Advertising in the modern age means you can’t afford to ignore the social media sphere. The potential opportunities contained within this frontier are immense, but they can also be alienating to the uninitiated. Working with an understanding of the possibilities available, we want to demystify some of the different options you can utilize to adapt to the modern market and explore the marketing strategy on social media.
Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing strategy on social media can be undervalued by those of us not heavily engaged in social media scrolling, but it holds significant potential in driving customer engagement. Influencer marketing involves tracking which influencers appeal to your customer base, and leveraging a cooperative project to maximize visibility.
If you design a tool for a specific hobby, for example, you could search for a local influencer who engages with that hobby. Local scenes can flock to these minor celebrities, and having them use your goods or services can provide an appreciable boost.
Print Advertising
Social media systems can also adapt the classic approach of print advertising to great effect. This is as close as social media can get to traditional marketing with static ads, and it offers many of the same benefits. Print advertising on social media can even leverage user ad history to effectively target your ads to interested customers.
Gamification Marketing Potential
Another advertising approach experiencing appreciable social media interest is gamification. This is the process whereby elements of a product or advertising campaign provide additions that make them feel like a game. Gamification adds another layer of involvement beyond a direct product and service, which can help build brand interest.
The most common type of gamification that most people have experienced is loyalty points systems. These are often built directly into purchases or game mechanics through things like awarding special features and prizes the more a user is involved with a product or business. Collecting stamps for free coffee or sandwiches is also popular in our daily lives. These points and competitions commonly become popular topics of posts on social media. Whether showing off total reward points or even just how much you enjoy coffee with multiple stamp cards, they serve as interesting conversation pieces to share with the public.
Short-Form Video Content
Marketing strategy on social media is tailor-made for quick and snappy content, which makes it a perfect fit for short-form videos like on Instagram Reels or YouTube Shorts. These can provide a quick rundown of your goods or services in action, generating an instant impression to hook customers. A service that works in cleaning, for example, could use a video to splice before/after shots to show off hard work.
Similarly, a business that sells physical goods could demonstrate those goods in action and how they compare to older systems or outdated approaches. While you don’t want to mention competitors and gain unnecessary unfavorable attention, short videos can give potential customers a reason to pull the trigger on a new purchase with your business.
Guerilla Marketing
Guerilla marketing has proved a huge hit thanks to its ability to combine our online lives and our daily offline activity. The usefulness of guerilla marketing today can be more contentious, however, as it involves measuring potential rewards against the potential for upsetting customers sick of the online world in real life.
Guerilla marketing strategy on social media can still be effective, mostly when it offers the public more than just a view of your business. Coupons or competition entries are always welcome when implemented respectfully, and they allow you to effectively target your local community. This can spread fame on social media, boosting visibility and clickthrough rates.
The complexity of social media means there’s no one-size-fits-all solution. Finding the right approach means considering which areas your business is weakest in, and weighing the advantages that taking a step forward in these areas might supply. Done right, each can generate significant rewards for your business, it’s just a matter of leveraging the right method.
