Social media is an inherently visual medium, although some platforms are more visually oriented than others, such as Instagram. That means that for you to utilize it effectively for your marketing campaigns, you need to present your content in interesting and attractive ways. In the market of today, you cannot present yourself and your brand effectively without using images and other visual content – they are the most consumed medium.
With that in mind, not every business is fortunate enough to have a wealth of visual content to share on social media when promoting their brands. If yours is one of them, read on for some tips on using social media for the non-visual business.
The statistics behind social media marketing
Most businesses prefer using Facebook as their main channel for marketing, followed by Twitter, and Instagram. Most of them will also use images to show their content, while measuring their engagement levels through ROI (returns on investment).
For many businesses, images are the most shared content they use and have, mostly to connect with their customers. This can include the use of an interesting photo and a great caption, which has the ability to drive up their sales.
Strategies to use
Having personalized connections with your audience
Before you open a social media page on any platform, you need to know what kind of audience you are targeting. This will inform your approach to marketing, and all aspects that relate to it.
Some questions can include finding out what the audience values, what they are looking for, what they enjoy doing, their relationship with you, and what will make you stand out in their eyes. An example of such a company would be MasterCard, which is not a visual company by their nature. They instead choose to base their content on the real life challenges of their customers and offering them a solution to their problem, which creates a strong loyal bond.
Developing a persona
One of the factors that make someone stand out on social media is simpler than you may think – being yourself and letting your personality shine through. When people notice you are honest, you will not need to pay for expensive advertisements on social media or to buy likes on Instagram-fast and secure on your new posts – you will attract them due to your authenticity.
In addition, making your brand have a distinct voice and persona is a great and easy strategy to carry out, because it makes the audience recognize your brand in an instant – regardless of the social media platform you are using. You can incorporate the language you use, the style of posts you have,and even your brand logo. This makes it easy to be everywhere on the social media scene.
An example is the company MailChimp, which takes care of email services for its clients. Their business does not have much in the way of visual content, but it continues to succeed thanks to a fun persona that it projects. All their photos and other visual content are consistently related to each other, such as retro drawing and bold images.
Revealing the faces of your brand
It is very important to remember this – you are not just in a business to make money. You have an important role to humanize your business, which makes it as relatable as possible to your audience and encourages them to support you. When you do not have people in your company, it is literally a faceless identity.
Whether you have been in operation for a long or short time, it is very important to show the people working in your business. For instance, General Electric that has been in existence for very many years is beginning to show the people behind the institution. This removes the mentality that the company lacks any humanity within it – you are seeing the faces of all those working in that business, and makes it more relatable.
Delving into current events
It is difficult to have a steady stream of content coming through every day when your business is a non-visual one, and that is understandable. However, you can reduce the struggle by engaging with the public and your audience, thanks to current events and holidays. More so, you can do this while promoting your brand and remaining relevant for many more days to come.
For instance, a major holiday like Christmas might be difficult to rank highly for, because so many people are celebrating it at the same time. However, you can post your content using specific hashtags and even geo tags to increase your level of visibility, and this creates a sense of relationship between you and the consumer
Improving your email signatures
Part of connecting to your audiences on social media might involve emails – unfortunately, many companies and businesses are not creative enough when creating their signatures. They instead rely on a certain format that is used by everyone else, which makes them not stand out at all.
If you are seeking to create connections through email, make sure you are memorable enough. Avoid using the tried and tested statement, ‘follow us on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook,’ and so on. Strive to be unique, because emails are also a method of marketing your brand and making it memorable enough to the consumer. Similar to your other social media platforms, you need to stamp the personality of your brand on all platforms you use.
Just like with other socialmedia strategies, using the right signature on your emails can make or break the traffic of people going to your business website. You are in a better position to lure in more customers and build your unique identity.
Final thoughts
In case you have a business that is a non-visual enterprise, you do not need to worry. There are plenty of ways you can still maximize your presence on social media while supplying interesting content. After all, you do not need to be like other businesses, you simply need to be unique and stand out from others.
