
engagement on social media. Storytelling has always been of cultural
importance due to its ability to entertain, educate, and instill moral values. In
social media, stories are a great vehicle to highlight your brand, connect to
your community, and build relationships in an educational and entertaining
way that makes it highly consumable and authentic. Be sure to leverage
Facebook and Instagram Stories, as well as YouTube and Snapchat, to
humanize your brand and build credibility.
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Storytelling is one way to provide inspiration, relatability, and initiate
conversation. However, to build these communal relationships, it’s
important to remember that social interactions should be a value exchange
– you shouldn’t just push content out without continuing to engage via
the comments you receive (which rewards user engagement and shows
appreciation). As mentioned in our YouTube and Pinterest sections, make
sure that whatever you’re saying either entertains, inspires, or provides
utility. Doing so ensures your content will be more resonant and impactful
for the community.
Those looking to implement a successful social media strategy must also be
clear on what business goals they’re trying to achieve. This can be achieved
by grounding yourself in the Buyer’s Journey (or similarly, the Consumer
Decision Journey). The marketing functions of the buyer’s journey are:
Campaign Planning, Consumer Awareness, Purchase Conversion, Customer
Retention, and Analysis & Optimization.
Social media can aid in all points of the buyer’s journey, and serves all
marketing functions depending on your objectives. For example, if you want
to increase awareness to ensure you’re included in the consumer’s initial
consideration set, you should set your campaign objectives for ‘reach’ and
use educational and/or storytelling content. If you want to drive purchases,
make sure your post/ad types are optimized with the appropriate CTAs to
create a frictionless path to conversion.
You should also know how each objective aligns with your campaign’s key
performance indictors (KPIs). KPIs are the metrics you track to understand
whether your campaign is meeting your business goals. For example,
an objective of ‘awareness’ can be tied to reach and impressions, social
engagements, follower growth, views, or app downloads. A ‘purchase’
objective can also be measured by clicks, as well as app downloads. If your
objective is to generate leads for your business for customer retention, you
can track sign-ups and app downloads.
A social media strategist should be knowledgeable of the ways social media
fits into the larger paid/owned/earned digital marketing ecosystem. Paid
media is a great way to promote content in order to generate more earned
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media, and can also be used to drive traffic directly to your owned media
properties. With social media, you can achieve that by using platform-native
ads and paid influencers.
Owned media is an extension of your brand and creates additional avenues
for people to interact with your brand, and your brand’s social media
channels do just that. Earned media is the equivalent of online word-ofmouth and is the vehicle that drives traffic, engagement, and sentiment
around a brand.
Earned media refers to whenever someone likes, comments on, shares, or
reposts your brand’s content. The best social media strategies have paid,
owned and earned media working in concert to reach the right person, with
the right message, through the right medium, at the right time.
In order to do that, one must know where their target audience lives and
what the ideal use cases are for each social media platform. Facebook, and
Instagram by extension, are great for large-scale reach. Both platforms also
boast a variety of ad types with the opportunity for customization, as well as
detailed targeting capabilities.
People use Twitter as a sounding board for anything they feel passionate
about right in that moment, making it prime for real-time participation in
a relevant cultural tentpole/event, and for reaching an audience interested
in politics, news and sports. Customers also take to Twitter to share their
positive or negative experience with a brand – so be sure to optimize your
resources to provide an adequate level of customer servicing support.
Twitter is also great for sharing company news and product updates.
YouTube is great for longer-form storytelling and HQ-produced content, as
well as large-scale reach. Snapchat is starting to be eclipsed by Instagram
Stories due to its reach; however, it still captures the hearts of Millennials for
its innovative lenses and customizable geo-filters. If you want to impact the
Millennial audience – or have a hand in pop culture – leveraging Snapchat
filters and lenses, or working with a Snapchat influencer, could prove
impactful.
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Finally, Pinterest’s top categories are beauty, food, travel, health and fashion
– if your business is in any of those verticals it would be very smart to
prioritize Pinterest within your strategy.
Let’s walk through the fundamental steps necessary for building a social
marketing campaign. First, you must set social media goals that align with
your company’s goals. Next, break down these goals into specific tactics. You
should take time to prioritize your plans, set timing estimates, and assign
tasks to your team. And once the campaign is under way, be sure to analyze
and adapt the plan as you go.
Again, every campaign should have a clearly defined target audience.
Knowing your audience is necessary to create the most resonant creative.
Your creative should also be designed as mobile-first. As discussed, most
social media consumption happens on mobile devices, so it’s important to
design content that is best viewed in a mobile environment. The creative
should have branding clearly upfront, but in a subtle fashion that avoids
looking too promotional. It’s ideal to launch your campaign with at least four
creative variations so the platform’s algorithm can optimize against the bestperforming content. As such, you should be updating your creative often to
avoid customer fatigue.
If you’re leveraging multiple social media platforms within your campaign:
•
Do not syndicate the exact same creative across all platforms – it’s lazy,
and a surefire way to stand out negatively as a brand that is unfamiliar
with the nuances of each platform and their audiences.
•
Do design creative that is in-line with each platform’s best practices,
but remember it’s also helpful to make your content look like ‘matching
luggage’ – that is, they all have different sizes and uses, but they’re part
of the same set. This will increase brand recognition and affinity.
•
Lastly, make sure the posts you publish on each platform are trackable,
so that you can compare their performance.
If you adhere to all of these principles and heed the nuances of each social
media platform, it will yield a very successful social media strategy. Best of
luck!
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