Social platforms have gained immense popularity among B2C marketers as well as B2B brands. There are many simple explanations as to why. They provide you with a stage to reach out to your audience and showcase all your achievements and services. Additionally, social platforms bring you closer to your customers as you can also check their interests in their profiles. Unlike B2C, effective B2B marketing requires a different approach. B2B marketers have to develop a unique game plan to reach business owners and decision-makers. However, step on these stones carefully because social media can quickly build you or break you.

Here is a helpful guide for you to create your own social media strategy for B2B business-

1. Recognize Your Focal Points (Goals)

Every successful campaign needs to be thoughtfully planned, and the first step begins with understanding why you want to be present on social media.

Recognize your goals and focus on achieving them.

The following are the main focus of every B2B social media strategy-

A. Brand Awareness

People need to know who you are and what you can provide them. Social media platforms offer you an excellent space where you can comfortably showcase to your prospects why your brand is better than your competitors. Through separate posts, your viewers can see your products and services. Moreover, the comments on your posts act as reviews for other customers and an analysis of your brand's performance.

How to Measure Brand Awareness on Social Media?

Method #1- Direct Traffic: If your prospects visit your website by directly searching your website or brand name in the search engines, they become your direct traffic. Direct searches indicate that your viewer is interested enough in your brand that they remembered you.

Method #2- Tags and Mentions: When someone tags you in their post, it means they are involved in some way with your brand. Tags, mentions, and hashtags are efficient and simple ways to know how many people you are reaching out to and how many like your services.

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Method #3- Searches: When someone searches for your business as a keyword over search engines and social platforms, it increases your search volume. The clicks and searches can be analyzed using the Google Search Console. It will also show you the best-performing ad campaigns.

Method #4- Your Reach: The number of people exposed to your brand through social media campaigns counts as your reach. Every platform offers multiple ways to track your reach, including Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. In the similar way, LinkedIn scraping powers better segmentation and strategic planning for marketers. You can also check impressions on Twitter, which is another way to track your reach.

B. Brand Introduction

Letting your consumers learn about your brand is beneficial to building trust. Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest introduce your brand through posts with photos and short videos about you. Other platforms like Twitter and LinkedIn educate your viewers more through textual involvement.

Tips for Introducing Your Brand -

Tip #1: Many businesses use content and SEO to educate their prospects about their brand. The content should solve an issue that the customers are probably facing and searching an answer for.

Tip #2: You can also opt for publishing e-books that are about your business. It can let other prospective companies explore your journey.

Tip #3: Researches and reports are also a great medium to let people know about your involvement using case studies. People like to buy products from companies that are enthusiastic about their performances.

Tip #4: Every product has a specific method of being used. And in most cases, customers fail to understand how something should be used. Make how-to videos for the ease of your customers. The views will also translate to how much visibility your brand has.

C. User Engagement

It is a crucial part of social media strategy for B2B business, even if it does not exactly show your growth. Content that gets your viewers actively involved in your brand reflects how you influence people. Users will only engage in your products if they like them. High user engagement also proves the social platforms' credibility and better content of your brand. In turn, social media showcases your business to a much larger audience, boosting your visibility.

Every platform gives the option to check your user engagement rates with filters like a particular post, week, month, and more.

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Measuring User Engagement -

Method #1- Comments: When viewers comment on your posts, it means they are intrigued by your brand. Comments also suggest that people want to get involved in a discussion related to your products. Higher conversation rates can signify greater interest of customers.

Method #2- Reactions and Polls: Since netizens have a very microscopic attention span and do not want to waste their valuable time on boring content, reactions are a good way to know if the viewers are interested in what you offer. Reactions, polls, and likes options are available on every platform today to assess your performance.

Method #3- Shares: Sharing content over a social platform directly translates to relating your content to the viewer. People only share relatable and valuable posts. Every social media platform has shared posts data you can check to get your assessment.

Method #4- Views and Time: Getting views on your videos suggests that the viewer got attracted to your content and wants to know more about you. Although, if no one is spending time watching your complete video, it means you did grab their attention but could not keep it. For best practice, make interesting videos with short content.

Method #5- Clicks: If you attach a link to your posts, the click-through rate helps determine if the users enjoyed your ad and want to check out more services that you provide.

D. Trust Building

As a consumer of your products, your customers will want to see how much they can rely on you. Social platforms are a fantastic way to show your work is better than your competitors through comments on your posts and other social proofs.

Tips for Building Trust-

Tip #1: Reshare the posts that your customers tag you in. These posts are testimonials of your products and services from your clients.

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Tip #2: Positive reviews on your products are also social proof of your quality and reliability.

Tip #3: Acknowledgements like trophies, awards, and milestones are an excellent way to show your trustworthiness to your prospects.

E. Conversions

Lead generations are an essential aspect of any B2B social media strategy. Your social presence aims to add value through promotion and convert the viewers into your regular customers.

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Methods to Measure Lead Generation and Conversion Rates -

Method #1- Calculate your Cost per Lead (CPL): The campaigns should bring you leads. But if the cost of those methods is more than the clicks they are getting, then the campaigns are not benefiting you. Calculate your CPL, brainstorm what will better match your requirements without wasting money, and focus on that strategy.

Method #2- Marketing Qualified Leads (MQL): The leads you generate should convert into your customers. The primary reason for not getting conversions would be that the leads are not your prospective customers.

Method #3- Estimating Return on Investments (ROI): A great way to get the approximate value of your ROIs is by calculating the profits that one lead gets you and multiplying it by the expected lifetime of that lead with you. You can then assign the obtained value to new customers to get your total ROI estimate.

Method #4- Closing Rate per Channel: The closing rates are critical for determining which platform brings you more leads and hence profit. You should then focus your investment on those channels with higher closing rates.

2. Choose Platforms for Your B2B Social Media Strategy

When used appropriately, social media platforms provide an ocean of benefits to B2B marketers. According to Statista, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn are the top marketing platforms for B2B businesses, with Facebook at first place with 89% usage and LinkedIn at second place with 81% usage.

However, before investing big, it is advised to experiment with every platform because every social media has its own pros and cons for supporting brands. If you are wondering how to use social media for B2B business, here are the most effective platforms to achieve your defined goals-

A. LinkedIn

With almost 850 million members, out of which over 58 million are registered companies, LinkedIn is a brilliant professional networking platform and has gained immense popularity among B2B marketers. In 2021, 81% of B2B businesses used LinkedIn to grow by providing job opportunities, posting on trending topics, and collaborating with profitable networks.

B. Twitter

Twitter is popular for trends. It has over 396.5 million users actively tweeting their thoughts on the latest news. A great platform to introduce and promote your brand, Twitter has 82% active B2B business accounts.

C. Facebook

Most famous and the king of social platforms, Facebook reaches 59% of social media users, more than any other platform. Although, with the transformations in the overall view of Facebook through the years, it has become more ad-forward. But with well-planned strategies, it is also an excellent way to communicate and reach out to other prospective B2B businesses.

D. YouTube

Launched in 2005, YouTube supports 80 different languages and has more than 2.5 billion active users worldwide, coming second to Facebook. Moreover, some people watch videos without using Google accounts as well. YouTube provides different methods for reaching out to your audiences, like videos, commercials, and stories. Through its stage, you can make how-to tutorial videos, review videos, and much more.

E. Instagram

Instagram is the new social media craze having more than 1.4 billion monthly active accounts as of January 2022. It ranks third in the social media race with its ease of use for both consumers as well as companies with photo filters, stories, and reels for short videos. It is an incredible place for B2B businesses to thrive in a friendly manner.

3. Build a B2B Social Media Strategy

Once you have chosen the social platforms that suit your brand and are focused on your target goals, you can create a robust social media strategy for your B2B business. Here are some points you should practice and include in your plans for a successful social presence-

A. Tell Your Story

Consumers love to know what goes behind the building of a brand. Social platforms provide the right stage to show your prospects your evolution, the reason behind it all, and the vision you have for the future. Stories also play a critical role in building trust and influencing customers to know you and use your brand instead of others. An inspiring story can include-

• The inception idea behind your brand
• Struggles faced
• Growth and experiences
• Products and services
• Plans and vision for the future

Work Around Your Target Customers: As a company that sells services to other B2C businesses, your customers are the managers, entrepreneurs, and executives of those places. Social platforms work as efficient channels for B2B businesses because the consumers can go back in timelines and see the progress you have made. It is also reliable as the comments, likes, and followings act as social proof. Moreover, make sure to include feedback and reviews from your customers in your social media strategy for earned testimonials.

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B. Analyze Your Audience

Customer analysis helps you uncover new and innovative methods to engage their interests more. Customers who have purchased your services belong to the audience group that wants them. You can create customer personas based on their profiles, which will give you an exact idea of their requirements, and you can work on them to your advantage.

Use demographics such as age, gender, location, position, industry type, and business size to the list of information to your buyer persona to better understand your consumer market.

For instance, Twitter analytics will help you gain insights into the likes and dislikes of your targeted customers.

Analyzing Audiences Will Help You-

• Learn what works for them
• Create similar posts that interest them
• Advertise in appealing and suitable ways

C. Stay With the Trends

B2B social media trends are vital to follow to make your social presence visible. You do not need to hire a completely new team to keep your posts up to date with your target's choices. Many tools for social listening help you monitor your mentions, customer feedback, and conversations. Moreover, they also plan long-term strategies using the data they collect.

Tools to Use for Social Media Listening-

Tool #1 - Sprout Social: It offers a complete set of features you would need for social listening. Some features of Sprout Social are audience listening, consumer research, competitor comparison, trend research, and much more.

Tool #2 - Socialbakers: The tool by Socialbakers uses artificial intelligence to help you conduct social listening. It also allows you to monitor competitive and industry benchmarking and identify the content your competitors invest in.

Tool #3 - Digimind: This platform provides you with real-time social listening and brand monitoring options, focusing on sentiment analysis over consumer care and community management. Digimind is also based on artificial intelligence.

D. Create Engaging Content

Social media is all about creating intriguing content and attractively presenting it. Even though B2B services are usually presumed boring, they can still provide exciting content to their targets. Moreover, your prospects also need you. Hence, you are not boring but essential to those consumers.

Here Are Some Points to Remember When Creating Your Content –

• Create long titles and headlines because they have 76.70% more chances of shares.
• Aim for questions as they get more than average shares and views.
• A professionally written content does not have to stick to the rules of formal language.
• Be social media-friendly with indulging posts.
• Keep commenting open. People feel more comfortable when they can communicate their thoughts about something.

E. Focus On Creating Short Posts

The average social media user does not want to spend much time on one post. Moreover, you have a character limit that needs to be obeyed for every platform. This means you will have to promote your service in the quickest possible way. Instead of creating long blog posts, try to go for the following few points-

• Use captions and formats of your posts that are most appealing,
• Choose infographics over long textual posts,
• Post short videos if your content is long to read,
• Long texts are standard on LinkedIn. For any post that has a technical format and too many characters, use LinkedIn.
• You can add Twitter threads instead of external links.
• Make list posts instead of paragraphs, as they are shared 218% and 203% more than how-to videos and infographics, respectively.

F. Use Attractive Multimedia

As mentioned before, people do not have time to waste on long-form textual posts. To instantly grab their attention, you can use multimedia as your option. Multimedia has more potential of engaging the viewers and getting you more views. Use following instead of text-based posts-

• Use infographics
• Add exciting elements to your campaigns
• Post short and easily readable content
• Use short clips and videos
• Share stories to build and sustain interest

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G. Create Dedicated Support Accounts

Simple things grab more attention. Keep your profiles streamlined by dividing them into different categories. This separation also helps the consumer. For example, they do not need to search for a customer support section in your marketing profiles. The various accounts you can create may be-

• Manufacturing insiders for educational purposes and internal insights
• Marketing for promotions and sales
• Support services
• Customer relation and testimonials
• Research and development for persevered curiosity

H. Check On Your Competitors

For your business to succeed, you should always know what your competition is doing. Monitoring gives you beneficial insights into what will work and what does not. You can either do it manually or use monitoring and social listening tools to keep an eye on your contenders.

Things to Check While Monitoring Your Competitors –

• Invested campaigns,
• Used hashtags and keywords,
• Schedule and lengths of posts,
• Targeted consumers and networks

I. Conduct Performance Analysis

To evolve your social profile with the company’s growth, you need to analyze the efforts you have put into your branding. Look out for the following when conducting performance analysis-

• Follower growth
• Engagement rate
• Effects of your optimizations
• The efficiency of your social media strategy
• Improve your plans according to B2B social media trends

J. Invest Money for Better Reach

Just like for B2C brands, B2B businesses also need to build campaigns and get in front of more people. Social media allows your brand name to reach out to a much larger crowd when you invest in their ad strategies.

According to Gartner, marketing budgets have climbed to 9.5% of total company revenue in 2022, an increase from 6.4% in 2021.

In 2022, the total social media advertising spending by US companies is expected at just under $80.67 billion, expected to show an annual growth rate (CAGR 2022-2027) of 10.10%.

For a better reach, try creating ads that will relate to the pain points of your targets. For instance, you can create effective ads using the LinkedIn Campaign Manager.

Here Are a Few Practices to Follow to Create Effective LinkedIn Ads -

• Stay Within the Specifications: You can create attractive promos with visuals and texts using the specs provided by LinkedIn. LinkedIn offers multiple options, so you don't entirely depend on long-form textual posts. Some options are- single image ads, carousel ads, video ads, and message ads.
• Attach Lead Gen Forms: LinkedIn features the option to attach their Lead Gen Forms with your sponsored ads and in-mails. These forms help generate leads by filling in all the details, and the viewers only need to submit them to you.
• Analyze Your Ads: LinkedIn ads are created to gain some form of return on investments. Analyzing your ads will help you understand which ones are worthy of improvement and which ones should be entirely removed to improve your visibility. You can track all these key metrics using the LinkedIn Ads Manager. Further, use LinkedIn Insight Tag to gain more knowledge of your prospects.

K. Use Employee Advocacy

The best people to review you and your brand are those who work closely with the services you sell. An employee with a large following can be used as an asset to enhance your reach. They can be key influencers for your business. Your consumers would prefer getting an internal perception of your work.

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Reasons for Using Employee Advocacy

• Increases the trust of the prospects in your brand
• Humanizes your brand,
• Suggests that you value your employee’s opinions
• It is an earned advertisement

FAQs

1. Do Social Media Platforms Work for B2B Businesses?

We make most of our decisions based on what society thinks about something. And social media provides you a stage to showcase your brand in front of a large crowd to boost your business. You can easily promote your products and services and effectively reach out to your audience.

2. Which B2C Strategies Can Be Used as B2B Social Media Strategies?

Whether it is B2C or B2B business, eventually, we, as marketers, sell things to a human. You can employ all social media strategies used in the B2C market for B2B businesses with little to no changes.

3. Which Is the Most Effective Platform for B2B Businesses?

LinkedIn runs first in the professional networking platform base. However, other platforms like Facebook and Instagram also have a substantial impact on B2B clients.

4. Should I Hire a B2B Social Media Agency or an In-House Manager?

Although developing a social media strategy for a B2B business is not a complex task, you can still hire professionals if your requirements are more. Make sure the outsourcing service or the in-house manager you employ checks all of your specific needs and is result-driven.

Conclusion

In the tough competitive market, every business needs to play its best card to win. Social platforms are a rich source of media to help you enhance your sales, create networks, and communicate with your prospects directly and more openly without being too much in their face. The above guide will help you realize your goals and work on them using different platforms. You can use the given B2B social media strategies involved with any social media for whichever purpose suits your need the best.

Both new and established brands use social media for a variety of reasons - to increase brand awareness, generate leads, and boost sales. Given the number of social media platforms available these days, building a brand on social media may seem like a daunting task. However, that is hardly the case. Using social media to connect with your audience and grow your brand is not as difficult as it might seem at first.

Whether you have just begun or have been active on social media platforms for quite some time now, you can always follow some social media marketing tips to grow your audience and move ahead of your competitors. These tips also help you in times when coming up with A+ social media content can become a challenge on an everyday basis.

Social Media Marketing Tips For Every Brand

The constantly evolving social media compels marketers to shift their strategies in order to keep up with the trends and updates. However, these tips will prove useful if you are looking to beef up your social media accounts at any given point of time:

1. Focus on Visual Content

If you decide to invest in visual content, it will indeed be a step in the right direction. On average, retweets featuring pictures are more likely to gain higher views and clicks as compared to text-only posts. 49% of marketers use visual content on websites and blogs, followed by Facebook and Instagram. Therefore, we strongly recommend that you focus on visual content.

Now you may wonder how to use visual content on social media. Let us give you some examples:

You can post infographics that shed light on your industry on LinkedIn or post a high-speed video featuring a tour of your office on Facebook.

2. Consider Influencers To Promote Your Service Or Product

First, let’s look at some of the latest statistics for a clearer picture on the subject:

1. Social media influencers influence Gen Z the most.
2. 40% of Twitter users purchased something because an influencer recommended it.

Need we say more?

Investing in influencers is an excellent route you can take to generate sales. In this day and age, young audiences listen to their most-loved influencers. In case you have a younger audience, hunt for influencers in your industry and consider partnering with them.

3. Create Engagement With Interactive Content

Interactive content is a great means to easily connect with your audience or inform them more about your product. For instance, you can conduct Instagram Q&A or Twitter polls to engage with your audience. Essentially, interactive content is any content a user can click through, click on, play with, or answer. This type of content delights your audience and gets them involved. Some interactive content ideas include quizzes, contests, and interactive videos.

Tip: For more ideas on how to engage with your audience, you can always check what your competitors are doing.

4. Provide a Behind-The-Scenes Experience With Stories

Stories offer an amazing opportunity to market to Instagram and Facebook users with unique, snappy content. It may come as a surprise to you, but one-third of the most-viewed Instagram Stories are from businesses. Keeping this data in mind, we highly recommend that you use Stories to share some behind-the-scenes content of your business.

Remember, consumers use social media to engage with their favorite brands. Therefore, when you give your loyal following an exclusive sneak-peek inside the working of your business, you make them feel a part of your group.

5. Blend Your Brand Into Your Social Media Marketing

Once you establish your brand, think about incorporating it into your social strategy. Do the following to blend your brand in your social media marketing:

• Add your logo to posts
• Include a company hashtag
• Highlight your employees

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Check out this branding from a company named Metter Media. When you scroll through the company's homepage on Instagram, you can easily spot the company colors, know who they represent, and get an idea about their team as well.

6. Invest in Video Content

With the speedy growth of YouTube, IGTV, and Facebook Live, users are consuming more and more video content. 49% of marketers say that video helps in engaging their audiences. 52% of marketers state that video helps them create trust among their potential customers. Keeping these stats in mind, investing in video content is a social media marketing tip that we highly recommend.

Tip: Read these stats before you begin to produce video content:

• 81% of marketers state their videos perform better with music.
• 68% of individuals will watch a complete video if it is a minute in length or even smaller.
• 84% of customers make a purchase after seeing an explainer video.

7. Join Communities

It is important to switch your focus to smaller communities within social networks. LinkedIn Groups, Twitter Chats, and Facebook Groups provide excellent opportunities to connect with like-minded people and companies within your niche. When you participate in these communities, you get to interact with your most passionate audiences and establish your business as an authority. Pretty cool, isn't it?

As a first step, search for communities linked with your industry on social media platforms you stay active on. Next, become an active member of these communities. You can even create your very own group around your brand as well!

8. Establish A Two-way Line of Communication on Social Media

Apart from posting relevant and supreme quality content, ensure you keep an eye on all the social media platforms you are using to engage with your audience. We recommend that you do the following for your social media presence to represent a two-way line of communication:

• Provide answers to questions that come up on your handles or posts.
• If you see users talking about your product or brand, don’t hesitate to chime in and add value.
• Give a prompt reply to individuals who mention you.
• Thank individuals who have shared your content.

Social Media Marketing Mistakes You Must Avoid

If the latest social media statistics are to be believed, there are 4.59 billion social media users around the world in 2022. These figures prove that social media marketing is a powerful tool to expose your business to a massive audience. Although most businesses are aware of this fact, only a few succeed in correctly using social media marketing.

For your social media campaign to show excellent results, there are some mistakes you need to avoid. Take a look:

1. Not Having a Social Media Marketing Plan

Even today, many companies fail to create a prompt social media marketing plan. They just keep posting things on social media without having a real plan in place.

Social media marketing is something that should be taken seriously. And for that, we recommend that you make a list of specific objectives you wish to achieve, make a budget, and create a plan of action that you can easily follow.

2. Choosing The Wrong Tone

Brands should definitely know this one important thing - the way a brand behaves on Instagram or Twitter is subject to strict scrutiny. For instance, if you choose a brand voice that is too official, you may sound boring to social media users. Or, if you try to appeal to the users by being offensive, it will be considered a much greater social media sin!

So before you start posting on Instagram or begin tweeting, dedicate some time to figure out the tone you are going to set. It should be consistent across all your social media posts, a reflection of your brand, and should easily connect with your audience.

3. Choosing to Remain Silent in The Comment Section

The Instagram algorithm likes you when you have a lot of comments on your posts. The same holds true about Facebook as well. So, ensure you don't stay silent in the comment section.

Leaving comments also gives you another benefit- it helps you create a connection with your followers. When they notice that you care enough to reply to their comments, they will develop an even deeper liking for your brand.

4. Promoting Yourself A lot

On social media, you should be sociable. If all you do is promote your content on social media, a lot of users will start disliking your business, decreasing your following. Promoting your brand is crucial, but we recommend that you be subtle about it.

5. Deleting Negative Comments

You may have come across a situation where a brand got a negative comment, then engaged in an ugly and lengthy conversation, and then deleted the entire thread. This is a route that a brand should never take.

If you receive a negative comment, we suggest you be objective and show your audience that you have nothing to hide. If the person who wrote the negative comment has highlighted your wrongdoing, thank them and make it a point to improve. If they are toxic in their comment, we recommend you just ignore them.

Image Source: Starbucks Instagram Page

6. Not Creating Content People Would Want to Engage With

The time you invest in creating content for your social media channels will be a complete waste if no one shares or comments on them. Therefore, take out some time to develop content that individuals would relate to and want to engage with.

In case your updates are not getting any reactions, dedicate some time to re-evaluate the social media marketing approach you have taken.

7. Treating Every Social Media Account As Same

Every social media platform differs from the other. That’s why you must only speak the language the users speak on a particular social networking site ‌you wish to grow on. Learn the language of the platforms you have chosen for your brand and speak to the users in a language they will understand.

For this, we recommend ‌you learn how different social media platforms work to leverage the opportunities they have on offer. Each platform offers its own set of unique opportunities that you can use for increasing exposure and growing your business.

The Bottom Line

To sum up, the above-mentioned tips provide you with relevant ways to upgrade your content, organize your page, and help grow your target audience. Also, the mistakes we discussed are the ones you need to avoid to succeed with social media marketing.

In the end, remember that social media, when properly optimized, offers the greatest path to brands to reach more customers and increase their sales. As your followership increases and validates your services or products, your social proof increases, and more individuals get drawn to your business, boosting your sales.

Now that you are armed with some of the best social media marketing tips, are you ready to optimize your marketing strategy with them? Which one of the tips are you definitely going to implement?

Listen Up: DashClicks' white label social media posting service helps agencies save up on the cost involved in paying for the workforce that manages the social needs of their clients. The white label unified solution (platform + dashboard) simplifies things by automating client onboarding, fulfillment, and reporting.

The power of storytelling is unrivaled in business marketing.

YouTube ad sequencing empowers marketers to deliver brand stories to consumers with ease. No longer do you need to dump all of your content into one video. Instead, you can highlight key selling points in bite-sized content that's easy to digest.

But, what is YouTube ad sequencing and how does it work?

We're going to show you how to create a successful video ad sequence that drives conversions below.

What Is a YouTube Ad Sequence?

A YouTube ad sequence is a marketing tool that allows you to play advertisement videos in a bespoke order.

With traditional video ads, you upload your content to YouTube. After you select your targeting, YouTube will play this ad to key demographics before, during, or after their regularly scheduled content. It will generally select one of the videos in your ad group at random to play.

When you create an ad sequence, you get to determine the exact order. This way, you can ensure that every new viewer sees ad A, followed by ad B, and finishes with ad C. Google will automatically display your ad sequence to one user, one time, every 7 days.

YouTube Ad Sequencing vs Standalone Videos

The power of video can't be questioned.

Even a standalone video ad will drive significantly more conversions than images. A survey of Facebook marketers by Databox found that video accounted for 60% more ad clicks compared to pictures.

Google also declares that more than 33% of shoppers purchased a product thanks to a YouTube ad.

On the other hand, YouTube ad sequencing accounts for a staggering 74% ad recall lift when compared to the standalone video.

The reason for this is that ad sequencing works much like the traditional sales funnel. Rather than expecting a viewer to act on the first discovery, you get to reinforce your message with multiple interactions.

Furthermore, multiple videos provide more breathing room for your content. Rather than trying to sandwich all of the bullet points into one short video, you get to take your prospect on a journey. The gaps in between each video in the sequence then allow the viewer to reflect upon what you've previously shared. Instead of seeing your brand once and forgetting about it, they might see your second and third video and decide to convert at that time.

The trick to creating a great sequence is to ensure that your ads tell an excellent story. Google/YouTube knows this and offers all marketers pre-built storytelling templates to guide you to creating the perfect video ads.

What are these templates? How do you make sure your videos fit into the sequence? We're going to guide you through that setup process next.

How to Set up a YouTube Ad Sequence?

To get started with YouTube ad sequencing, you'll need to create a brand-new campaign within your Google Ads account.

If you've yet to get started with Google Ads, you can create an account for your business here.

Step 1 - Select an Objective

First, you'll need to select a campaign objective. Google uses this to provide campaign options that work best for that goal.

YouTube ad sequencing is limited to the following objectives: Product and brand consideration or Brand awareness and reach. Select the former to promote a specific offering and the latter to boost your audience discovery efforts.

Step 2 – Campaign Creation & Bidding Options

Next, select Ad sequence as the subtype to get started. You’ll need to name your campaign and select your ideal bidding strategy. You can choose between the following options (per Google support):

• Target CPM (recommended) – Google Ads optimizes bids to show your entire sequence campaign to your audience, which can help you get a higher sequence completion rate.
• Maximum CPV – Set the most you’re willing to pay each time your video ad is viewed.

Google recommends the first option as it provides more flexibility to show the full ad sequence. That means that you can leverage all three video types to maximize viewing time while keeping your costs low.

You may be able to brute force your way to securing spots with max CPV, but you are strictly limited to skippable video ads.

To help you select the ideal bidding option, here’s an overview of YouTube’s available video ad types:

• Skippable in-stream ads – Your ad will interrupt the user’s current YouTube video. Users can skip the video after 5 seconds elapse.
• Non-skippable in-stream ads – Your ad will interrupt the user’s current YouTube video. The video may be no longer than 15 seconds and the user may not skip it.
• Bumper ads – Your ad will play at the beginning or the end of the current YouTube video. These are meant to be short and no longer than 6 seconds.

We concur with Google's recommendation as being able to utilize each ad type or a combination allows greater creative freedom.

Step 3 - Deciding Who to Target

YouTube ad sequencing presents a caveat when it comes to a typical campaign targeting setup.

As per Google: You can't target keywords, topics, or placements but you can exclude keywords, topics, or placements at the campaign level.

Unlike your typical ads, you may not target users based on keywords or phrases they utilize to discover new videos. Instead, you're going to primarily focus on the most important audience demographics and the devices they utilize.

Google Ads will allow you to check off any number of demos you wish to target including age ranges, employment status, or household income levels. You can also choose which devices you want Google to prioritize for this campaign. Having pre-existing audience data on your Google Ads account will prove helpful for getting the most out of this ad sequence.

After you select your ideal audience, you'll need to select your content exclusions.

Whenever a YouTube account uploads a video, they’re required to identify the video as having any of the following attributes:

• Profanity
• Sexual content
• Nudity
• Violence & injury
• Drug use
• Crime

As an advertiser, you can exclude any content that contains these characteristics. Users often make a direct association with a brand and the content they view. If your brand is family-friendly, you'll want to exclude any strong examples of the above when possible.

You can choose three inventory types that dictate how often Google excludes content for ad placement:

• Expanded Inventory – This gives you the greatest selection of videos to use for your ad campaign. However, content may include sensitive materials that feature all of the above attributes. It will exclude excessive profanity, graphic sexual content, and graphic violence.
• Standard Inventory – This is the level deemed appropriate for most everyday brands. Google Ads makes the effort to exclude repeated profanity, strong sexual content, and violence either real or dramatized.
• Limited Inventory – This is for advertisers that must go the extra mile to ensure everything stays brand-safe. Google will exclude even moderate profanity and sexual content. However, this greatly limits your available real estate.

Choose the appropriate option that makes the most sense for your brand. As Google states, the standard option should work for most companies. Not only will choosing the right content better speak to your company values, but you're also more likely to connect with the correct audience demographics.

Step 4 - Choosing a Template & Adding Your Videos

Google Ads will prompt you to upload your videos at this time. You must upload a minimum of two unique videos.

However, we're going to help you out by skipping ahead to the next step - choosing a sequence template. Having an idea of how you're going to sequence your storytelling will help you in selecting the most effective videos for this campaign.

A. Choosing a Sequence Template

The four base options Google includes are as follows:

• Introduce & reinforce – This is a simple two-video sequence that features a long video to introduce your brand. You then follow up your initial content with a short video to reinforce the message.
• Prompt & inspire – This is an inverse of the first option. Instead of asking for more viewing time up front, you make the viewer aware of your brand or offer a quick video. After they’re aware of you, you then inspire them to act with a longer video.
• Attract & direct – This is the first three-video sequence template. It’s essentially a continuation of Prompt & inspires, but with a short video that features a direct CTA.
• Engage & differentiate – This is a four-video sequence template. The idea is to continuously reinforce one message through different angles and approaches to the same idea.

Note that you are not restricted to any of these templates. You can elect to make a Custom sequence and formulate any story you desire.

Google explores these sequence ideas more here with additional templates. They support the different use cases for these YouTube ad sequences with demonstrable increases in brand awareness, ad recall, and purchase intent.

1. Tease, Amplify, Echo – Develop curiosity with an initial short video. Follow up with a longer video that provides the opportunity to deepen engagement. Finish with a short video that compels them to action.

This is most comparable to Attract & direct. Tests of this sequence showed a 115% average increase in brand awareness, an 86% increase in ad recall, and a 134% increase in purchase intent.

2. The Mini-Series – This format leverages the 3-act story. Three videos share the rising action, the climax, and the resolution.

This sequence obtained high marks across the board with over a 100% increase in all three areas. It speaks directly to how impactful a genuine story is for marketers.

3. The Direct Shot – We can compare this to the Engage & differentiate template. Rather than focusing on different ideas, you want to revisit one idea multiple times for alternative perspectives. The message never changes significantly, but deviations from the first video cause the user to recognize each subsequent video as unique content.

This format, once again, scores high across all metrics. However, the focus on one idea shows a significant boost to purchase intent.

4. The Follow-Up – This sequence banks a lot into a long-form opening act. You can then follow up a longer video with as many shorter videos as necessary to drive it home.

This format boasts high marks, particularly in brand awareness and purchase intent. However, it appears to be less effective than the previously mentioned formats.

5. The Lead-In – This is the direct reverse of the follow-up. You utilize a short video to peak interest before establishing your message in a longer format.

This YouTube ad sequence showed the weakest performance out of all tested formats.

Using these metrics as a guideline, it’s hard to go wrong with any of the first three sequences. For example, Tease, Amplify, and Echo may be best for purchase intent, but the Mini-Series and Direct Shot are going to leave you with comparable results.

As you become more familiar with ad sequencing, you can set up custom sequences to experiment with other options.

B. Adding Your Videos

With the template you want to use in mind, you can proceed with adding videos to your campaign.

The highest-performing sequences share a commonality in establishing the message quickly. It’s estimated that 9 in 10 users will skip your ad when given the option. This is true even if your targeting is generally on-point.

Remember that users have the option to skip longer ads after five seconds. For skippable in-stream ads, you have exactly that long to make an impact.

You may be thinking: “But, non-skippable ads give me fifteen seconds to work with.” The problem is that the human attention span is on average nine seconds. Even if we run a longer ad, we get distracted by other browser tabs, our phones, our smartwatches, and so on. Just because the video is running doesn’t mean that people will watch.

Consider that the number one reason people visit YouTube is for entertainment. People already don’t enjoy ads, and delaying their chosen content to promote yourself already puts you at a disadvantage. You owe it to yourself and the viewer to make every second count. That means that your emphasis must be on quality versus quantity.

While longer ads are accepted, shorter is almost always better. You may want to think of the shorter videos in a sequence of 5-10 seconds, while your longer videos should be no longer than 15-30 seconds. There are exceptional cases where you may want to go longer, but this will highly depend upon your offer and the audience’s historical reaction.

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Give the most pertinent details upfront. Additionally, look to take full advantage of the disruption by acting outside of the norm. For an everyday watcher, ads are an expected part of life and they're going to tune out without even realizing it. By doing something unexpected, or maybe even shocking, you have a far better chance of demanding attention in the first few seconds.

Finally, avoid any lingering one-shots. Many content creators utilize snappy editing styles, using video editor for YouTube, even when the subject of the video remains the same. Cutting to different angles can trick the brain into feeling like the video is more dynamic than it is. You can also use this to maximize every second and eliminate unnecessary dead air and fluff from the ad.

Step 5 - Assigning Your Sequence Steps

After selecting your template and adding the videos, it's time to assemble all the moving parts.

Google will lay out your selected template as a reminder of which videos you'll want to place in each step. You'll just need to add the YouTube URL.

You can and should select one of the optional call-to-actions to add to each video. There are several options, so you should have no trouble finding the one that best speaks to your campaign objective.

You can change up your CTAs in each step. If you want to treat it like a sales funnel, you might use your first step to “Learn More.” At the last step, you could set your video to display “Buy now” to drive purchase intent.

Be aware that you can also customize your bidding options for each step if you desire. This allows for greater flexibility regarding which videos are most vital for promotion. If you need a reminder, head back up to our coverage on bidding options.

You'll also need to select the ad format for each video. Remember, your options are skippable, non-skippable, or bumper. If your video length extends beyond the allowed limits, that format will not be selectable.

Finally, you need to select the conditions that will trigger the next step in the sequence. For example, you may only want to show the next video to users that click on the first ad. Alternatively, you can pursue users that don't click by setting the trigger to impression. This means that anyone who sees the first video will be eligible for the next step in the sequence.

After you complete this process for every step, click Create Campaign to finalize the process. You can preview each as it will display on YouTube to make your last-minute checks.

Step 6 - Test & Observe Your YouTube Ad Sequence

From here on out, the process will be markedly similar to a traditional Google Ads campaign.

You'll be able to monitor results from your dashboard 24/7. You can obtain more in-depth metrics from each step by establishing custom UTM parameters at the time of campaign creation.

We strongly recommend doing this as it will provide greater insight as to which types of video work best with your audience on YouTube.

For your campaign at large, you're going to be looking for trends in not only ad views, but also minutes watched. The former tells you that you're winning the bid for the display time, while the latter indicates whether users are watching or skipping.

Other indicators of campaign success can be seen in the form of likes, channel subscriptions, and video shares. After taking a few weeks to gather actionable data, you can begin making improvements that will further drive conversions.

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This may involve swapping out videos at a step. It may also see you testing different sequence templates to better present your best content to your audience. Just like with a standard Google Ad campaign, allow the results to guide your performance.

How to Set up a YouTube Ad Sequence - Conclusion

Building a YouTube ad sequence allows you to capitalize on a marketer's greatest tool - storytelling.

By following proven narrative formulas, you get to control how your message gets delivered to your audience. Based on their impressions and engagement, you can filter out unqualified leads and further refine your content for better performance.

Finally, YouTube ad sequencing will help you stand out as a cut above compared to the competitor. Rather than randomly serving ads to target demos, you show the user that you're mindful of what they're experiencing. Leveraging the buyer journey and reinforcing your message will help build awareness and drive purchase intent like never before.

Welcome to DashClicks' Digital Marketing Training Sessions. Today's training session is about using TikTok to get inbound leads. My name is Daniel, and this training session is based on my personal experience of generating leads using TikTok. TikTok is an emerging short video platform that has set a benchmark for all other social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube.

We will discuss the entire process of using TikTok to generate inbound leads. It will help you build your brand from scratch within a shoestring budget.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel to watch exclusive training sessions on digital marketing. The channel also hosts the Whiteboard Wednesday series, where Chad Kodary, the CEO of DashClicks, shares tips on how to run a digital agency successfully in a highly competitive market.

So, without further ado, let's dive in.

TikTok has grown out of its old image as a short video platform known for teenage dancing girls' clips. Some people still look at it that way, but the platform has come quite far. Whatever be the truth, TikTok has revolutionized the social media world.

Today's training session is based on our real-life experience and includes proven tips to generate inbound leads.

However, you need some buffer period to grow your account on TikTok. In the meantime, you might encounter some uncomfortable situations. You might also need to do a few things you have never done before and walk through rocky terrain.

The Salient Features of TikTok

There are multiple ways you can attract inbound leads on TikTok, but let's discuss its salient features first.

1. High Engagement

The platform is designed to interact with your followers and other content creators in a way that no other platform does. That's the reason it has a very high rate of engagement.

Source: DashClicks Training Sessions ā 01:35

2. Acts as a Search Engine for Short Videos

Apart from that, TikTok is also emerging as a search engine. They have also increased the character count of a video description from 120 to 500. It implies that your content stands a chance to rank based on various text strings used in the video title, description and hashtags.

For example, if you love “smoking ribs” and use a search query “smoking rib recipes,” you’ll get a 15 second video on the topic rather than long tutorials on YouTube. It’s much better and more time-saving if you want a quick understanding of the topic.

Whenever a social media platform gets bigger, it soon becomes a search engine, and TikTok is no exception.

3. Allows You to Respond to Questions via Videos

On TikTok, you can interact with content creators and people in your audience by responding to comments or questions via your video. Your response showcases your expertise. TikTok uses a content library for this purpose where anyone can ask questions.

For example, if you post a TikTok video and share three ways to increase your conversion rate on your website, you might get a question like, “Do you really mean this?” You can take this opportunity to respond to the question and increase engagement.

4. Provides A Massive Platform

TikTok started as a dancing video platform, but now it’s flooded with customers. It’s an anomaly that grew too fast, just like a black swan event.

It was so much so that every major social media platform is now copying it in the form of “reels” and “IdeaPins” and scrollable short videos. It’s creating waves. People love this platform and the way they interact with each other on it.

5. Has More Searchable Content

TikTok has now moved to searchable content using hashtags and location factors. Apart from these, searchable elements in your content also include sounds. When you click on “music” below a video, it will list all the videos that use the same music. With so many search parameters, finding your content has become comparatively more straightforward.

People are also using the platform for education, and it’s indeed a fantastic place for learning.

Your TikTok Checklist

Here’s your TikTok checklist for getting started. After that, we can move on to the strategy.

1. Focus more on benefiting your audience
2. Use the content to become the go-to expert in the field
3. Post frequently and regularly
4. Pick a specific topic (such as marketing, sales, NFTs)
5. Educate through entertainment
6. Engage and connect with like-minded individuals
7. Make sure you are posting quality content that offers value and is engaging

Content is the soul of social media and every other online marketing vertical you can think of. Your audience should love the content you create. It should offer value, address people’s pain points, and entice them enough to click the video and watch it fully.

Source: DashClicks Training Sessions ā 07:02

Your content should be shareable to offer value. TikTok offers you tons of ways to share your videos. Cross-platform promotion is one such way that can also make your videos go viral. TikTok doesn't provide you with a shortened URL or a link while sharing it. Instead, it shares the whole video across other platforms. People love to share good content, and TikTok's easy shareability contributes to its popularity and success in a big way. You can easily find TikTok videos in Instagram reels, etc.

Pro Tip #1: Focus more on education and offering value while creating content. Avoid sales pitches and aggressive direct promotion on TikTok. Let your content answer people's queries and address their pain points.

Pro Tip #2: Push forward the narrative of benefiting the audience and always try to add value through your content. You should keep the number of salesy videos to a minimum.

Pro Tip #3: Use content to become a go-to expert in your field. It will help you prove your credibility.

When you successfully establish yourself as a go-to expert, you appear in more related searches and people's feeds. When the masses watch your videos and follow you, more and more people share your content. This way, your content is multiplied and distributed across numerous communities.

Source: DashClicks Training Sessions ā 12:29

What to Do?

TikTok is a different social media platform, but not difficult to learn and use to drive results from. To succeed on TikTok, you need to do the following things.

1. Learn the Platform

Jump on the bandwagon. Don’t worry about messing it up, as you always have an option to delete it. Just try to learn the platform. The earlier you start, the better you will get at it and receive more rewards.

2. Start Conversations

Leave comments that trigger conversation on relevant content. If you haven’t posted a single video yet, you might be a bit anxious about doing it. It can be nerve-wracking at first, but you need to take the plunge. Check your customer’s profile first. Are they landscapers or eCommerce business owners? Now, find a piece of content and comment on it. It can be a question or any other form of a conversation starter.

For example, you can say, “Hey! So, I have a startup, and we have had some challenges, but we came through. You might be wondering, how did we overcome those challenges?”

The idea is to start a conversation so that they respond to you. It will bring you under the spotlight, prompting other users to ask you questions. When you answer their questions, you build credibility and exhibit your expertise. It will also increase engagement.

3. Target Your Customers

Target your existing customers. Start comments and conversations. It will attract people’s attention. You can quickly build your brand and establish yourself as an expert by offering value, sharing insights, and building credibility. Also try to reel in people who comment on your content and send you DMs to become your leads.

4. Target People in Your Field and Interact With Their Content

You should also target people who do the same thing as you or are in the same niche. It gives you visibility in front of the masses and newer audiences. We have successfully got leads from people who commented on our content. We responded, and then they told us that they needed help. We have also got leads from people who sent a DM to us. Many of them wanted to work with us. It was all due to the content that we publish frequently. It builds credibility and showcases our expertise. People ask questions via comments on our videos, which we use as an opportunity to close one or two prospects.

Pro Tip: Leads will come from the content you produce.

5. Establish Your Expertise

The time and effort spent on creating high-quality videos ultimately establishes your expertise and increases your credibility. You get leads by responding to people’s comments. But, how do you make these leads into potential prospects and get business from them? Here are three ways you can do so!

• Get Leads by Responding to Comments to Resolve People’s Issues
  Sometimes people convey their issues through the comments and seek insights because you have created content on similar topics. Experts take this as an opportunity and create videos on the same.Responding to their comment, they warmly say, “Hey! Thanks for the comment. Here is what I recommend you do to resolve your problem.” And then they add the link to the video they have created for the same. We also use such occasions as an opportunity to network and establish relationships.
• Get Leads From People DMing You
  The content you create adds credibility and helps you establish your expertise. When people see these insights, they try to contact you through comments, DMs, or phone calls. When someone sends you a direct message, you can reply, “I would like to work with you. Could we discuss this over a call?” You can also implement this strategy for your customers.
• Get Leads From Questions People Ask Under Your Video
  There are many questions people ask when you post your video. You should take this opportunity to answer these questions. There are high chances that these people will become your prospects.

Pro Tip: Stick with this practice and be consistent.

The best inbound leads I’ve ever received have been from podcasts, and the best place to get on podcasts is through TikTok, besides some occasional invites from here and there. That is why you should connect with people with the same interests and field. For example, they can be sales experts or marketing experts.

Source: DashClicks Training Sessions ā 14:12

Every podcast I’m currently on has been found from outreach on TikTok. It proves how much visibility you get when you are on TikTok. When you follow people from a specific niche or profession and interact with their content, there are two primary benefits you’ll get:

• You’ll get to know similar people
• Similar experts will pop up in your feed

So if you are a digital marketer, you might see the content of a growth expert XYZ pop up in your feed. They might have similar content to you, and in fact, you might use some of their ideas to build your content.

However, that’s another story.

Taking Your Newly Built Relationships to the Next Level

This way, both of you can see each other’s content, get familiar, and start interacting with each other. You build a relationship, add comments on each other’s content, and start sharing a great camaraderie.

So, you build relationships well through TikTok. You may find that your contact also hosts a podcast when that happens. So, when they post a podcast clip, you might comment and say, “Hey XYZ! I loved the podcast! Can I be on your podcast too and share some of my own insights and experiences with your audience?“

More likely than not, you’re going to receive a positive response from them as they are also from the same field, and it will benefit both of you mutually.

I created my first podcast this way. I built this relationship through commenting, and when I coined the idea of starting a podcast together, my contact immediately agreed.

The podcast that I sourced using TikTok and relations made through the platform opened the floodgates of leads for me.

TikTok offers tremendous opportunities similar to this if you are consistent. The procedure is simple:

• Pick a specific niche
• Offer value and build your credibility by posting quality content
• Answer questions posted by people to gravitate them towards you

So, if you do it consistently, people will reach out to you and would express their interest in working with you.

In less than six months of practicing it consistently, I have created my own fan following, starting from scratch.

Building Relationships With the Experts

The second way is to build relationships with experts in your field. They’ll see your content, and if you consistently post content that offers value, they will start enjoying it and might even reach out to build a relationship.

You can create a podcast together and distribute it through TikTok. People who follow or listen to this podcast may contact you as your TikTok account name and contact details will be shared with the podcast.

Again, appearing in podcasts increases your credibility, establishes your expertise on TikTok, and ultimately leads to inbound lead generation.

It is by far the best platform that delivers results in this fashion. TikTok is a little easier and more manageable as you can easily set it up, and things work on autopilot if you are consistent.

Final Words

TikTok is known for entertaining content that focuses on interaction with people in an engaging way. The platform is designed in such a way that it encourages engagement and relationship building. It works with an AI-based feed system that provides you with the content you love to consume. If you compare it with YouTube, TikTok is more engaging and user-friendly. Comments and video responses encourage interaction.

I hope you found this training session helpful. It worked extraordinarily well for me. Let me know if you have any questions. Ensure you subscribe to our channel and hit the bell icon for notifications if you want more of such sessions.

You are also welcome to suggest future topics in the comments section.

I’ll see you in the next training session. Until then!

Instagram features over one billion monthly users.

That figure alone makes it apparent why brands and marketers are capitalizing on the platform.

However, every other brand has the same idea. Hundreds of thousands of brands are vying for any given person's attention daily.

The result is a highly competitive environment that amounts to a densely packed minefield. One false move could cause users to reach for the unfollow button.

If this is happening to you, you're not alone. Let's take a look at what you're doing wrong so that you can learn how to stop losing followers on Instagram.

1. You Cheated the Game with Fake Followers

You're likely sitting there saying, Not me!ā

However, studies otherwise indicate that more than half of influencers on the platform are using fake followers. Nearly half of all accounts may be fake.

It's an extremely common tactic for new brands to buy followers. The more followers you have, the more likely you are to attract new attention organically. Instagram may also recognize your follower account and be more likely to promote your posts.

The problem is that it can catch up to you eventually. Instagram knows that this is a prevailing problem and is taking a proactive approach to banning these accounts.

Furthermore, if they can connect the accounts to yours, there's a good chance you can receive a full ban or a shadowban.

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You'll know if your account is banned as you will no longer be able to log in with your username.

A shadowban is more subtle as it still allows you to access the account. However, Instagram will prevent your content from appearing to new users with this type of ban.

If you engage in these tactics and find your brand losing Instagram followers, you need to take a closer look.

You may be losing followers simply because those bots are being discovered and deleted. You may also want to do some testing or reach out to Instagram to determine if you are in fact on a shadowban list.

2. All of Your Content is the Same

Instagram is unlike your other marketing channels. You cannot expect to rely on similar strategies for too long and expect great results.

Social media works much more like a local, social hangout spot. People will drop in and out as they please. They typically only stick around if there's something new and exciting happens to keep their interest.

Unfortunately, most brands go on with a full business-centric mindset. You end up being the most boring person at the event that everyone can't get away from fast enough.

They know your brand and they've heard the same pitch one too many times. Instead of being a part of the conversation, you're now talking at users instead of inviting them to join you.

One of the reasons this happens is that many brands do not devote the necessary resources to create a legitimate social media strategy. They end up creating an account, drafting up a few posts, and scheduling them to go out never to think about them again.

In reality, your brand requires a dedicated social media specialist. This person can consistently be active with other users on the platform. Not only does this provide firsthand insight into what's trending or interesting, but it also gives them more freedom to test out different types of content.

Don't be afraid to explore all types of media. Use pictures, create interesting infographics, and be sure to rely on video. Use Instagram photoshop actions to keep it quick and engaging, and always leave users hungry for whatever might come next.

3. Your Content is All About Trying to Make a Buck

Instagram users, and any social media user for that matter, are constantly bombarded with advertisements.

Any number of brands are vying for their attention on a given day. The result is that users automatically filter out promotional, salesyā  content without thinking. If all of your content is about selling, you might as well not post at all.

An effective social media strategy can and will help drive sales. However, your Instagram account is typically not the place to perform the hard sell.

Instead, social media is the place where you want to discover new leads and nurture those relationships naturally. It's about being a part of the greater conversation and convincing your following that your content is worth seeing daily in their timeline.

That isn't to say that you can't or shouldn't promote a sale or product. Highlighting a big sale or a hotly anticipated item is a great thing to include in your collection of posts. But, it shouldn't account for all or even most of them.

Great content can be educational. It can give customers a look behind the scenes. It can even just be a humorous post meant to brighten someone's day.

Brands must experiment more with different types of content to determine what resonates right now with the current audience. Just be sure that your content is consistent with your established tone and values.

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4. Your Posting Frequency is Off

In addition to creating great content, the timing of that content must also be consistent.

Many social media users are creatures of habit. They have their social routine which may be checking before work, on lunch, or strictly on the weekends. If you establish a routine of posting new content on schedule, they'll be sure to see it.

Conversely, posting on a haphazard schedule will cause users to miss your posts entirely. For example, posting during prime working hours may be a surefire way to alienate much of your would-be audience.

Different social platforms seem to have their peak times for ideal posting, and Instagram is no different. Sprout Social finds that the hottest times to post are during weekdays just around lunchtime. However, there also seems to be strong engagement throughout the afternoon before tapering off into the evening.

Your posting schedule may also vary depending on your audience's behaviors as well as your industry type. Just like with content, you will also want to perform some testing to see which hours are the best for your brand to post.

Once you find a schedule that works, it's imperative to show consistency. When users are clicking and following, don't push them away by changing things up unnecessarily.

5. You Failed to Establish a Unique Voice

Finally, your brand needs to have something unique and interesting to say. If you fail to make yourself stand out, nothing is stopping your audience from unfollowing and discovering countless other brands in your industry.

It's worthwhile to investigate the competition and analyze what's working in their social media strategy. However, your goal should not be to directly copy their voice and style.

Instead, it's time to do some deep reflection and think about what your brand has to offer that's different from the other voices on Instagram. If you have a unique value proposition worth listening to, the followers will come naturally.

If you're observing a loss in followers, it can be a result of this. Users may scroll through the timeline and one-day question why they're following an account that is too generic or too similar.

Find ways to separate yourself from other voices in your industry. Furthermore, you can also use your Instagram account to survey your followers directly. Not only are users generally willing to provide insight, but adding this type of engagement to your repertoire could help facilitate better relationships in the long term.

Stop Your Brand from Losing Instagram Followers

Seeing a loss of Instagram followers is disheartening. However, we are lucky to have such immediate access to analytics and insights as this alerts us to a fixable problem.

Instead of panicking, stop reflecting on your current Instagram strategy. Review the types of content you're sharing, think about your voice, and monitor your frequency. Some issues may be easily corrected, while others may require you to head back to the drawing board.

Marketing, in general, is a rapidly changing industry. However, social media is that much faster. Interests and trends can change without warning. The best brands on social are agile and ready to adapt to anything.

If you want to rebuild your Instagram follower base, then your brand, too, has to be dynamic. Create engaging content, target users at the right times, and results will come.

Most companies have an immature and casual approach to social media. They know that social media marketing is a crucial part of inbound marketing, but they don't know how to leverage social platforms to achieve their business goals.

Sometimes they recruit Gen X to manage their social accounts, thinking that younger generations are far more social media savvy. However, without a proper social media strategy, this practice can be extremely harmful. We are already past the first stage of social media, wherein publishing a post was enough to generate awareness and achieve many business goals.

These days, social media platforms are crowded like never before, and everybody is striving to gain some visibility and attention from users. So, we can't sit back and hope for miracles to happen. Brands should learn to run their social media accounts in an effective, well-planned, and measured way.

Here are some of the stats that would immensely help the marketers. 71% of customers will happily recommend a brand if they get an excellent service experience on social media. Unfortunately, more than 95% of people who participated in brand conversations didn't follow the social accounts of those brands. For the sake of branding and maintaining a personal touch, you should manage some of the social media accounts yourself.

Given the challenges lying ahead, here is a 13-step social media marketing strategy for businesses to succeed and give your brand a voice in 2022:-

1. Perform Competitive Research
2. Decide on a Rational and Feasible Budget
3. Decide the Type of Content to Share
4. Follow a Social Content Calendar
5. Set Realistic Social Media Goals
6. Find the Most Relevant Social Metrics You Should Target
7. Understand Your Social Media Audience
8. Set Your Accounts in a Professional Manner
9. Promote Your Social Properties
10. Engage With Your Audiences
11. Ā Build a Community
12. Ā Rope in Influencers to Increase Your Reach
13. Ā Measure Your Results and Adapt

So, without further ado, let's dive in.

1. Perform Competitive Research

Do you know the secret recipe to beat your competition, hands down? You need to conduct competitor analysis to succeed on social media without wasting time in hit and trial. If you think that everybody should have a unique approach to digital marketing, you should keep in mind that your competitors have already done their research. They understand customer psychology better than you.

Competitive research helps you in many ways, including finding the key phrases your competitors are using and the strategy they are implementing to succeed. It will save you time and energy when making your strategy.

Competitor analysis involves the following steps:

1. Identify your competitors
2. Perform SWOT analysis of your competitors
3. Assess your competitors' website and customer experience
4. Determine the market positioning of your rivals
5. Check their pricing and current offers
6. Learn about the technology they are employing
7. Review feedback on social media

The primary purpose of competition analysis is to identify your brand's major competitors and determine the best strategies to beat them. It also helps you understand why customers choose them and what you can offer instead to persuade your target audience to buy from you.

Exploit the gaps you find with the help of competitive research and do your best to meet customer expectations.

You can also use tools such as BuzzSumo to discover the most effective content your competitors are creating and sharing on social media.

For example, here is the screenshot of the search results returned by BuzzSumo for the keyword brand engagement online. We have chosen the option of most shared content, and the first result that appears is an article published on Moz in 2015, whereas the second most shared article was published on Forbes in 2016.

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You can choose similar topics and can develop even better content that resonates with your audience.

2. Decide on a Rational and Feasible Budget

When it is a matter of serious business, lip service doesn't work. Allocating a feasible budget for your social media accounts is important. However, you shouldn't spend more than what you earn from social channels. Sometimes, you are unable to calculate your income directly from social media marketing, but you can easily estimate the average returns by contributing to achieving your business goals.

For example, you can assess the contribution of social media channels in increasing your brand awareness and brand recognition. So, the best way is to calculate the ROI of your social media expenditure. First, decide your budget for digital marketing and then decide how much should be allocated to social media.

According to WebStrategies, a company allocates around 5% to 15% of its annual income to marketing. Then, they spend 35-45% of this budget on digital marketing, and only 15-25% of this amount goes to social media marketing, including the paid campaigns.

3. Decide the Type of Content to Share

Social media is not a marketplace where you spoil everything and tarnish your brand image by selling. Social media users do not use the platform to buy anything. So, you must be thoughtful about what you post on social media and avoid promotional content at all costs. You can try a mix of informational and entertaining content to engage people who follow your account.

Occasionally, you can post promotional material and other people's content, but that should be a fraction of the entire content you publish on social platforms. To engage users, follow a social calendar and punctuate it with trending content. You can also follow the influencers in your industry to take inspiration on the type of content you should share on your social media platforms. These influencers know their audience, so they create perfect content to engage them. That's the reason influencers are so successful.

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Another important thing is to be realistic about what kind of content you can create. Many businesses want to launch their video channels and produce quality videos. However, creating professional videos require equipment, expertise, people, and time, which makes it an arduous and time-consuming task. In that case, you should altogether avoid this option as there is a lot of competition on YouTube, and just one or two poorly created videos will only tarnish your image.

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You should also make sure that you don't post personal stuff or something that interests you personally. So, the personal accounts and the company accounts should strictly be kept separate. We should assess every post from our target audience's viewpoint.

Tip 1: The probability of visual content to be shared online is 40 times higher than text-based content. So, try to create visual content which is getting popular day by day. It also has a very high engagement rate.

Tip 2: As per an official statement by YouTube, mobile video consumption increases by almost 100% annually. It is also linked with a high conversion rate as 64% of customers conceded that they are more likely to shop a product online after watching a video about it.

Tip 3: Bring diversity to the content you create, as only one type of content can reduce the user's interest. For example, you can try a mix of entertaining videos, fascinating imagery, and a compelling text copy. You can also try memes, slides, or carousel and introduce humor, drama, and fun elements.

Tip 4: Customize your content according to the social network you're using. For example, attract people through enticing visual content on Instagram, keep it brief on Twitter, add short videos and links on Facebook, and post educational content on professional networks such as Linkedin

4. Follow a Social Content Calendar

Following a social calendar and choosing the best time to post will result in increased audience engagement. If you spend time on social media, you will quickly identify the best time to post so that the majority of the people are able to view your post.

Most social networks use algorithms that control users' feeds. If you don't post when your target audience is most likely to be active, chances are your followers might never see your post. It's therefore recommended that you use social scheduling software to schedule multiple posts at different time intervals when your audience is likely active on that social platform. These tools are Buffer, CoSchedule, Hootsuite, Agorapulse, Sendible and Sprout Social, etc. You can also use ContentCal.

You should also decide the frequency of your posts for each of your clients on different social platforms and post a variety of content both for entertainment and information. Focus on high-quality content and visually appealing graphics. You can use a social scheduling tool such as Buffer or Hootsuite to make your life easier.

5. Set Realistic Social Media Goals

Goal setting is an area most people overlook, but you should remember that it is the first step to your social media marketing success. Many people do not know where to start because they have very little knowledge about social media and what they can achieve.

You should set the goals in the light of your business plan. Setting strategic goals will help you take your business to the next level. So, in a way, your social media goals should complement your overall business objectives.

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Learn to set SMART goals, i.e., Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound.

Setting SMART goals is crucial because it means that your goals are attainable and realistic. Setting unrealistic goals may sound glamorous in the beginning, but you may not be able to achieve them, leading to disappointment later on. That's why setting limits to your goals and choosing the right social platforms become so critical. You can't succeed on all the social channels, so don't spread yourself too thin. Choose the network your audience spends the most time on.

Here are a few examples of social media SMART goals:

• Creating brand awareness
• Improving ROI on marketing campaigns
• Achieving high sales targets
• Increasing footfall to boost in-store sales
• Expanding your fan base

Attach a realistic figure to each such goal and then try to accomplish it using analytics. Social media may help you achieve all such objectives.

6. Find the Most Relevant Social Metrics You Should Target

If you think you will achieve your business goals by creating a social presence and spending your precious resources and time on it, you are on the wrong track. Social analytics can be a bit confusing over here, so to ensure success from social media, you need to choose the most relevant metric and focus on it.

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It's a folly for marketers to focus on vanity metrics such as the number of followers, likes, etc. You should also avoid unethical practices like buying fake followers. So, to increase your brand awareness, the right metric to focus on is "Post Reach."

It will provide you with information about your content's reach across different social channels and demographics.

If you are using social media to achieve your sales targets that involve driving people to perform a specific action, the number of clicks would be the most desired metric to track.

Fake followers or audiences other than those you want to target won't help you achieve anything at all. That's why marketers call it vanity metrics.

7. Understand Your Social Media Audience

The right mantra for succeeding on social media platforms and driving meaningful results from influencer marketing is using the same social platform as your target audience. For example, if your audience loves to spend time on Instagram, you should also choose Instagram as your marketing channel and find Instagram influencers in your niche.

If your target audience is Gen Z, then the best platforms for you would be Instagram and Snapchat rather than Facebook. Even with its 2.27 billion active monthly users, Facebook may not be that effective for you as a channel if your target audience is Gen Z. Facebook is known for a bit of a mature audience, say 25 to 34 years old.

The better you learn about the psychographics and demographics of your audience, the easier it would be for you to choose the right marketing channel.

Tip 1: Instead of worrying about managing different social platforms, find the one that is majorly used by your target audience and focus on it.

Tip 2: If you don't know which social platforms your target audience uses, conduct a survey.

Tip 3:Ā  You can start with your audience's most preferred social platform and then expand it to the other networks they visit. You don't need more than three channels to tap them.

Tip 4: Apart from the top social networks such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, and Snapchat, you can also tap other popular platforms such as TikTok, WeChat, QQ and Telegram, etc.

Tip 5: You can use the research papers such as the one released by Pew Research to explore data about social networks usage by different demographic groups in the US.

Tip 6: Don't waste your time on the network your audience doesn't use.

Tip 7: You can create multiple accounts on a single platform or multiple YouTube channels to target different interest groups if you have the required resources.

8. Set Your Accounts in a Professional Manner

Your social media accounts represent your brand, so they should follow your branding consistently and professionally. It applies to the colors, logos, and graphics used on your social profile or page.

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You should appropriately fill your profiles and bios. Link your social profiles to the relevant properties such as the related landing pages on your website, etc. Upload high-resolution images that are correctly optimized for banners, background, and profile pictures. Make sure your target audience loves your social media page.

9. Promote Your Social Properties

You need to vigorously promote your social handles. Add buttons for your social media real estate all over your website, especially at the most visible places such as the home page, About Us page, and footer and blog page.

Similarly, you should also include buttons of your social accounts in your emails. You can easily do it in the email settings and add these buttons in the footer below your name and contact details.

Tip 1: Promote your accounts both online and offline. Add them everywhere ā€” store signage, pamphlets, brochures, visiting cards, banners, posters, etc.

Tip 2: Cross-promote it on different channels. For example, you can mention them on your YouTube channel's profile page. Promote your YouTube channel on Instagram and Twitter and vice versa.

10. Engage With Your Audiences

Most of the social networks are meant for engagement and not just for watching and scrolling content. All successful businesses try to engage people as much as possible rather than act as a broadcaster.

A social media strategy that aims to cover every social network can be a big disaster as we all have limited time, energy, and resources. Therefore, focus only on the platforms frequented by your target audience.

To further improve the engagement, you can also try custom hashtags that promote healthy discussions and sharing.

Tip 1: Don't ignore any mention and respond to them everywhere. There are multiple tools that you can use to find your brand mentions.

Tip 2: Ā Provide top-notch customer support and make customers feel valued.

Tip 3:Ā  Encourage customers to talk and participate in discussions. Resolve their queries and aim to achieve customer delight.

11. Build a Community

Another perk of using social platforms is your ability as a business to build a community. You can always put in efforts to make your social media property a go-to place for your audience, so you can engage and nurture leads and, above all, build long-term relationships.

Tip 1: Create interactive posts and include your followers and fans.

Tip 2: Use quizzes and questions to know the opinions of your audience

Tip 3: Don't repeat your ads on social media. Make it enjoyable, so people find value in your content and frequently return to your posts.

Tip 4: Hire people to run your social accounts that match your target audience's social demographics. For example, if your target audience is roofing contractors, the existing homeowners would be your best choice as your social media professionals.

Tip 5: Never underestimate the importance of paid promotion. It allows you to target audiences you can never reach otherwise.

Tip 6: You can use paid advertising to create brand awareness, achieve sales targets, generate leads, and promote posts and videos.

Tip 7: Create interest-based groups such as Facebook groups. It's a great way to build a community without being promotional.

12. Rope in Influencers to Increase Your Reach

Engaging with the right influencers has its advantages. Influencers know the craft of social media marketing, which makes them highly reliable for brand promotion. They have a distinct style their audience is primarily familiar with, so their posts are pretty effective and engaging. People follow their advice because of the reputation they enjoy in their respective fields.

Tip 1: Collaborate with influencers whose followers match your target audience.

Tip 2: Create exciting content for your influencers so they can convince their audience to consider buying from you.

13. Measure Your Results and Adapt

Even the best marketers on the planet can't predict the outcome of their campaigns. Something or the other might go wrong. That's the reason periodically measuring your results is important to tweak your strategy accordingly. You've already set your goals and determined the key metrics to focus on.

You can use an appropriate analytics tool to measure the performance of your campaigns, especially concerning the metrics you've chosen. If you're not getting the desired success, you can change your campaign strategy. Most of the social networks have inbuilt analytics tools, and they offer relevant data about the campaigns. On Facebook, it's known as "Insights." Twitter and YouTube also have their inbuilt tracking software.

If you find that some of the content pieces perform well on the platforms, create more such content. On the flip side, if your content is not performing, try to figure out the reason behind that and switch to a better content strategy. You can also conduct an online survey for that.

Conclusion

Regardless of the goal you set, you can fearlessly dive in and invest in social media marketing as it has a massive impact on brand awareness, followers count, and sales. Your social media strategy is directly related to brand awareness, lead generation, lead nurturing, and conversion. Apart from that, social channels have long been used to provide instant and quality customer support to build a loyal customer base. Constantly track your results and improve your campaigns. Implement the 13-step social media strategy discussed above and be ready to embrace success.