5 Winning Social Media Strategies From Professionals

No company in the world can shy away from marketing its products on social media. The medium is often the most effective tool to directly communicate with customers. A well-run social media campaign which goes viral can attract a company millions of new customers.

We spoke to a few professionals about the strategies that anyone who wants to up their social media game should use.

1. Be conversational

Divya Mody, social media head at SheThePeople.TV, says that one must always be interactive in one's posts.

"Always make your social media posts conversational and interactive. It makes your message more personal and gets you response and better engagement. Keep the language simple, but never dull," she says.

Chaandnee Wasan, who looks after PR and Marketing at fashion house, Ensemble, says that the way to do this is "Think about what would catch your attention in the social media clutter and go from there." 

2. See what interests the customer

Another strategy is to always look at events and campaigns from the customers's perspective. Why would they be interested in it? "For example, if you have an event coming up, don't say how it's the most anticipated event for your company. Rather talk about why people should join you and how they will benefit from it," says Mody.

An example of this is the World Wildlife Fund's Last Selfie Campaign, where they used SnapChat to get their message across.

Source: The Pineapple Agency

3. Have a sense of humour

Mitchelle Carvalho, co-founder of Cogmat Digital Media Marketing Agency, says that in order to engage the customer, one must keep it real.  "The only strategy that makes your personality or business stand out, is keeping it real."

"Have a sense of humour (especially, if the joke is on you), be respectful of others' opinion on your brand or product, be gracious in accepting faults and promise only what you can deliver."

For example, GoPro, recently released a video which showed a cat skateboarding! The video got more viewers for the company than any of its other offerings on Instagram in the entire year. After all, who doesn't like cat videos!

Watch the video here:

4. Research competition

"Social Media Analytics is an important tool to measure success and plan future campaigns," says Ensemble's Wasan. Look up your competitor's Facebook and Instagram pages and see what people post. What are the most common grievances, what seems to work? What can you do to stand out from the clutter?

5. Attractive headlines and photos!

Visually attractive posts will likely engage the audience more. Content will also become more shareable if posts are well crafted and are visually innovative, says Wasan. For example, Expedia ran a contest on Instagram where it promised to give the winner a free trip to Rio. Its marketing strategy was to share stunning pictures of the city to draw in users. The company often uses photography to run its contests on Instagram and promote itself.

Source: Instagram

Also Read: Cracking Social Media with 4 Easy Hacks With Monica Jasuja