How the principles of social influence can improve your marketing strategy

GetSocialMedia Posted on by

According to researcher and author Dr. Robert Cialdini, there are six proven methods of persuasion that can be used to influence others: Reciprocity, scarcity, consistency, authority, likability, and social proof. When it comes to marketing, these techniques are crucial for understanding your target audience and creating effective campaigns.

Here are a few ways to incorporate these six principles of social influence into your own online marketing strategy:

Reciprocity

This involves the classic “give before you get” approach. In other words, you have to offer something to potential customers before they’re willing to buy from you, whether that’s a free report, free initial consultation, or anything else of value that will create a sense of indebtedness, which psychologically motivates people to want to “give back” by buying something from you.

Here are 10 great examples of the reciprocity principle in marketing campaigns.

Scarcity

This is one of the most well-known marketing tactics: Creating a sense of limited supply or a limited amount of time to make a purchase. This generates a feeling of urgency for consumers, who might otherwise scroll past your social media ads and forget about your offer. However, it’s important to avoid creating a false sense of urgency – such as “limited time offers” that don’t actually expire – in order to maintain your credibility as a brand.

Here are some awesome examples of scarcity copywriting from other brands’ marketing strategies.

Consistency

Have you ever seen ads on social media that were completely different from the website they directed you to? A lack of consistency between a brand’s messaging, image, values, and even products/services is frustrating for consumers. To smooth out the process of converting website visitors into paying customers, make sure your social ads are relatively similar to your website and your call-to-action remains consistent in all of your marketing collateral.

Here are 15 examples of consistent brand marketing to get some inspiration from.

Authority

Trust and credibility are some of the most important things consumers look for when deciding which brand to purchase products or services from. If you don’t project an air of legitimacy and expertise (and provide warrants for your claims to authority), then you might not get the sales figures you’re hoping for because consumers are turned off by marketing messages that don’t offer a compelling reason to buy from this brand in particular over the competition.

Here are a few examples of authoritative brands and entrepreneurs to help you develop your own brand’s authority in marketing messages.

Likability

Traditional advertising is losing its effectiveness among consumers, especially those in younger demographics. Instead, consumers want to feel engaged with a brand, whether that involves personalized responses to social media messages or sending thank-you letters or emails with a promo code for future purchases after someone completes their first purchase. What this all means is that your brand needs to have the likability factor; you can’t just sell to customers. You have to develop ongoing relationships with them.

Here are some fantastic examples of brands that took their likability to the next level with social media users.

Social Proof (Consensus)

Last but not least, we have social proof. This social influence strategy entails popular opinions, such as Yelp reviews, customer testimonials, ratings on Facebook business pages, and so much more. Potential customers are more likely to buy from you if you offer some kind of social proof that demonstrates your brand’s history of customer satisfaction. While this may seem intuitive, it’s certainly surprising how many businesses have yet to claim their Yelp pages or regularly ask customers to leave reviews on their websites or online marketplaces.

Here are 8 examples of brands that highlighted social proof in their own online marketing campaigns.

3 free strategies for driving new visitors to your blog

GetSocialMedia Posted on by

An optimal blog marketing strategy involves a mixture of paid and organic advertising. Whether you want to earn revenue from affiliate marketing links or you want to promote other products/services, here are 3 helpful and cost-free ways to attract new visitors to your blog:

Promote Evergreen Content on Social Media

When it comes to revising a blog content strategy, incorporating a blend of seasonal, event-specific and evergreen content is essential. While seasonal content may only be relevant to site visitors for a couple months out of the year, evergreen content could be useful to anyone at any point during the year (and possibly for years to come).

If you have a solid foundation of evergreen content, then don’t let it go to waste. Update broken links and outdated information from evergreen posts you wrote years ago, then republish the content and promote it on your social media channels. It’s a great way to freshen up your blog with minimal effort, and people who might not have viewed your content a few years ago can now see the great information and advice you have to offer (just make sure you get rid of that outdated information, which can be a huge turn-off for potential blog followers).

Use StumbleUpon for Every Post

StumbleUpon is an excellent resource for bloggers seeking new (and more) traffic on their websites. As the name suggests, StumbleUpon is designed for users to “stumble upon” new content on topics they’re interested in, which makes it an ideal platform for content marketers who want to increase the web traffic figures to their company’s or clients’ blogs.

If you want to increase your web traffic with StumbleUpon, be sure to publish only the highest quality content with visually stunning imagery to ensure people remain interested in what you’re publishing. You can organically grow your blog’s fanbase with StumbleUpon and encourage others to share your content.

Incorporate Relevant Keywords

Even if you’re not a pro when it comes to SEO, there are still many ways to produce quality, SEO-friendly content for your blog. You can conduct basic keyword analysis with Google or Wordstream to see which keywords and phrases are highly sought-after by your target audience in the search engines.

In the process of keyword research, be sure to aim for mid-range SEO keywords. High-traffic keywords with millions of other associated results guarantee your blog content won’t be seen by too many people. To avoid getting pushed out of sight by more popular sites with greater web traffic, selecting semi-popular search terms can help your content stay relevant in search engines without having to compete with much larger competitors.

SEO can be difficult for content marketers who are initially unfamiliar with it, but once you start understanding how search engine algorithms work and which keywords are best suited for connecting your content with your desired audience, it gets much easier and more effective!

Are you setting goals for your social media campaigns?

GetSocialMedia Posted on by

When it comes to planning out a social media campaign, do you have certain desirable outcomes in mind before you launch, or do you simply publish your ads, monitor your metrics along the way, and think about new strategies for improvement once the campaign ends? If you’re not actively setting goals for your advertising efforts and instead taking a “hope for the best” approach, then you could be wasting a lot of money in your marketing budget without realizing it.

To achieve greater efficiency and determine what you really want out of your next campaign, revamp your approach to advertising by setting goals and developing strategies to exceed your own expectations with these tips:

SMART Goal-Setting Formula

The SMART formula outlines 5 key factors that you should consider when writing down your goals:

  • Specific: clear and concise; not left open to interpretation
  • Measurable: able to be tracked (analyzing social metrics is perfect for this)
  • Achievable: challenging but not impossible
  • Relevant: something you actually want for your brand (e.g., more followers or link clicks to your website)
  • Timely: target deadline is established so you have to achieve your goals in an efficient manner

The SMART formula is perfect for anyone setting new goals, but it’s especially useful for social media marketers who want to rein in advertising costs and get better results on your campaigns.

Adjust Your Expectations

Of course, the success of your campaigns isn’t always under your control. Sometimes, it may be an odd image or dull copy driving potential customers away from your ads. Other times, you might be advertising on the wrong platform for what you’re offering. Regardless of the reasons behind unsuccessful campaigns, it’s important to stay on track with your goals even if you’re struggling to connect with your audience.

Consistently reevaluate and adjust your goals and expectations while testing multiple ads and other features like Facebook’s Audience Network. You won’t hit a homerun with every campaign, but sticking to your goals is the best way to maximize your chances of success in the long run.

Should you host a contest on your brand’s social channels?

GetSocialMedia Posted on by

It seems like everyone is hosting contests on social media these days, but some of them are surprisingly ineffective. You’d think users would pounce on any opportunity to get free stuff or recognition, but sometimes, contests fizzle out shortly after their initial announcement.

Since running contests takes a lot of time, effort, resources and attention to social media platforms’ policies (such as Instagram’s extensive promotion policies), you want to avoid creating a dud as much as possible. With a valuable prize, carefully-crafted campaign and consistent promotion however, you could create a lot of buzz around your brand.

One of the biggest advantages to running a contest on your social channels is generating lots of buzz and hype around your brand, a new product, or even a new partnership. If you have a boring or worthless prize, then social users aren’t likely to engage with your contest. However, a truly valuable prize (worth at least $20 with free shipping to the winner) could drive traffic to your accounts and website.

To create a buzz-worthy contest, you should:

  • Give users enough time to enter but not too much time (otherwise they’ll forget they entered at all)
  • Offer a valuable prize to one or multiple entrants (e.g., gift card, free product/service, cool gadget, 3-month membership, etc.)
  • Require more than a simple click to enter

In regards to the last one, you’ll want to use contests as opportunities to create leads or bring in new followers. For instance, you might ask for a person’s name and email on a separate landing page to qualify for entry, or ask users to comment on your post and tag their friends (one entry per friend tagged in the post). Offer different levels, such as one entry for liking or commenting on your post, five entries for sharing the post on their own page, and ten entries for referring others to like your page. As mentioned previously, be sure that your entry requirements fulfill the guidelines set by the social platform to avoid negative consequences.

It’s not enough to simply generate buzz around your brand; you also want some tangible benefits from your contest, such as racking up more followers. However, you don’t want bots or low-activity accounts artificially boosting your follower counts, so be sure to include a requirement about commenting, liking or sharing your post(s) to ensure your pages are attracting legitimate followers who could later convert into paying customers.

The best contests go above and beyond simply asking users to “like” their contest post. Sure, it’s easier to track entries when you use this method, but you’re unlikely to see long-term benefits from a contest based on entry likes. Instead, you should focus on user engagement above all else, which could include: counting entries based on whoever uses your branded hashtag for the campaign, hosting photo contests and letting your followers vote for the winning entries (PetSmart does annual Halloween pet costume contests this way and they’re popular on social media), and asking users to submit photos of them using your product or service for the chance to be featured on your page.

Recognizing and engaging with your followers is one of the most successful strategies for social media marketing, so don’t miss out on a potential opportunity to truly engage your audience with your next contest.

Four easy Twitter tips you can put into action today

GetSocialMedia Posted on by

With short attention spans, a limited number of characters and a flood of content, it’s tough to grow your Twitter following organically. Original, engaging content is a must, of course, but beyond that there are some quick tips you can put into action today to reach your target audience.

Repeat Your Content – Tweets are rapidly lost in the fast-moving feed, and your content is only seen by a fraction of your followers each time you post. To improve engagement and reach more people, recycle your content on a regular basis.

Don’t Hesitate to Ask – There’s no need to be shy. Ask for those likes, shares and retweets every now and then. Research has shown that spelling out ‘retweet’ gets more results, so go ahead and use up a few extra characters in this case.

Get Visual – Visuals are more eye-catching, and people retain information that’s presented visually for a longer period of time. Make the most of this by creating your own unique imagery using free tools like PicMonkey or Canva.

Hashtag Smartly – Using trending hashtags in your tweets is a great way to make your content discoverable. But it can also be a minefield if you piggyback a hashtag that has a double-meaning related to something inappropriate. Use Twitter’s Advanced Search to research hashtags before using them.

An engaged Twitter following goes beyond developing brand awareness and industry authority. It can lead directly to sales. Focus on providing useful content and genuine interaction. And try a couple of these tips to give your tweets a little extra juice!

4 mistakes to avoid when responding to criticism on your posts

GetSocialMedia Posted on by

Social media advertising isn’t always fun and games. Sometimes, seemingly out of nowhere, a critic shows up and puts a damper on your post by insulting your brand, cursing, or making some other rude comment that may or may not be related to the post itself.

However, you shouldn’t assume that criticism of your brand, products, services, or practices is entirely unfounded. There are times when your critics might actually be on to something. How you respond to them can determine how much image repair your brand will need later on.

While you can’t do much to stop online trolls, there are a few crucial mistakes you should avoid at all costs when responding to negative feedback posted publicly on your social media pages — particularly sites that allow users to rate companies, such as Facebook or Yelp. Here’s what NOT to do when confronted with criticism:

Fighting Back

In 2013, there was an epic episode of Gordon Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares that angered a lot of Internet users. During the episode, the owners of Amy’s Baking Company in Arizona were shown taking away their waitresses’ tips, verbally berating their employees and customers, and serving “homemade” desserts that were secretly bought from other stores. The owners blamed “online bullies” for their restaurant’s poor reputation, but it was clear to TV viewers that this just wasn’t the case.

After the episode aired, Amy’s Baking Company lashed out even more, including this post (which the owners later claimed was written and published by hackers): “I AM NOT STUPID ALL OF YOU ARE. YOU JUST DO NOT KNOW GOOD FOOD. IT IS NOT UNCOMMON TO RESELL THINGS WALMART DOES NOT MAKE THEIR ELECTRONICS OR TOYS SO LAY OFF!!!!” Clearly, this is an extreme example, but it still serves as a valuable reminder for any brand with a social media presence to avoid lashing out at critics because this tactic almost always backfires.

Ignoring It

Ignoring criticism isn’t as bad as responding with insults, all caps tirades and whataboutisms, but it’s still not going to help your brand’s image among current and potential customers. This is the problem with unclaimed pages on Yelp: letting reviewers run wild without any response from the company itself can seriously damage your reputation (and sales) because your lack of response suggests you don’t care about customers enough to reply to their reviews, whether they are positive or negative.

While your brand undoubtedly does care about its customers, you can’t afford to appear as though you don’t. To resolve this, be sure to claim your Yelp page, stay active on your social media channels, and don’t pick and choose which followers you respond to.

Deleting the Post Altogether

This is along the same lines as ignoring criticism, but it’s also somewhat different because deleting a post shows you’re cowering to criticism without demonstrating a willingness to improve. In other words, deleting a post is a clear sign that you’re paying attention and don’t want any negative publicity, so you’d rather hide criticism than deal with it head-on.

Rather than deleting a post where one or more users criticize your brand or products/services, take this as an opportunity to engage with your dissatisfied user or simply thank them for the feedback.

Offering Generic Apologies

Once you decide to start responding to criticism on your brand’s social pages, one of the biggest mistakes you could do is offering a meaningless apology and doing nothing else. If someone is complaining about a defective product or unhappy experience with your service, how likely are they to recommend you to others if your only response is, “oops, sorry about that!”

Instead, PR-savvy brands on social media typically ask unhappy users to privately message them to deal with the matter in a less public setting. From there, you may be able to offer solutions such as discounts, free replacements, or other means of reconciliation in a way that won’t encourage others to take advantage of your generosity. Even if the message seems unfair, rude or unwarranted, maintain nothing but the most polite tone in your messaging and publicly commit your brand to satisfying the customer.

Three ways to create an effective lead magnet

GetSocialMedia Posted on by

When it comes to lead generation, simply asking for people to give you their names and contact information will result in few, if any, leads. You need to make it a win-win scenario by offering a valuable item or opportunity (such as a free white paper or consultation) in exchange for their name and email address.

If you’re trying to generate more leads for your brand or clients, then even the most spectacular landing page with flawless copy and appealing imagery will fail to convert if you don’t have a solid lead magnet to seal the deal with site visitors. If you’ve struggled with boosting your conversion rates with previous campaigns or you simply want better results than you’re currently getting, here are three factors to consider while creating a lead magnet your target audience actually wants:

Craft Eye-Catching Titles

If your lead magnet is a free white paper, the title is one of the most important factors influencing your conversion rates. Similar to email subject lines, a title can make or break your white paper’s chances of success when it comes to conversions. A boring title with no adjectives, no numbers, and no clear outcome will drive visitors away because they won’t feel compelled to spend a minute typing their information into your lead form.

You should strive to include a blend of numbers, emotionally compelling adjectives and a clear message about what the reader will get out of your white paper, such as “Four surprising facts about investing in rental properties” or “Six reasons why you should never buy a kitten” or “Three secrets about DIY auto repairs that your mechanic won’t tell you!”

Offer Something Truly Valuable

The problem with lead magnets is that they need to offer genuine value to site visitors, but oftentimes marketers create artificial value instead. Artificial value may include: slapping the word “free” onto something even though this offer is free elsewhere (e.g., “FREE consultation” when free consults are already standard practices in your industry), promising a valuable informative resource that’s poorly written and offers little insight (especially if they could’ve found that information through a simple Google search), and a false sense of urgency (e.g., writing “sign up today before time runs out!” without an actual expiration date for the offer).

A truly valuable lead magnet entices visitors with information or an opportunity to access something they can’t get anywhere else (at least not for free). Don’t trick your visitors into giving you their contact information in exchange for a hastily-written research paper or free consultation (if your competitors already offer this), because once they realize they’ve been duped, they’re significantly less likely to seek out products/services from you in the future.

Include Evidence and Multiple Perspectives

White papers are some of the most effective lead magnets out there, but you can’t just throw it together in a hurry and hope your target audience will want it. Your white paper should include:

  • A stellar headline
  • Eye-pleasing formatting and images
  • No grammatical or spelling mistakes
  • A few citations of research from a variety of credible sources
  • Genuinely useful information that can’t be discovered in a simple web search

Ultimately, maximizing conversions on your landing pages comes down to the quality of your writing and quality of your offer. It needs to have real value to entice people to sign up because if your visitors think they can just find that information or offer elsewhere, then they’re less likely to go through the extra steps of inputting their names and contact information into your lead form.

5 reasons why you’re not attracting new followers on Instagram

GetSocialMedia Posted on by

Are you struggling to build your brand’s visibility on Instagram? Even if you’re making steady progress, it can be frustrating to put in a lot of effort and barely see a bump in your follower count or engagement on your posts. Fortunately, there are several possible explanations for a poorly-performing Instagram marketing strategy. Are you guilty of any of these?

No Hashtags

How is your target audience supposed to find you if you’re not using hashtags on your posts? While you could certainly direct your followers from other social media platforms to your Instagram handle, it’s much easier to bring in new followers organically through search. This means you should have at least 5-6 hashtags per post (you can include up to 30 hashtags total, but you don’t want to clutter your posts with them, either).

Also be sure to include relevant and specific hashtags. If you’re selling pet products, then #dog and #cat are not going to help much because there are hundreds of posts with these hashtags published every minute! Instead, research more specific hashtags that are less popular – such as #dogtreats or #cattoys – so your posts will remain in a higher position in the search results for a longer period of time.

Low Quality Content

You don’t need a professional camera to post high quality photos on Instagram, but you do need an eye for quality imagery. Rather than posting any old photo you have of your product or service, take time to build up a portfolio of quality photos that you can post to your account on a regular basis. Take time to experiment with the different filters and editing settings for optimal lighting and color effects, and focus less on the quantity of images you post and more on the quality of posts you’re publishing on your brand’s account.

Irregular Updates

We live in a world where almost everyone online has a short attention span (especially when it comes to anything remotely related to advertising). However, publishing high quality, intriguing posts on a regular basis can help you grow your audience. Rather than posting whenever you feel like it, set up an Instagram content schedule and dedicate a couple hours per week to taking more photos, editing those photos, and researching different caption and hashtag options for your posts. Sporadic updates will drive away followers, but consistent updates with meaningful imagery/messages will likely bring in new followers on a weekly basis.

Minimal Engagement with Your Fans

One of the biggest mistakes marketers make on Instagram is pursuing new followers while completely ignoring their existing fanbase. If you have followers who regularly like or comment on your posts, then be sure to engage with them! Give them a shout-out in your Instagram story, respond to every comment, and go like their photos as well to show that you appreciate their dedication to your brand.

Staying within Your Bubble

Don’t limit your outreach to your existing base of followers. When you have relevant hashtags attached to your posts, click on those hashtags to see what other people are posting. By liking and commenting on other users’ posts, you’ll pique their interest and indirectly encourage them to go check out your account. If you have high-quality images and good messaging in your posts, then they might even follow you! This is truly an organic (free!) way to attract new followers, so don’t miss this opportunity to grow your fanbase by going outside of your bubble on Instagram.

What to do when a social media campaign backfires

GetSocialMedia Posted on by

The success of social media campaigns depends much more on the audience viewing the ads than the creators of the content. You can be one of the best marketers in the world and still produce a colossal failure of a social media campaign, while some marketing newbies who just really understand what customers want may create the next viral campaign that gets everyone on the web talking.

Many marketers know what to do if they get so-so results on their campaigns; but what if a campaign backfires spectacularly in ways you never anticipated? You wouldn’t be alone, of course. Recent examples of advertising campaigns backfiring are plentiful, from Pepsi’s ruthlessly-mocked commercial with Kendall Jenner ending a violent protest by simply handing a police officer a can of Pepsi to the pen company Bic’s “Act like a lady, think like a man” campaign messaging for #HappyWomensDay in 2015.

If you find yourself with a flaming mess of a social media campaign, how do you respond in a way that avoids further alienating your current and potential customers, as well as preserving your brand’s positive image? Here are some useful PR moves you should try:

Remove the Content and Publicly Apologize

Your brand cannot afford to be defiant. If an ad, hashtag or other campaign element causes outrage, then standing your ground is a great way to lose a lot of potential customers (not to mention drive away your otherwise loyal customers who used to love your brand).

Publicly addressing the problem is a much better way to demonstrate to your followers that you listen to them and genuinely care about their feedback. Just look at the April 2018 Starbucks incident in Philadelphia, which led the company to close all of its stores for employee racial bias training. This resulted in approximately $12 million in lost sales for the day, but Starbucks viewed this as an opportunity to maintain the brand’s reputation (this tactic also worked when they closed stores in 2008; as former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz wrote in his 2011 book, “closing our stores was most powerful in its symbolism. It was…a stake in the ground that helped reestablish some of the emotional attachment and trust we had squandered”).

Back Away from Social Media Engagement (Temporarily)

It doesn’t take very long to make someone mad on the Internet. Worse yet, it also doesn’t take long for a few angry people to form a mob by sharing content and telling their social networks about how upset they are about X company doing Y. If you remove the content and apologize one day, then immediately go back to your usual content schedule the next day, it’s likely that your followers won’t be too happy with your brand.

Obviously, this depends on just how much you upset your target audience. Minor offenses can likely be forgiven with a simple apology. But if you really blew it and people are upset and/or angry, then taking a few days or even a week off from your usual posting schedule can help you preserve your brand’s reputation (rather than risk people flocking to your pages to give you 1-star reviews just out of spite, which unfortunately happens on a regular basis).

Learn from Your Mistakes

A final strategy for resolving a social media campaign that backfires horrendously is demonstrating that you’ve learned from your mistakes. Maybe you promoted a not-well-thought-out hashtag, used an offensive image or headline in your ads, or let your customer service standards slip in online interactions with followers and customers. Regardless of what happened, your #1 priority should be clearly outlining how you plan to fix the problem in the future so your current base of followers won’t worry about it happening to them.

4 common mistakes to avoid in your social media contest

GetSocialMedia Posted on by

Does your brand have what it takes to run a successful social media contest? Be sure to avoid these 4 common mistakes before setting up your next contest:

Vague Rules

One of the worst things you can do while setting up a contest for your social media followers is writing unclear rules that create more questions than they answer. To resolve any lack of clarity, be sure to include the following as a bare minimum:

  • Eligibility rules for participants (age, residential location/status, follower of your social media page, etc.)
  • Number of entries permitted (1 per person, 1 per day, unlimited, etc.)
  • Start and end dates and times (as well as the date of the winner selection)
  • Prize information (value in US dollars, shipping included/excluded, potential tax reporting)
  • Legal information (e.g., exempting the social media website from any obligations related to your contest)

Offer a Boring Prize

Why would you enter a contest if the big “prize” was something you could easily get elsewhere? For instance, a contest for a “free consultation” isn’t really exciting if you’re in an industry where that’s the norm, and even a $25 gift card isn’t likely to create much buzz if that’s your only prize and/or it’s not relevant to your target audience’s consumer habits.

The general guideline for contest prizes: if you want to create a lot of hype and generate a lot of entries into your contest, then it has to be good. Whether that involves a $500 gift card (depending on your company’s advertising budget), 2 tickets to a major amusement park, or 1 year of free services from your company, the prize has to be desirable enough for social media users to get excited about and tell their friends to enter as well.

One Winner Only

The best contests on social media have multiple winners (or runners-up), preferably spread out over a multi-week timeframe. This is ideal because you can grow your audience over the course of the contest, rather than watching your follower count and engagement figures plummet as soon as the winner is declared. For example, you might create a month-long contest with “small” winners announced each week ($50 gift cards or services from your company) and a grand prize winner (with 1-2 runners-up) announced at the end of the month.

This strategy is designed to organically build your audience and generate buzz around your brand without keeping them waiting too long for a winner or declaring the winner too soon and watching your newfound followers vanish because they have no reason to engage with your brand anymore.

Missing Out on UGC Opportunities

Don’t make your contest absurdly easy to enter (such as simply submitting an email address in an online form). Super-easy contest entries lead to spam bots and throwaway emails, which won’t offer you much value in the way of growing your customer base from your social media marketing strategy.

Instead, embrace a contest entry format that encourages user-generated content (UGC). You can accomplish this by creating a special hashtag for the contest and including a clause in your contest entry rules that entries must include the hashtag in posts on their own social channels if they want to be entered. This is one of the best ways to bring in new followers, who might later convert to customers after seeing their friend’s post with your hashtag and brand messaging.