Further research into the type of content searched for suggests that “how to” queries are favoured, with search volumes up to 10 times larger than Google’s. However it’s used, there’s no doubting the inexorable influence of TikTok – surpassing 1.5 billion users in 2024.

So, how can your brand use TikTok search to reach its target audience? Learn more about the famous algorithm and how to get more views on TikTok.

What is SEO on TikTok?

Just like search engine optimisation for Bing or Google, your TikTok SEO strategy should always have your users’ search intent in mind. Rather than the traditional SERPs (search engine results pages), TikTok videos are displayed on the ‘For You page’ (also known as FYP). 

The TikTok ranking algorithm measures user interactions on these videos, including number of views and time spent watching. There are multiple ranking factors that will help to push your content in front of the right people – including trending hashtags, high-quality video content and influencer partnerships.

What counts as a TikTok view?

The fundamental difference between TikTok content views and other platforms is how it’s measured. For example, on a YouTube video, a single ‘view’ is only logged if somebody has viewed it for 30 seconds or more. On Facebook, this value is lower at just three seconds.

Appealing to the short-term nature of its content, the TikTok search engine counts all views. This means that your viewing figures will go up the second somebody lands on your content. It also means that ‘dwell time’ is not the only thing that makes your videos rank. As such, TikTok users need to think about other ways to persuade the algorithm that their videos offer relevant content.

How TikTok SEO works

The TikTok algorithm works in mysterious ways. Views in isolation won’t make your content go viral. Instead, you’ll need to consider positive user interactions such as likes, comments, shares and account follows. 

Dwell time is indeed a factor – the platform will take note if your videos are watched to the end and even re-watched. It will then serve similar content on a user’s ‘FYP’. This gives your TikTok account more chance of showing up, though it could also rank your competitors.

The difference between search engine optimisation and TikTok SEO

Your marketing strategy should follow some of the same principles as traditional SEO. For example, informational search queries are more likely to return ‘how-to’ videos. You’ll need to carry out TikTok keyword research, thinking about how long-tail keywords could translate into popular hashtags.

Transactional searches, meanwhile, may be more reliant on trending topics – for example, if a key influencer has just launched a new product range.

Fundamentally, while there are overlaps between Google and TikTok, there are differences. SEO ranking factors for TikTok include:

• Optimised, relevant hashtags
• User interactions such as follows and shares
• Audio and video quality considerations
• Content length and scheduling regularity.

Why optimise content for TikTok?

Producing relevant, engaging content for TikTok will not only grow your brand; it also offers monetisation opportunities. In August 2020, the TikTok Creator Fund was launched. According to the TikTok app, the fund helps creators “realise additional earnings that help reward the care and dedication they put into creatively connecting with an audience that’s inspired by their ideas.”

In monetary terms, you can expect to make between $0.02 and $0.04 (£0.016 and £0.032) per thousand views, or CPM. With these TikTok SEO tips, you can get more eyeballs on your content and grow your brand. Monetising your content is just a bonus.

How to get more views on TikTok

The algorithm made some interesting updates in 2022, namely to its search bar features. Users can now highlight on-screen text or caption content when they see a relevant keyword. TikTok will automatically create a clickable link, taking viewers through to related topics.

This puts more emphasis on creators to use relevant keywords in their captions and content. But it’s not the only way:

Think about your audience – what’s on their ‘For You’ page?

This method follows the fundamentals of all marketing, particularly SEO. Think about exactly who your user is – let’s say they’re an avid female gym-goer in their mid-20s. Transactional keywords might be shorter, such as the products they’re buying. Use hashtags like #gymleggings #yogapants #sportsbra etc.

Then consider the questions they might ask. “How can I gain muscle?” “How often do I need to stretch?” This can inform your hashtag strategy and your video content. TikTok video series work well, keeping users engaged with a single topic and then following it up with further answers to questions.

Jump on trending TikTok hashtags

Short-term boosts in sales based on trends are not to be sniffed at. You can use the ‘Discover’ page to browse videos and identify popular topics and hashtags. Include these in your video information to help your content show up in the search bar.

Don’t forget that hashtags aren’t the only thing that can trend. Phrases like #TikTokMadeMeDoIt showcase what products, movies or celebrities are hot in popular culture. These may inform memes, which you can recreate to align with your product or service. There are also TikTok challenges – a fun, light-hearted way to jump on whatever’s got users creating, contributing and interacting.

Keep your content under 30 seconds

There’s no hard and fast rule for optimum TikTok video content length – though the upper limit has now been extended to 10 minutes. This has come a long way since the early days of the platform when clips were limited to just 15 seconds. 

While you’ve got the freedom to make almost mini-movies with 10-minute content, you’re likely to see users dropping off. Between March and August 2023, the most popular TikTok videos averaged 34 seconds – suggesting that users are ready to move on long before 10 minutes.

The secret is to get your message across within this time and keep viewers hooked. How? Pique their curiosity by presenting the problem quickly. (Even better if this ties into what they’re searching for!) Use a storytelling format – problem, method, resolution – ideally with humour and trending content.

Post your content at the right times

It’s not only a case of what content you create, but when. Of course, you don’t need to hit publish as soon as you create it. You can even use scheduling tools to make content in bulk. You will find hundreds of articles on what the best times to publish on TikTok are, but the reality is more nuanced. 

For example, perhaps you’re an online retailer that ships globally. (If so, it’s also wise to look at language preferences and your account settings!) Some users may interact in different time zones. Another factor to think about is your industry. If you’re in B2B, for example, are your customers more likely to buy during the 9 to 5, or if you’re in B2C, are they more likely to engage on a weekend?

You can look at your analytics dashboard to find out more. This will give you three things:

1. A broad overview of your general video views, profile views, follower growth and overall user interactions
2. Content information such as total likes, average watch time, comments and shares
3. Follower insights such as where your audiences are based and what time of day they interact. This one is particularly important for scheduling.

Use trending sounds and audio effects

TikTok challenges and memes are one thing, but there are also sound effects. Again, head to the ‘Discover’ page to look for trending sounds. You can add these to your video by selecting the sound from the library. 

If a user likes a particular song or sound, they can click through to it on the video. This will show them other videos that are using this audio, including yours.

Capitalise on the ‘how to’ using the comment section

More and more users are turning to TikTok to find quick, accessible information on how to do things. If you’re stuck for content ideas, head to your comment section. Here, users may ask questions about your videos. You can answer their queries directly – which may prompt a follow – or you can go the extra mile.

Think about making a video that answers the user’s question. You can respond to their query right there in the comment section with a video. This will link the user through to your new content, keeping them informed and those algorithms happy. After all, TikTok rewards quality, but it also rewards quantity.

Merge your videos by ‘stitching’

‘Stitching’ video content is ideal for collaborating with others or even promoting your existing content. It involves playing two videos side by side in a split-screen fashion. You can use it to compare two of your posts or work with a partner to make fun and interactive content.

For example, some people might sing along to another clip or dub over pre-existing videos with their own dialogue. Others might use this tool to compare two products. It’s essentially twice the content in the same viewing pane – great for those time-poor users.

Cross-promote your TikTok content on other platforms

Who says your videos have to exist on one platform only? While TikTok may be separate from other social networks like Meta, its content can still be shared. You can take your TikTok content and share it again on Instagram Reels or YouTube Shorts. (Don’t forget, YouTube is still considered a highly influential search engine.)

It will feature the TikTok logo and your username, inviting viewers to follow you on your account. This essentially gives your videos more longevity – reaching new users on different platforms. You can even branch out into others like LinkedIn or X. Simply share a link and watch your views grow.

Partner with influencers

Influencers are ideal for keeping your ‘dwell time’ high – ensuring more users reach the end of your video. Today, TikTok influencers are stars in their own right, with high followings that encourage more users to interact and convert. 

To find the right influencers, follow these steps:

1. Look at your current followers. Analyse their user activity and find out more about the kind of accounts they’re following. To make this faster, you can also use the influencer management platform Heepsy.
2. Engage with your influencers. Once you’ve found a relevant TikTok star, reach out to them. Ask them what they think of your product. If they would have bought it anyway, they’re far more likely to promote it authentically.
3. Negotiate achievable goals. This starts with ensuring your chosen influencer’s followers are real and not just bots. Once you’ve confirmed this, discuss how they could help. Is it a how-to video, product demo or channel takeover?

Like all marketing, there may be some trial and error with this – which it’s why it’s so important to do your research. Make sure your influencer has the same values you do and watch out for shady tactics, such as promoting unethical products.

Don’t compromise on video quality

You may feel under pressure to create often, but this should not be at the expense of quality! Modern devices mean we have more access than ever to user-friendly content creation tools. The TikTok algorithm prioritises high-quality content – that is, using good lighting and crisp audio.

You should also follow the right framing conventions. TikTok recommends video dimensions of 1080 x 1920 pixels with an aspect ratio of 9:16. Remember that most people will be viewing these portrait-mode on a mobile, so ensure there’s no way that content can be clipped or captions missing.

Speaking of captions, never scrimp on these. Keep them below 125 characters (essential for scheduling tools) and use up to three relevant hashtags, leading with the most important information first.

Get started with TikTok Advertising

While TikTok’s algorithm opens up exciting ways for brands to reach younger audiences, maximizing visibility on the platform still requires a strong strategy. That’s where Adzooma’s parent company, ClickTech, can make a difference. With industry-leading expertise, ClickTech is now a TikTok Partner, offering brands resources to leverage TikTok’s unique advertising potential. Visit our partner page to find out more and get in touch, to start your TikTok advertising journey!

This article was written for Adzooma by CTI Digitial.

Social media should have its own strategy within any business, whether it is to stay away from it or spend a massive budget ensuring that you are all over every channel. This is where the problem comes in; trying to strategize when you may not be sure where and when you need to be in this realm.

As you can see from the diagram below social media marketing should become the focus for the future success of a company. Once trained on how to make maximum use of all of the platforms available online, employees will become an even more valuable business asset as it will increase their performance and productivity.

This is why social media training should be seriously considered by all companies for them to have the most informed staff possible. 

As the diagram illustrates social media should play an integral part throughout your business development processes, through planning, building the foundations and delivery of your messages.

Check out Astute Media on Adzooma Marketplace

Why you should seriously consider social media training

If you are considering Social Media seriously, there are two approaches. One approach is to engage with a digital marketing agency, who immediately provides you with the required skills on tap. The second approach if your budget doesn’t stretch to that is to… 

TRAIN! Not the passenger type, but the learning type.

There are a number of reasons why marketing and communications training makes sense in these current times…

1. Staff development

Maybe you are working towards an ‘Investor In People’ status or pride yourself on the manner in which you help to develop your staff. Either way training them in social media means that you can harness their existing skills with newly found Social Media marketing skills, to truly enhance the effectiveness of your digital marketing strategy.

2. Staff morale

In these uncertain times, what can be a better indicator of how much you value your staff than resourcing some training for them, showing them that you value them and want them to be a part of things going forward.

3. Flexibility

Most training of this sort can take place online over Zoom or MS Teams. You don’t need to fork out for expensive nights away in hotels.

4. Ownership

If you train your internal teams, moving forward, you will have complete control over your social media channels. There is nothing better than motivated, loyal staff, who know the culture and values of your brand. So when it comes to representing your business in the online environment your branding is consistent and correct.

5. Engaging mindset

Rather than just throwing things at your customers and expecting things to stick, trained social media managers will engage with the target audience and listen to what they have to say. This could provide invaluable feedback about any products and services, ultimately helping to shape the future of the business.

6. Ongoing support

Any decent training providers will not just take you through the theories and best practices, but they will also help you in the long run. They will be there to answer questions and engage with you. Show you how to get the most of your social channels. At Astute, in all that we do, our first aim is gain an understanding of your business and what is important to you. This ensures a truly targeted training session maximising your chances of success.

7. Social media training online

In these current challenging times is it also worth noting those facilitators that can provide online training sessions so that you do not have to worry about social distancing in a training room. If you can do it from the comfort of your own home, even better!

So what can you do now?

Review what you have now! This means looking at what you are doing on social and what resource you have. Who in the team shows an interest in social media, who keeps pestering you that you should be on it? 

Look at doing a social media audit and understand where you are. Does your website design reflect your branding and the way you will be positioning your business on the social media platforms. 

You then need to put someone in the driving seat. Talk with them about where they feel their strengths are in terms of social media. That way you can identify weaknesses and where training will be helpful. For example:

• Do they know how to write an outline social media strategy?
• Do they know how to compose a content calendar?
• Do they know what KPIs to set?
• Do they know how to make sure all of the above is in line with business goals?

If you need help with anything to do with social media or digital marketing in general, then Astute Media Ltd can also help you there. We have been in business for over 30 years and we have very experienced social media team you can talk to. 

Simply talking it through with others can often help to make things clearer! When you have identified what your staff need to improve their skills, check out the training courses available at Astute Media and discover how we can help you to help yourself.

They are all half-day interactive courses with a maximum of six delegates per course. As you will see we have courses that will improve their knowledge and expertise, whatever their current social media abilities. To book courses to learn more about our services, contact Bob Mountford.

But those statistics demonstrate performance if you look at the right ones. Likes, shares, and page views aren’t the metrics you’re looking for (at least in isolation). In our guide, we’ll look at 11 social metrics to track in 2021 and why they’re better than vanity metrics.

Why are social media metrics important?

Social media metrics indicate what works and what doesn’t when it comes to your social media campaign. You need to be posting content that is valuable and relevant to your customers to navigate to your website and engage with your page on a regular basis.

Whether you’re using organic or paid social, there’s data to analyse and if paid social is part of your marketing strategy, that includes metrics like ROI (return on investment), CPL (cost per lead) and CPA (cost per acquisition). After all, you need to know how effective your budget spending is.

If you aren’t tracking metrics related to these actions, you’re not going to know which posts are performing better than others.

What’s the problem with vanity metrics?

A vanity metric is something that looks good, and in turn, makes you feel good, but does not give you any real information about how your business is performing. Vanity metrics aren’t suitable for evidence of necessary improvements. These include:

• Followers
• Pageviews
• Likes/faves
• Retweets
• Total downloads

There’s nothing inherently wrong with vanity metrics but you shouldn’t make wholesale changes to a strategy based on, say, a change in follower count or retweets without looking at the underlying metrics. Vanity metrics are often the result of more important metrics in the background.

Metrics you need to track

With that in mind, here is our list of metrics you should be tracking.

Engagement

Engagement shows how substantive a social media following is, rather than looking at follower counts. Since engagement is a broad metric to follow, there are smaller metrics you can analyse such as:

• Amplification rate – the average number of shares per post
• Applause rate – the average number of approving actions your post receives in a given period (likes, thumbs-ups, faves, et al.)
• Conversation rate – the number of conversations per post, whether they’re comments or replies (depending on the platform)
• Engagement rate – the average number of engagement actions per post (a broader version of the applause rate as it also includes disapproving actions like angry faces on Facebook)

By looking at these specific metrics, you can see how active your followers are. You might find that a smaller follower base has more engagement than a larger one and that would be a testament to your content.

Reach

Your post reach tells you how many people have seen a post since you originally posted it. Since the timing and the content impact your reach, it is an actionable metric to follow. It will help you to understand when your audience is online and figure out what your audience finds valuable.

Here are some of the more specific reach metrics:

• Audience growth rate – the number of new audience members divided by the total audience members
• CPM – Cost per thousand ad impressions, used in paid social (Facebook Ads, Twitter Ads, Etsy Ads)
• Post Reach – the number of people who have seen a post

As well as your post reach, there is your potential reach. This measures the number of people that could see your post during a reporting period. Understanding this is important because you always need to be trying to get a broader audience. Knowing your potential reach will allow you to look at your progress and figure out how far you’ve come, what is working, and what needs changing.

For example, if a follower shared your post, 2-5% of their followers would factor into your potential reach. You can track this by using a brand monitoring tool which will show you the number of brand mentions.

Conversions

Conversion metrics will show you how effective your social engagement is for your marketing campaign. Your conversion rate is the first metric you need to analyse. The higher your conversion rate, the more valuable your content is to your audience.

In order to measure conversions, you need to use conversion tracking which comes in the form of a Facebook pixel for Facebook. Read our article on Facebook pixels to find out more.

Then you’ve got what is called the click-through rate (CTR), which is how often people are clicking on the call-to-action (CTA). CTR is specifically related to the link that brings the audience to a landing page and is not to be confused with other engagement such as likes or comments.

It’s easy to track, and when done accurately, will show you how your offer is doing with the target audience. So, to track you need to divide the number of clicks by the number of impressions (and multiply by 100 for the percentage).

You’ve also got cost-per-click (CPC) which is how much you pay for ad clicks on your sponsored social media post. Focus on your CPC as it will help you to figure out if your investment is smart or if you are wasting money on something that isn’t working. The only way to track this is through your platform’s ad manager. 

Finally, you need to be looking at your bounce rate, the number of people who click on the link in a post, to then leave your website quickly without taking any kind of action. If your social media campaigns are meeting the right audience, then your bounce rate will be lower for social media than it will for other sources as it will be driving higher levels of high-quality traffic to your site. If you want to track this, you’ve got to set up Google Analytics, head to the acquisition tab, go to all traffic for channels, and then click on bounce rate.

Influence

You want to know who is talking about your brand, what they are saying, and how much of an impact they are having. Several tools measure this, but the common takeaway is that audience size does not directly relate to influence. The fact that someone has a lot of followers or friends doesn’t mean that they are having any impact or making referrals.

Past actions can help to estimate how influential someone will be in the future. Tools like BuzzSumo can find content ideas and identify influencers. Then, you can use this information to figure out whom you should reach out to when you are starting a new campaign.

Summary

In summary, you need to be tracking all of these social media metrics that we have mentioned if you want to manage your social media campaign effectively. Every single metric will help contribute to the overall effectiveness of the campaign. It will give you the data you need to change things when they aren’t working as well as showing you what is going well and allowing you to increase the positive side. By tracking and measuring each of these metrics, you are giving your business the opportunity to succeed with customers on social media when you launch a new campaign.

Also, beware of vanity metrics because even though they feel good, they are doing more harm than you know to the overall health of your business. 

But, with 9.6 million people furloughed, businesses competing to thrive during the recession and a 10.1% rise in social media usage, you aren’t going to be the only one pushing great social media content. If you really want to stand out and build your online presence, you need to think outside the box.

Here are 7 ways to boost your following – with relevant examples you can apply to your brand.

1. Seek relationships, not just followers

Nobody wants a large social media following ‘just because.’ The benefit of having a lot of followers is that more people see your content, engage with your brand and potentially become paying customers. Having a lot of followers that aren’t your ideal customers is pointless.

You want to make sure the majority of people who follow you engage with your platforms. It doesn’t have to be every single follower, but you should avoid having people with inactive accounts to make you look better. Platforms like Twitter and Facebook have closed down millions of fake accounts anyway.

For example, if you launch a handmade jewellery business, you might ask close friends and family to follow your social media pages. But that doesn’t mean you should ask your uncle’s 6”4 rugby friends to follow you for vanity purposes. They’re never going to buy from you – so it’s just false growth.

Focus on trying to attract and influence your target audience, instead of quick fixes such as buying social media followers.

2. Use hashtags

Hashtags are an excellent way to attract specific followers, get your content in front of a bigger audience and use hot trends and topics to your advantage. You can even use them to build your brand by creating slogans that are easily recognisable.

What’s more, on platforms such as Twitter, you can include them in your posts to join in a conversation. If you give a unique opinion or your tweet gets a lot of engagement, it’ll often be enough to convince people that your account is worth following.

To increase our social media following at Adzooma, we did some A/B split testing with 10 different posts. Five of them included hashtags, five didn’t. On average, posts including 2 hashtags gained 218 impressions, compared to just 169 for those without.

That’s an extra 47 impressions for just five more seconds of your time.

Keep in mind that not every platform uses hashtags in the same way, so it’s worth doing your research on the type and number of hashtags that will work for each post.

3. Run competitions and giveaways

Social competitions are a great tool for driving more people to your platforms. If you tell people to tag their friends and share your giveaway to their story, you’ll gain even more engagement and brand awareness.

But to avoid losing followers as soon as the giveaway is over, you have to figure out exactly what you want to achieve and how to make people engage with your brand.

As CEO and Founder of Untapped Digital, Corrie Jones told us previously:

“Whatever you offer, make sure it’s something your target audience would actually love to have. No one will enter if it’s not a prize they’re enamoured with.”

And if you aren’t sure what that is, all you have to do is ask.

Give people the chance to tell you what prizes they’d love to win so that you can generate a buzz around your platforms. Once the competition is over, you can use the data to create more targeted content, which in turn, will encourage people with common interests to become followers.

If you want to read more about how social competitions and giveaways can help grow your brand, you can do so in our previous article here.

4. Show your brand personality

Branding is important because it tells customers what they can expect from you and helps to set you apart from your competitors. If your branding is memorable and your voice connects with people on an emotional level, you’ll be much more likely to make a strong impression.

To help you get this right the first time around, explore the best branding agencies on the Adzooma Marketplace. They’ve got the experience and expertise to make your business stand out and drive more people to your platforms, just like we see with the most established brands.

Take Aldi for example. They recently started a conversation on Twitter regarding their #Aldi30thBirthdayParty, which received much more engagement than usual:

They even had banter with Lidl, their biggest competitor:

Why? Because it makes them unique and shows that they’re confident with who they are. It proves there are real people behind the brand and that they can relate with their followers – making them more than just a supermarket.

You should give people a reason to want to follow you. For instance, according to our recent survey, 57.5% of customers are also more likely to buy from brands with a strong personality.

If it makes them more likely to buy, they’re definitely going to want to follow you on social media. Post content that your customers won’t find elsewhere and use your brand personality to consistently reinforce it, making people return to your platforms time and time again.

5. Create quality content

It’s a no brainer that quality content has much more potential than something that’s quickly thrown together. But if you want to gain more followers, you need to make it shareable.

For example, if you carry out a survey and get some interesting results, present the data in an engaging infographic that people can share on their own socials.

If you’re starting up your own business with visually-appealing products, work on taking professional photos to make your brand seem more established. People are much more likely to share your brand new brownie business if the photos are polished and not just on your kitchen counter.

In terms of written content, give your personal opinion or talk about new trends, topics and news. Adzooma gained 619 social followers in May when we started to tell people about our brand new Marketplace. It was a huge increase of 79.9% from the previous month.

If you’re new to content marketing or just want pointing in the right direction, check out these content marketing tools:

• Grammarly
• FatJoe
• StoryChief

6. Post frequently

The amount you post has a direct impact on your followers. If you only post once a month, people will forget about you and feel like there’s no point following your account.

If you post every day, regularly respond to comments and show that you’re active, people will believe you’re going to provide the quality content we spoke about above. You have to be consistent and give people a reason to be involved.

It isn’t set in stone how often you should post, but it makes sense to post less frequently on platforms such as Facebook and LinkedIn where algorithms control the newsfeed. Platforms such as Twitter work on a real-time basis, so posting regular content can remind people of your brand and draw more followers to your feed.

However, it depends entirely on your business.

As a PPC management platform, Twitter is one of Adzooma’s most-used social media channels as it allows us to provide valuable content and keep up to date with the fast-moving industry. But for a business that’s centred around design, you’d probably want to drive your Instagram followers to push more visual content. It’s about being consistent whatever your brand.

7. Look into paid options

Paid social media can work wonders for your brand. It’s a great way of giving your content a little push in the right direction and getting more interested eyes on your posts. For instance, 40% of users bought something after seeing it on Twitter.

On Twitter, in particular, you can promote your tweets to make them appear in the timelines and search results of specific users. You just have to select profiles that fit your targeting and make sure your campaign objective is set to maximise reach.

Generally, promoted tweets increase followers 10 times more than organic tweets and are much less likely to be lost in between other pieces of content.

And it isn’t just Twitter that offers excellent paid advertising. With Facebook seeing 1.62 billion daily visitors and having a potential reach of up to 1.9 billion for their paid ads, using it to promote your brand is a no brainer. You can make Facebook advertising easy using our free software – learn more about it here.

In addition, if your brand is aimed towards a younger demographic or maybe a much more professional one, Snapchat Ads and LinkedIn Ads are designed to help grow your audience.

7 routes to success

These techniques will help to grow your followers, but the time and effort you put into your platforms is what really makes a difference. They aren’t clever hacks that will bring you results overnight.

If you want some advanced tips later down the line, follow us on Twitter or keep an eye on the Adzooma blog.

Social media marketing is one of the most outsourced requirements for a business. There are many benefits to outsourcing your social media, 6 of which we’re going to discuss below.

What does outsourcing involve?

Like with any area of your business that you’re considering outsourcing, it involves handing the reigns over to another brand who specialises in the area you don’t. There are so many benefits of social media to a business that you might not fully understand, allowing the company you outsource the work to, to step in and meet your requirements.

It will involve you working alongside a marketing manager and their team to formulate a plan that not only makes sense but works for your business. They won’t create a social media marketing campaign without consulting you first.

You will often hand over the management of your social media accounts to a social media expert within the company you decide to outsource to, which will also help to free up some of your own time to complete tasks only you can.

Read: Which Is Best: In-House or Agency?

The benefits of outsourcing

1. It can be cost-effective

There are multiple benefits to outsourcing your social media marketing, but the most prominent has to be how cost-effective it is. If social media marketing is not your forte, it’s far more cost-effective to outsource the management of your social media accounts to someone else.

It’s far more expensive to try and hire someone to do it as a full-time role, in-house. When considering hiring an employee, you would have to include payroll, sick or holiday time, and many other payouts that a growing brand might not want.

When outsourcing to a social media management company, you’ll receive an inclusive package tailored to your business for a set price. Some brands will offer different packages, but often they include the full management of your social media pages.

This will consist of daily posting and running ad campaigns that have been created alongside the vision your brand has.

2. It can save time

It requires a lot of effort to manage social media accounts across multiple platforms. As a start-up, this might have been something you spent days on, believing that social media platforms could boost your business presence.

However, it does take up so much time to create campaigns, create daily posts, and to interact with potential customers. That’s why time saved is one of the best reasons why you should consider outsourcing your social media marketing if you don’t already.

There will be specialised skills that only you can manage in-house, such as client meetings, financial meetings, and interacting with customers.

The less time you spend on time-consuming tasks, the more time you can spend on actually growing your business. Whatever brand you partner with should create a social media marketing strategy that’s both time and cost-effective, getting you quicker and more reliable results.

For more on this, read our article on how hiring an agency can save you time.

3. You have access to experts’ skill sets

Everyone has a different skill set. You might like to think that you have a grip on social media marketing because you spend so much time scrolling through social media, but the reality is far different.

It’s not just about posting good content; it’s about understanding the algorithms of each social media platform, the best times to post, what content attracts the most attention and much more.

This is something you might not have the skill set to do. It’s important to remember that some social media marketing companies that you could outsource to will also have different skill-sets.

Some will be better at creating effective campaigns; some will be better at customers interaction. You need to make sure that you partner with a brand that you know is going to work for you.

4. You have access to advanced technology

Technology has transformed the way that a business is able to operate. However, it’s often not our own technology that provides the base for many of the processes that we have in place.

If you were to outsource your social media marketing campaigns, you would have access to advanced technology, especially in the area of tracking and performance. Technology can now do anything from seeing which social media platforms are the best, what age groups you attract, how much traffic each post gets, and many more.

For you to have this technology yourself would mean an added cost, and you might not have the skill-set to use it to its full capacity. Technology is one of the reasons why incredible social media campaigns can be created across all social media platforms.

5. You get platform-specific knowledge

As we have touched on previously, many factors contribute to a successful social media marketing campaign, and that’s having a full understanding of how to utilise each social media platform. There are algorithms to understand, posting times that differ per app, and content creation differences.

For example, Instagram is more for creative and eye-catching content through the use of images, meaning colour plays a big part. Twitter is more for product promotion and customer interaction.

Facebook has changed somewhat over the years and is now more for information about your business. There are so many social media trends, and they’re ever-changing. This is something you might not have the time, or even the capacity to understand fully.

6. You’re exposed to new perspectives on your content

It’s always good to gain a new perspective on anything in life if you feel your surroundings have become stale. The same goes for social media marketing.

If you have managed your accounts from the beginning, you may find that you’re posting similar content all of the time and finding it hard to be creative. Bringing fresh eyes and fresh ideas to your campaigns will boost the reach they have.

Social media management tools

There is a range of social media management tools that you can use to manage all of your accounts under one platform. They are great for scheduling posts and promoting your content in one place.

Here are our favourites:

• Crowdfire
• PromoRepublic
• Postoplan
• Taplink
• Brand24
• Iconosquare

Conclusion

To conclude, these are just a few of the benefits of outsourcing your social media account management and promotion. It’s something you will have to take time to consider and ensure you partner with the right brand for your company.

If you are looking to outsource, why not try Adzooma Marketplace where you can find a variety of social media agencies in your area.

Take a look at the Adzooma Marketplace today, to find the right social media agency for you.

Pinterest, where users create personalised boards to store their favourite items or styles, offers an insight into how a customer wants to plan a wedding, design their garden, or even what food they like. This invaluable insight is of fantastic use to businesses looking to promote those exact services.

But using a Pinterest marketing agency to put your pins in front of more people is about developing the right habits. This is where an agency can help. There are a wide variety of tools that can help a business manage a Pinterest account such as Buffer.

While a social media agency might be able to help with all of these, it’s important to choose one specific to Pinterest to guarantee you are increasing your reach. Here are the top five Pinterest marketing agencies.

1. Taktical

Location: New York

A very strong agency for those looking to make a splash with Pinterest. Constantly staying on top of the latest trends, they can help you to cover a wide variety of social media campaigns. Predominantly results-driven, they will help you to upskill your business with the latest tools and strategies to boost your business.

They have a wide variety of success stories working with prominent companies such as About.com, which show that the proof is in the pudding. They also have campaigns that are built from the ground up, which encompass the design of the pins bit also track every result and metric to ensure you are promoting your brand wisely.

This New York-based agency delivers the goods.

2. Digital Marketing Agency (DMA)

Location: London

When it comes to sheer scope, DMA has cornered digital marketing and made it their own. Having served companies since 2002, prior to Pinterest’s inception, they have provided pools of proper resources to help many companies. And Pinterest is just another one of the platforms they have come to master.

They are a solid agency, purely based on their tenure in the marketing world, and while their services can encompass a wide variety of social media which may leave a raised eyebrow if you want an exclusively Pinterest-oriented agency, DMA understands what you need on your side to drive results.

If you want to scale up your services, they can help you with this, while also helping you reach your target audience with a Protestant work ethic. But their data-oriented approach to marketing will guarantee you have every result you need in the palm of your hands to increase your Pinterest reach.

Sturdy and have stood the test of time, DMA are one of the behemoths of digital marketing.

3. Voy Media

Location: New York

They are already known for success on social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook, but this doesn’t mean they are a slouch when it comes to getting the right pins. They have a personalised approach which will guarantee you get the service you need, rather than being lumped into the same category as a similar company.

Using targeting methods and a considerable amount of research prior to the campaign starting, they have a Midas touch when it comes to image-based marketing that gathers momentum and grabs attention where it matters.

They help you to maximise the use of ads so you can maximise your ROI. But they also want to know about the potential customer rather than crafting a blanket marketing strategy.

The importance of Pinterest as a personal platform can’t be underestimated, and Voy Media want to know exactly about your ideal audience member and then tailor posts directly to them.

4. Lyfe Marketing

Location: Atlanta

An ideal choice for B2C companies. They are an agency to watch and provide a comprehensive approach to helping companies increase their reach.

A personal service with a dedicated Pinterest management specialist, they help your business to create strategy concepts, from there the pins are created and how awareness is increased.

The results-driven aspects of Lyfe Marketing are where they have come into their own. Having increased Pinterest engagement for one beauty client by 398% through optimising their Pinterest account, this is something to marvel at.

For companies who are looking to build their Pinterest campaigns from the ground up, their competitive services for a monthly fee comprise three plans of differing amounts, guaranteeing a budget-conscious business is able to increase their reach.

5. Big Foot Digital

Location: Barnsley

Big Foot Digital knows Pinterest is more than just wedding dresses and interior design. That’s why their team of dedicated writers and designers work together to create engaging posts that encourage clicks.

These posts then form the foundations of their Pinterest campaigns coupled with insightful reporting alighned with their clients’ business goals.

What’s more, Big Foot Digital’s costs are based on hourly rates.

Our pricing is simple and transparent. We will charge you on a monthly basis for the number of hours it takes to achieve your goals. Pinterest advertising (clicks and impressions) is payable in addition to our monthly Pinterest management fees.

Conclusion

Advertising on Pinterest is not too challenging if you are already skilled in the ways of social media. But because of its uniqueness, Pinterest offers a different angle, not just for your business, but for a new level of engagement.

When you promote a product, you want it to sit next to something that has a wide level of engagement.

But if you are looking for a platform that drives brand loyalty and instigates a need for customers to buy products, with more than 320 million users Pinterest is an incredibly influential social media platform gaining momentum with every year.

Adzooma Marketplace — Find the service you need for your next project

But it’s also one of the most difficult to gain organic reach. Facebook has 2.7 billion monthly active users, and reaching the desired amount of people for your campaign isn’t easy. Facebook Ads can be a challenging platform (but we have a guide to help you with that), especially if you need to go into things like retargeting.

As many businesses find it easier to get professional assistance, this is where Facebook marketing agencies come in.

What do Facebook marketing agencies do?

Facebook marketing agencies offer a range of services to clients, including:

• Campaign planning and creation
• Facebook remarketing
• Targeted audiences
• Tracking and analytics
• Split testing and optimisation
• Improving engagement and reach

Facebook marketing agencies identify areas of growth and improvement and help clients to develop their campaigns.

With that said, here are 5 of the best Facebook marketing agencies to fit with your business goals.

1. Curious Conversations Marketing

Curious Conversations is a marketing agency that focuses on effective and compelling storytelling.

Services offered include:

• Establish and improving online presence
• Reputation management
• Notary services

At Curious Conversations Marketing, we’re not after your money – we’re after your trust to tell your story.

Any marketing company worth its salt is going to get you leads. You can even do this yourself by spending a bit of money in the online ads realm. Yes, you’ll get more leads, but the quality of those leads is up for serious debate.

If you’re looking to tell a story with your Facebook marketing and get people talking, Curious Conversations might be the right agency for you.

2. Reach

Reach offers a variety of advertising solutions including social media advertising. They know businesses see the benefit of using social media to engage with customers, and offer workable strategies.

One of their defining features is their Facebook+ service.

We’ll create and monitor the results of an ad campaign on the world’s biggest social media network. Our social experts will design an eye-catching ad for you and target them to the most relevant audiences, via our dedicated partner accounts.

Social users will instantly spot our reputable newsbrands and your business will be noticed with the added benefit of brand association, boosting credibility and driving traffic to your website.

Harness the potential of social media ads with Reach today.

3. Spread Like Wildfire Media

SLWF Media provides bespoke solutions to fit your needs, including Facebook marketing.

The team handles all aspects of Facebook marketing—analytical and creative. Alongside that, they also carry out the day-to-day tasks involved with campaign management such as data analysis and online community management.

Spread Like Wildfire Media believes that a marketing company needs to be flexible to accommodate for the needs of potential clients. That’s why we work with anyone from startups to SMEs and beyond! Our goal is to get your marketing to work for you so you can do it is what you do best.

4. SocialQ

SocialQ creates “content that resonates and media that reaches beyond platforms and algorithms”. They do this under 3 main categories:

• Branding – your identity
• Presence – your credentials
• Reach – your persuasion

While social media marketing can fall under all 3, SocialQ has placed social media strategy and management under Presence.

Their services focus on customer journeys through Facebook and other social media platforms, and finding what resonates with the modern consumer.

5. FirstFound

FirstFound has the distinction of being one of the UK’s longest running digital marketing agencies. The team has been helping businesses for over 20 years, building better strategies and achieving better ROIs through a variety of digital channels.

While initially starting as an SEO agency, FirstFound offers other services including:

• SEO
• PPC
• Social media (including a free social media audit)
• Facebook advertising
• Content creation
• Web design
• Web development
• Email marketing

Whether you’re looking to gain more followers, more site traffic (and sales) or boost engagement, FirstFound is at hand to deliver the results you need.

They start by getting to know you, your business, and your customer’s needs and then analyse your social media presence and brand authority to find areas of improvement.

Interested? Check out their listing on Marketplace today.

Conclusion

Facebook advertising is one of the most important methods of growing a business online.

It can be a goldmine for companies looking to grow quickly and exponentially. But if your business is not harnessing the power of social media effectively, you might need a social media marketing agency and Adzooma Marketplace can help with that.

With hundreds of agencies, freelancers, and services to choose from, you’ll find the Facebook marketing agency that’s best for you.

Try Adzooma Marketplace today.

What’s more, 91% of consumers now prefer interactive and visual content over traditional, text-based or static media.

To help you tap into that audience, we’ve pulled together 6 advanced techniques designed to improve your social media presence.

The role of creative content

Creative content has more of an impact than we realise. As children, we’re given picture books to inspire our visual thinking and help us understand what we’re reading. We don’t stop enjoying this as we grow into adulthood; we don’t suddenly prefer to absorb information in harder ways – simplicity is always preferred whatever our age.

For example, if we’re given a list of statistics in both an article and an infographic, most people will remember more of the infographic by nature.

See this data in Adzooma’s recent survey

51.2% of people have purchased from a brand because of the way they spoke online.

What’s more, 57.5% of customers said they are more likely to buy from brands with strong personalities.

29.9% of people have said that they wouldn’t be influenced either way, and just 12.7% of people have said they would be less likely to buy from brands with a strong personality.

Example A – A quote from the survey

With Example B, it’s easy to glance and take away important information with a greater understanding of the other results. Example A does a good job of telling us what we need to know but will be harder to remember amongst the rest of the data.

Images like these also have a better chance of being shared on other sites, which can increase engagement alone.

Compared to standard pieces of text, bold images and videos on social media increase views and interactions. They give you a way to produce immersive experiences and memorable content in just a few clicks, making your audience instantly feel more engaged.

What’s more, with platforms like Pinterest and LinkedIn launching new story features, you can use visual content to attract a unique audience across all of your platforms.

6 ways to boost engagement through multimedia

Using these techniques won’t only make your social channels look more appealing, but will help you gain loyal followers who consistently engage with your posts.

1. Utilise user-generated content

User-generated content (UGC) refers to the text, images and videos created by social media users. Brands often share the content on their own accounts to show that real people buy from them, making it an excellent tactic to increase customer loyalty and longevity.

Take this example from Five Guys:

Almost all six of these have been reposted from their following, helping Five Guys build their brand, improve the quality of their feed and attract new customers. They also average at around 2,000 likes per post, as consumers are 2.4x more likely to view this kind of content as authentic.

If this doesn’t work for you or you’re a SAAS platform, you can also share reviews or what other people have said about your brand. Here’s what Larry Kotch, founder of The Brains Marketing had to say about ours.

2. Create a visual language

By the term ‘language’, we’re talking about the way your visual content ties together and the feeling it gives your audience. It’s a small move that will make people remember your brand, look forward to what’s coming next and start to trust you.

For example, if you’re a fitness brand, you might use features such as Instagram TV (IGTV) to show your workouts and encourage people to interact. In addition, you might decide to publish snappy eye-catching videos like Hootsuite, but with daily inspirational quotes. It’s easier to be creative if you think of it as a guide rather than a strategy, kind of like a tone of voice document for your multimedia.

At Adzooma, we tend to use:

• Screenshots of the platform to show how easy it is to use and what the different features look like
• Team photos and videos to show behind the scenes at our offices and that we are a group of real people
• Videos created by our design team showcasing the Adzooma brand, typically as announcement posts

Whatever your industry or brand, a strong theme will make you recognisable to both new and existing followers. If you’re struggling to get your brand out there to begin with, one of our highly-qualified Marketplace agencies can get your business off the ground.

Find your perfect match here, using our updated ratings and review system to help you make the right decision. You can even send quick, personalised messages to be sure exactly what the agency is offering. It’s designed for you, for your business and for your success.

3. Become an expert at the basics

If you want to ramp up your engagement, you need to know what makes excellent visual content. You don’t have to be a fully-qualified artist or designer to know what looks good.

This includes:

1. The rule of thirds. This photography rule helps you centre your shot. You imagine every image is split into nine squares and the centre of your image should land on one of four points for maximum impact.
2. Natural light. If your image or video has terrible lighting, no one will interact with it. Take product shots, team photos and everything else in natural light with as little shadows or distractions as possible.
3. A clear focal point. If your images feel crowded or your videos confused, they probably are. Split your content into different posts to make sure each one has a clear message.
4. Adding text, illustrations and logos. A great way to boost engagement is to make your content your own. Test different tools, see how animations work and which font best suits your brand.
5. Little editing. In most cases, the original shot is much better than the edited one, particularly if we’re talking about obvious social media filters.

Following these principles won’t only help you create content that looks good, but will subconsciously draw people to your brand.

4. Make sure all your content has a purpose

You should use visual content to engage your audience, not to fill gaps on your platforms. Everything you post should add value, educate people, entertain them or inform them about something new. If you’re unsure, use Adzooma’s social channels for inspiration.

Here’s an image we posted to showcase our brand personality:

And here’s a video we posted to help customers navigate the Adzooma platform:

And here’s a video we posted to help customers navigate the Adzooma platform:

Watch the full video here.

In the first instance, a stock image of a dog saying our office dog Dexter is in the office wouldn’t have made sense. For the video, the same information would’ve been much harder to follow and understand if it was listed in a static image. It’s about what makes sense for the post, and if it feels like a relatable GIF, go for it.

5. Make use of stories

Stories are an excellent way to involve your followers with something you’re doing at that exact moment. Not only because platforms like Instagram have more than 500 million daily Stories users, but because you can use them to add a personal touch and enhance your visual language.

For example, if you own a bakery, you might have visualised posting drool-worthy content all over your platforms.

But, posting repetitive stock updates, reminding customers of opening times and complaining about people not collecting their goods actually takes up the majority of your posts. For new followers in particular, it might not be the best for engagement.

Making use of stories, on platforms such as Instagram and Facebook, helps people to connect with you and show that you aren’t always in strict business mode. It’s content people want to see more of, even if it’s just you trying the baked goods yourself or teaching younger siblings how to bake. Social media influencers are big for this exact reason – people are interested in other people, so content that invites other people into their lives always performs well.

You can also repost content from your feed to drive more engagement, give people a teaser of what’s coming soon instead of a written post, and increase interactions with ad-hoc polls, quizzes and questions.

6. Make visuals part of your strategy

Visual content is as good as the planning behind it. If you have a detailed strategy, you’re much more likely to engage with your target audience and gain followers that will become loyal to your brand.

For example, if you update your Instagram story with behind-the-scenes product launches, can the same content be posted on LinkedIn? If there’s a risk it might get lost between millions of posts on Facebook, how are you going to adapt your content? It’s these questions that will help you increase engagement across all of your social channels.

Likewise, you want to think further than just posting content at peak times.

Will animated content work better around certain holidays? Are people less likely to watch longer videos during the festive period? Planning ahead will ensure you can provide as much value as possible at the exact times your audience is using social media.

Adzooma Marketplace is fuelled with digital marketing agencies who can help improve your strategy. With one onboard, you will have a clear idea of exactly who your visuals are tailored towards and how to make them have the most impact.

Find the expertise you need to grow here.

Using multimedia to your advantage

If that isn’t enough to convince you, we’re 65% more likely to remember information if it includes an image. So if you’re trying to increase awareness, grow your following and boost engagement, it’s time to tap into the world of multimedia.

For more articles like this, head over to our own social pages or bounce around the Adzooma blog.

Social profiles are full of personal information, from an individuals age to their interests. Making popular platforms such as Facebook, ideal for companies to launch PPC campaigns and reach a wider audience.

Beyond exposure, social media, when used effectively, creates intrigue around your brand. In turn, boosting brand awareness and encouraging traffic to your site. 

Why choose a social media agency?

On the surface, the potential of social media for business sounds fantastic. However, not every CEO has the time or experience to use social media marketing to their business’s advantage. 

Creating effective social media campaigns is challenging to get right. As a result, business owners tend to delegate this task to social media marketers who can successfully manage their digital channels. On the other hand, some entrepreneurs prefer to ask for advice from social media consultants and undertake the social media marketing task themselves.

If you’re in the market searching for a social media agency in Nottingham. That can create, manage, or advise you on the next best steps with your social platforms; here are the top ten contenders for you to consider.

1. Boom (Adzooma Recommended)

Boom provides an array of services including social media marketing.

A social media strategy is a ‘must-have’ for businesses today. It can help you boost brand awareness, reach new customers, and build stronger relationships with your current customer base.

The agency offers bespoke campaigns to suit all budgets and business goals, whether that involves social media marketing in isolation or using social as part of a multi-channel strategy, Boom will create the perfect package for you.

If you want to transform your social media presence and improve your social strategy, give BOOM a try.

Previous clients: Natural History Museum, The Online Pen Company, BL Lingerie, Healthspark

2. Impression

For company owners eager to enhance their in-house marketing team. Or for those who are wanting to take marketing matters into their own hands. The social media agency Impression is an award-winning social media consultancy agency that helps businesses reach their goals via multiple popular social channels.

Impression understands company owners often feel frustrated with social media. With no idea where to begin or what to do. Money and time are often spent on social media, yet doesn’t reap the results business owners hoped it would.

To solve this problem, Impression offers consultancy services to company owners and their marketing teams, enabling businesses to define social media goals that suit their company. While also clarifying what they need to do to reach them. 

To maximise ROI on a social media marketing investment, Impression is a popular agency for many successful businesses.

Services offered: SEO, PPC, digital PR, content marketing, analytics, CRO

Previous clients: Brewdog, Cancer Research UK, Weber, University of Warwick

3. JC Social Media

At JC Social Media, you will have an account manager to communicate your company’s goals too. Your account manager will gauge the best social networking sites for you to market your business on. And create a plan to help you meet your goals.

If you don’t have any social media channels set up, or you’re unsure what channels to choose, you needn’t worry. JC Social Media will create and optimise each social media page for you. Ensuring you have a solid foundation for your company’s social presence to launch and thrive.

Services offered: Social media management, consultancy, training, Facebook Ads, Google Ads

Previous clients: Avon, British Athletics, Marriott, Subaru, Yodel

4. Together Agency

Having worked with well-known brands such as Pukka on the “everything’s pukka” campaign. Together Agency managed to increase Pukka’s reach to a broader audience by 500% in the first month of working with this company. 

From devising a social media strategy to crafting winning content and much more, the Together team uses analytics and data to shape and perfect your social campaign. 

Together Agency can manage your entire business’s social media presence for you. But, if you’d prefer to test the waters first. You can pick and choose social media services that appeal to you.

Services offered: Social strategy, community management, PPC & organic, crisis management, influencer marketing

Previous clients: Fox’s, MOD, National Trust, Tetley, Interflora

5. Peaky Digital

Wanting to create a social media strategy but have no idea where to begin? Peaky Digital gives you access to their social media marketeers brains. Brains of which that will work with you to create a social media plan of action tailored to your business’s objectives. 

Peaky Digital appreciates that no one knows your business as well as you do. Which is why they supply social media mentors to help you, or your marketing team create a social presence that resonates with your intended audience. 

Digital marketing knowledge from Peaky Digital’s industry experts will give your social media presence a new lease of life.

Services offered: PPC, SEO, social media, email marketing, affiliate marketing, digital strategy

Previous clients: St Michael’s Mount, Shelter Box, Skinners Brewery, Orbiss

6. Gather Social

Gather social is a forward-thinking agency that continues to harness powers of social media and bestows it on entrepreneurs who want to use it to empower their business. 

Company owners can maintain involvement in the social aspect of their business. For instance, with Gather Social, business owners can take full control of the content they share, and where they share it. 

If you want to take control of your social media, but you’re unsure how to – why not think about using Gather Social’s expertise?

7. Intelicle

Whether you have uncertainty about which social media channels are relevant to your company, or you need help creating a bespoke strategy for your social media channels—Intelicle can assist!

Intelicle researches your competitors and market extensively, to decipher what plan will emit the best results. 

Beyond improving your organic social presence online, Intelicle can also manage PPC campaigns; enabling you to gain prominent spots on social platform pages on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Services offered: Web design, web development, product development, digital marketing

Previous clients: Furniture Villa, Ecogreen, Konected, Inteleprint

8. Hallam

A multi-award-winning company, Hallam plays host to a talented team of social media experts. Each member specialises in a niche area such as SEO, content, or branding. Everyone works together to create a social media presence that pops from all angles and captivates your audience.

With a mission to learn the essence of each business and your company’s target audience, Hallam builds a bespoke service, tailored to the needs of your business, to make a social presence that not only works but exceeds your expectations. 

Services offered: SEO, PPC, social media, web design, creatives, CRO, marketing automation

Previous clients: Speedo, BBC, The United Nations, Raleigh Bikes

9. Imaginaire

Devoted to creating a buzz around your company via social media, Imaginaire manages your social presence with passion and confidence. 

From creating posts that make a splash with costumers. To using innovative strategies, that are sure to entice your target audience. 

Plus, if you want to increase your presence on social platforms, Imagineaire can develop a PPC strategy for your business. To get your business in front of those who need or want a service or product like yours. 

Services offered: Design services, web design, website management, PPC, SEO

Previous clients: Alumino, Worcester Architects, Bring Me Drink, Dubai Property

10. Shake Social

With both training and social media management too, this agency shakes up its social media offerings. 

Shake Social is there for clients on every step of their social journey. With a mission to unlock the power of social media for businesses. Shake Social aims to get people conversing about, and sharing your brand to make its presence grow. 

Furthermore, Shake Socials’ devoted content marketing team will bring your brand to life. By creating relatable yet engaging content that will attract and persuade customers to believe in and buy from your company. 

Services offered: Social media management, social media training, email marketing, PPC, content & campaigns, digital strategy,

Previous clients: Labour, Nottingham City Council, Sport England, Essex County Council

Conclusion

The above provides a brief insight into Nottinghams’ top-notch marketing agencies. 

As you can see, some social media agencies have dedicated content marketing teams. That work tirelessly to create compelling, unique content that suits the tone and style of your business. To make your social media platforms stand out! While other teams rely heavily on analytics and data to help them to perform the next best move in your social media takeover plan. 

If you would like to find more agencies like this, see how Adzooma Marketplace can help by getting in touch today.

So as a small business trying to reach new customers, social media should be a critical part of your marketing strategy.

To learn more about your audience, it pays to do research (literally). Ask yourself: who is interacting with us? Then you can start to tailor your content and responses to them. It can also give an idea of how broad your audience is (and whether you have an audience at all).

In this article, we’ll look at how to make the most out of social media marketing for your small business.

Advantages of having a social media presence

You’ll increase your brand awareness. By implementing a social media strategy will greatly increase your brand recognition since you will be engaging with a broad audience of consumers.

It will create more inbound traffic not only through referrals but search engines as well. While social has no direct effect on the way Google ranks pages, it does have an impact on Bing’s search algorithm. According to Radd Interactive:

“Content that is popular and shared frequently on social media may rank better on Bing because its algorithm is designed to acknowledge social signals.”

Social media also builds a loyal customer base. It’s becoming crucial to regularly engage with your customers and build a rapport with them. Customers often use social media channels as a way of communicating directly with your business, meaning that it’s an excellent opportunity to connect with them.

Social media is not limited to introducing your brand’s products and promotional campaigns.

The best social platforms for small businesses

When it comes to what platforms are best for your business, then it’s wise to do some research to find out where your audiences spend their time online. You can use different social channels to reach different audiences or to meet various business goals.

Establish a presence on the social platforms that matter. The best ones are:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• Pinterest

It’s also important to keep up with the latest social media trends and apply them to your small business.

5 quick tips for small businesses on social media

1. Consider your goals

First of all, you need to be thinking about what you want to achieve with your socials. For many, it can be a combination of elements, such as:

• Generating new leads
• Building your brands profile
• Driving traffic to your website
• Establishing a ‘community’ to surround your business
• Providing high-quality customer service and effective outreach
• A way of growing your revenue
• Boosting engagement

2. Think about your target audience

It would help if you then considered your target audience, who will share common characteristics, such as demographics and behaviours. They are a specific group of people you want to reach with your social channels, as they are the people who are most likely to be interested in your content, products, or services.

3. Decide what content you want to publish and when

So what type of content should you post and how often? Ultimately, you want to be able to convert your social media followers into customers, so your posts need to be engaging and of course, relevant to them.

Your content should be posted at optimal times and posted using the best hashtags – to help your reach. This can sometimes be easier to manage by creating a social content calendar that will keep your posts scheduled and consistent.

Read: 20 Social Media Marketing Tips for 2020

By creating content that starts a conversation, such as a poll, then you are actively engaging your customers and encouraging them to interact.

4. Make your content interesting

The content you post can be about anything you want, but it needs to attract attention and be useful. This can be new products, client testimonials or videos. You can even post photos of your employees to help put their personalities at the forefront of your brand.

Also, consider eye-catching visuals where applicable. Facebook and Pinterest, for example, are very visual platforms and people expect the best images.

5. Measure your success

Higher audience engagement leads to more people seeing your posts which will help you achieve your social media goals. This is where engagement analytics tools are handy to gain some insight on where your posts might be lacking, which will enable you to focus on creating interesting content to boost your engagement.

You can help boost your engagement organically or pay for this.

How to judge success

There are a variety of metrics available that can help you determine how well your socials are doing and whether your efforts are paying off.

For many businesses, their goals revolve around increased engagement, new followers, faster response times or listening to social conversations more thoroughly.

The use of demographics and post habits can give you a greater knowledge of how well your social media marketing performs. Success can be judged by any number of factors such as:

• The amount of engagement your posts receive
• How many times they are shared
• What their reach has been and whether you have received a spike in followers

Engagement is fast becoming a social media buzzword but knowing when and how users engage with your content can influence your future strategy. For example, Twitter offers 3 ways to publically engage with a tweet:

1. Like it
2. Retweet it (you can also quote tweet or “retweet with comment”)
3. Reply to it

You can do these in any combination and from there you could measure the sentiment behind replies and quote tweets or create ratios between each form of engagement. The more granular you get, the more advanced your techniques will be so only do this if you have the capability.

Twitter also offers its own tips for what to tweet to get the best engagement:

• Limit to 1-2 hashtags per Tweet
• Be conversational
• Keep your copy short and sweet
• Use images, GIFs, and/or videos whenever possible
• Test, test, test (and use analytics to see what works)
• Monitor events and trending conversations

Try them out!

Should you use a marketing agency?

Agencies are undoubtedly useful for bringing new customers to your website, and they’re able to optimise your campaigns to achieve great results.

If a company doesn’t have someone that has the time to devote to social media, then an agency might be the answer. However, it’s becoming more and more common for people to manage their own social media platforms.

It’s important that you keep track of which methods and platforms are working best for your business and concentrate on those channels. By using the available analytic tools, it will help give you a greater understanding of your audience and how best to appeal to them.