The majority of businesses around the world now use social media to bring in new customers, increase brand awareness, and stay in touch with past customers. But, few do it as effectively as they could.

It is important to stand out from other brands through creative social media marketing to attract new customers, as well as maintaining existing ones. This article will take you through 5 secrets of social media marketing and how you can effectively use them to supercharge your online persona or business.

1. The Benefits of Loyalty

Elijiah Pitman, founder of @funnysgod and CEO of CloutMedia Marketing, works with startup businesses to help them reap the benefits of a social media presence as soon as possible. One of the methods he encourages is to implement giveaways or loyalty campaigns.

Pitman says, “One of the best ways to engage and build a relationship with your customers is to reward them.” Social media platforms are perfect for hosting giveaways and competitions, which help build excitement in your audience, get shares, and imprint a lasting, positive image of your brand on them.

Awarding your loyal customers is also a great strategy to get these customers to praise your brand and your products on social media. Other consumers want to hear testimonials from genuine customers to determine if yours is a brand they can trust. So when loyal customers create positive posts about your brand, they can see that yours is a business they want to buy from.

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2. Don’t Just Post Marketing Content

You don’t want to turn your customers’ social media news feeds into a rolling advertisement. Although consumers like the special offers you may offer them, that’s certainly not all that they want to see, so if they are drowning in this kind of content from your brand, they are more than likely to unfollow you (not to mention mark you as desperate).

Regularly post non-marketing content that gives your potential customers helpful information or tips, or even just a joke or witty comment will show that your brand has a fun persona and that your content is varied.

3. Focus on The Most Appropriate Platform

It is a common misconception that companies should have an account on every available social media platform, but this is not the case. Don’t waste time posting on platforms your target traffic isn’t using.

Focus on those social media platforms that are regularly utilized by your existing followers or customers, as these are much more likely to be the same platforms where your potential customers will also be. You will find that Facebook is still the most popular platform for almost all age groups, locations, financial situations, and backgrounds. So, Facebook is almost always a good platform to invest time in regardless of where your audience spends the most time.

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4. Keep It Simple

Too much time can be spent creating posts that eventually get lost in a user’s news feed or get passed over for being too long. Spending a long time making posts absolutely perfect for social media is simply inefficient unless you are a larger company with a dedicated social media team that has time to do so.

Rather than creating a few, perfect posts, it’s much more worthwhile to create many publish-ready posts that are short and to the point. It’s also important to remember that you may not yet know what your audience responds to best, so it’s better to experiment in the early days.

5. Be Social

The whole point of social media? To actually be social. So many brands get so bogged down in the marketing that actually being social with their customers gets forgotten. Having a successful business shouldn’t be all about making sales, you should be taking advantage of the fact that you can interact with customers on social media and through this, making more new and valued customers and sales. This is how you can be different from so many other businesses.

Remember to keep a human element in your social media account, even if you’re a brand. You have the power to show consumers what the people behind the business are actually like, which will not only make the brand more relatable to real people, it adds trust. And don’t forget to promptly respond to comments on your posts and start those genuine conversations. Show customers you care and aren’t out to make a quick buck.

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