6 Creative Ways To Integrate Social Media Into Your Next Marketing Campaign
Social media is a key part of a comprehensive content marketing strategy, allowing your brand to connect with your audience on a deeper level and drive growth—but it’s not enough to simply gain followers and expect more sales.
If you want increased reach, more leads, or higher conversion and return on investment (ROI) from your social media and marketing efforts, you need to find ways to grab your followers’ attention and get them more engaged with your brand. That’s why we’re sharing six creative strategies you can incorporate into your next marketing campaign to help you connect with and engage your audience.
1. Take Advantage of Social Media Trends and Current Events
Creating relevant content that also entertains your audience is important in the social media landscape. Developing social media content around a platform’s trending topics, memes, or current real-world events is a great way to show that your brand is tuned in and doesn’t take itself too seriously. Simply look at a platform’s trending topics or do competitor research to see what’s resonating before crafting your campaign.
Posts based on trends or so-called hashtag holidays like #RandomActsOfKindnessDay or #NationalDonutDay help you maximize your visibility, but be aware that these posts will have a short shelf-life.
2. Create Interactive Social Media Campaigns
A great way to boost attention and engagement with your marketing efforts is by making them interactive. Instead of just using static images or text in your social media posts or ads, get your target audience involved by incorporating questions and asking their opinion.
For example, you could post a photo and ask your followers to caption it in a comment or run a poll where your followers choose what content you post about next. Interactive social media content allows your followers to engage with your brand instead of passively viewing posts and ads, providing a better experience to help you increase leads and conversions.
3. Team Up With Another Brand
Partnering with another brand, also called co-marketing, can be a win-win situation: You’ll each gain exposure to the other’s social media audience to build awareness and grow sales. You will want to partner with a brand in your same industry; just avoid any of your direct competitors.
Look for brands with overlapping target audiences or complementary products or services. You can create social media content together, hold joint giveaways, or promote special product bundles to help grow your leads and increase engagement.
4. Get Personal with Live Streaming Events
Many social media platforms, including YouTube and Instagram, allow users to broadcast and interact with their followers in real time. Live-streaming is a great way to connect with your target audience and build a community because viewers can leave comments or ask questions as your event plays out.
Brands can use live-streaming to introduce new products or services, hold customer Q&A sessions, conduct presentations, share updates, give behind-the-scenes tours, and more—making it easy to integrate into your next marketing campaign. Live-streaming is a great way to create a more engaging and personalized experience for your audience.
5. Try Informational Ad Campaigns
Social media users are great at spotting and scrolling past traditional advertising campaigns, which direct users to a product or sales page. Informational ads work differently, redirecting people who click on your ad to a how-to guide, one-page tutorial, blog post, or other informational page. By taking this approach and sharing informative, valuable content instead of being “salesy,” you’re more likely to engage users and build trust with your audience.
What does this look like in practice? Your business would run an ad campaign, but instead of a call-to-action (CTA) of “buy now,” you could use “learn more about how (X) works.”
6. Collaborate With Influencers
More and more brands are seeing the benefit of collaborating with influencers. Research shows that 69% of consumers trust information from influencers and people they know more than information brands share. Additionally, 81% of consumers reported that an influencer’s posts on social media spurred their interest in a product or service.
Partnering with a social media influencer allows you to promote your products or services organically while growing your audience. You can collaborate to develop more engaging content through product reviews, contests, or unboxings. An influencer’s honest opinion can go a long way toward building trust with consumers. Just remember to partner with influencers that align with your brand’s values and have followers in your target market.
Top Tips To Keep Your Audience Engaged
Here are some important tips to follow to ensure greater engagement:
Know Who Your Audience Is
The more your content applies to your audience, the more likely they are to engage with it and become leads or customers. Understanding your audience’s demographics, interests, preferences, and behaviors will help you develop relevant content for your social media channel. Remember that your audience’s demographics and interests may differ between platforms.
Create Interactive and Relevant Content
Social media posts asking followers questions or including polls, quizzes, or fun challenges are a great way to move people from casual observers to engaged followers.
Be Consistent
Your brand needs to publish social media content regularly and use a consistent tone to help your followers understand what they can expect. This step not only strengthens your brand identity but also helps build trust with your audience.
Respond Promptly
If a follower leaves a comment, asks a question, or sends you a private message, it’s important to respond quickly. Responding to users shows you value them and want to engage with them, which is essential for building trust with leads and encouraging customer loyalty.
Follow Platform-Specific Best Practices for Best Results
Since every social media channel is different and relies on its own algorithm to promote content, it’s important to follow platform-specific best practices to maximize your reach and engagement.
Use high-quality images and videos that align with your brand.
Post a mix of Reels, Stories, and Carousels to ensure your audience stays engaged.
Take advantage of quizzes, polls, and other interactive features in Stories.
Avoid using too many hashtags, which can overwhelm your audience, and instead stick to a few highly relevant to your post, audience, or brand.
TikTok
Create short-form videos that educate or entertain your audience while staying authentic to your brand.
Use a vertical 9:16 aspect ratio for the best viewing experience.
Take part in current trends and challenges to increase reach, and make sure you use any relevant hashtags.
Use filters, audio, and formats that align with your brand.
Use a mix of interactive, meaningful content types (infographics, polls, tutorials, memes, etc.) that keep users engaged on the platform.
Take advantage of Facebook Stories for short-form video content.
Ensure your content is mobile-friendly.
Optimize ads and content by analyzing your performance data.
Develop a mix of educational content that adds value, including videos, infographics, or monthly newsletters in addition to your regular posts.
Establish your brand’s authority by sharing thought leadership content and offering actionable advice in your posts and LinkedIn Groups.
Post consistently and ensure you adhere to LinkedIn’s professional community policies.
Tag other brands or users in your posts to increase reach and engagement, and include a few relevant hashtags in each post.
Ready to transform your content marketing strategy for more reach and engagement? Schedule a free consultation with Comma to learn how.
