Three social media marketing techniques to try out this year

Here are three features on the three most popular social media platforms that you might like to try out this year.

1. Publish on LinkedIn

It’s not just Influencers who can post to LinkedIn anymore—we all can. In fact the beauty of posting an article to LinkedIn is that you already have an existing audience who may check it out and share it with their friends. LinkedIn is the social media platform for business, so you typically get a lot more traction with your articles than if you posted, say, to Facebook instead.

Give it a go and share some useful tips, stories or anecdotes via an article from your personal LinkedIn profile. Just go easy on the hard sell. You’re there to educate, first and foremost. If people like what you have to say, make sure there is a link back to your website or a call to action to contact you via your LinkedIn profile. If you earn their trust and teach them a thing or two, you may just find it a very valuable source of leads.

2. Instagram Stories

If you haven’t noticed, the world is going crazy for Instagram. It’s now even got the exact feature that made Snapchat so popular. I’m talking about Instagram Stories, which allows you to record short videos and post them for your followers to see. The beauty of Stories is that you don’t need to worry about over sharing because they don’t actually stay on your profile … in fact, they disappear after 24 hours.

This is a great opportunity to humanise your business and give people a behind-the-scenes glimpse into your world. While you’re there, it’s worth posting a few pictures or videos to your regular profile, so followers can get a feel for what you’re all about. Remember, you can include up to 30 hashtags in the first comment area to maximise your visibility on Instagram.

3. Facebook Live

Doing a live broadcast straight onto Facebook might make your heart start racing a bit faster, but I still encourage you to give it a go (or find someone on your team who’s game!).  

The thing I like about Facebook Live is that you just hit the “Go Live” button and you’re off and racing. Nerves aside, all the other barriers have been eliminated. You don’t need technical skills to operate a video camera (you simply tap one button), you don’t need fancy editing software (it’s live and it records as you go), and you don’t have the excuses that used to hold us back with video. 

You know what excuses I’m talking about; with normal pre-recorded videos, many of us insist it must be ‘professional’, ‘scripted’, ’branded’ and ’highly produced’ to be good enough to publish. This means we inadvertently we delay ‘shipping’ the video and we miss the chance to share it with the very people who can benefit. Facebook Live is all about being real, authentic and interactive. Yes, the stakes are a bit higher and it’s scarier because it’s live streaming but I reckon you should try it out and see if you like it. You can communicate with customers, share what’s happening behind the scenes and maybe even have some fun!

To keep your marketing strategy effective, it is also good to document it, using a web strategy planning template.

Adam Franklin is the co-author of Web Marketing That Works, a professional speaker, and co-founder of Bluewire Media.