Get social media to work for your business

In the search for unique social media marketing strategies, we featured Facebook and the offerings it had for businesses last week. But while it may be a juggernaut in its own right, it isn’t the only platform that could bring great tidings for your company. Given how much time people spend on social media, I can’t think of a better audience to engage.

Instagram

With a focus on the visual, and a subscriber base of more than 400 million active users, you can’t ignore the potential of Instagram’s impact on your bottom line. Even Facebook saw this potential and decided to buy it for themselves! With Instagram, you can post images of your products to directly market them, run stop-motion videos of your products in action, run campaigns to increase user interaction and brand loyalty, or even reach out to influential users to promote your product. You also have the option of targeted ads that go beyond your following to people with interests that align with your brand. Alternatively, you can use the platform to market other less tangible aspects of your business, such as brand culture. One way this can be done is by showcasing systems and policies in your firm, or even your team, with the aim of recruiting people with similar interests.

YouTube

YouTube has been growing phenomenally in the last couple of years and is now rivalling Google as a search engine. This creates an excellent opportunity to reach potential buyers who are looking for solutions that your product provides. With simple how-to videos showcasing your product, brand, values and so on, you can organically drive traffic and business to your site or brand. You can also aggressively market your products using other products offered by YouTube, such as banner and video ads. Just like with Instagram, you can also employ influential users to feature some of your products and provide a link to your site to drive more traffic to either your site or YouTube channel.

Pinterest

Pinterest is fast becoming the de facto DIY social media site, providing a wealth of pictorial information for people with hobbies and interests, from interior design to baking. This means that you have a ripe audience that at the very least has an interest in the class of product you’re offering. One of the really useful features is setting up a buy button on your post, which upgrades a regular pin to a buyable pin. By doing this, one can accomplish the seamless conversion of a casual viewer into a buyer in seconds. For now, though, this feature is only available for US users, but going by its success, it could very well be rolled out to the rest of the world