Social Media Advice You NEED This Year

Social media has taken the world by storm, and with more hand-held technology being sold than ever before (aka all three of your smartphones), it is no wonder that brands and influencers are taking a step up and utilising these handy platforms. 

There are so many social media tips, buzzwords and stats being thrown around that it’s tough to work out what to read and what not to read. Here’s the top four pieces of advice we’ve found for this year.

Use more UGC. UGC is your best friend.

UGC, or user generated content, is content created by the wider community, usually those not associated with the brand itself. With permission from the creator, brands often re-post or share this content on their own channels.

Social media has become a platform for people to subconsciously conduct research and ultimately be greatly influenced by the lifestyle of others. Seeing ‘UGC’ can help the brand and products feel more relatable and influence one’s choices about a purchase, meal etc. According to Nielsen, 83% of consumers say they trust peer recommendations above all sources of advertising.

Why UGC works for brands:

• Content is relatable and real for consumers. The un-staged content that isn’t completely perfect reminds the audience that ‘normal’ people can use the product, not just models and famous ambassadors. 
• UGC is relatively cheap for brands (unless you take the content from influencers, where charges may be present).
• UGC promotes something other than a sales message.

For the past six months, we have been managing the social media for Berghaus across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Using UGC really helped engage the audience and create a conversation, as well as provide them with a memorable idea/image. The UGC gave Berghaus a friendlier feel to the day-to-day sales marketing, and as you can see it had a great reaction from the public.

Focus on quality over quantity.

Most marketers and influencers know that quality over quantity wins more than 99% of the time. There is no point in firing out masses of content that’s poor quality and doesn’t deliver the brand’s message or fulfil its goals. During 2019, we will see firms really tighten up on the quality of their content. In a recent story, Forbes published an article which highlighted just why digital marketing strategies require quality over quantity. Hopefully we’ll have less clustered news feeds and content will be far more precise to reduce the amount of content in our feeds that we couldn’t give a toss about. People these days have less time and brands need to factor this in and create content that adds value to people’s lives. If you want your brand to succeed this year, think quality.

Invest in paid social.

With the rise of paid advertising on social media, organic growth is slowly becoming impossible (not completely impossible, some brands manage it, but for the majority, it’s incredibly hard). The space for unpaid media is reducing by the day so the only real chance you have of expanding your reach and increasing the size of your audience is via paid ads and boosted social posts. You’re far more likely to be seen and reach the target audience this way.

Hyper-target and personalise your content. 

Entrepreneur recommends that hyper-targeted personalisation will take off this year. Hyper-targeted personalisation is when brands are able to specifically target advertising content to a specific-interested based audience. It’s become expected by consumers that brands will tailor their marketing, sales, discounts and products to the consumer even more so than before. Hyper-targeting content allows you to fine tune exactly who your content is doing to, making it more relevant for your audience as likely consumers of your product. You’re far more likely to gain leads if you reach the right people with your adverts in the first place. The paid ads mentioned earlier are prime examples of hyper-targeted personalisation.

Brands can target people not only via age and gender, but via location, other interested things etc. 

This gives brands a huge opportunity to hit potential customers with exciting, engaging and relevant posts, videos, blog posts etc. In order to win over the consumer, brands need to be as personal as possible otherwise the consumer will choose a competitor. In a world where ease is one of the most important factors for customer experience, this hyper-targeted personalisation plays a huge role.