1. Define your target market more specifically than you might think.
Every product or service has its audience. Some are large (i.e. “everyone”) and some are hyper-niche. When it comes to social media marketing, the more definition you have around your target market, the better. It’s important to have a deep understanding of your consumer to cut through the clutter of their everyday feed.
At a topline, most social media marketing works by defining a target audience, and serving advertising to that specific group. Social media is not a broadcast channel. Rather, it’s a direct pathway to a type of consumer — one whom you define at the onset. Oftentimes the more specific you are about the behaviors and lifestyle of your target consumer, the more effective your social media marketing can be.
Any marketing team can look at basic categories in which its target customer may fall into — age, gender, location, income bracket, etc. — and create a marketing campaign that resonates with people who seem to be like them. Brands that market well on social media tend to take the identity of their audience a step further. They do more than identify parameters. They create nuanced personas, which could include behavioral traits like hobbies, personal interests, careers, regional biases, even news consumption patterns.
Whether it’s Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok or YouTube, social media platforms have become successful ad platforms because of their abilities to target audiences. It’s a marketer’s responsibility to define that audience persona before venturing into paid social.
Tip: Consider unconventional social platforms like Discord, Twitter Spaces, Twitch, Pinterest, Quora, and Clubhouse for niche audience targeting.
2. Develop campaigns that focus on interests, not just products or services.
Most people use social media to connect with other people or stay on top of cultural happenings. What this means is that people are not inherently on social media to shop. (Sometimes they are, of course, but not all the time!)
Whether by their own choosing or by the algorithm's, most users end up following certain genres of accounts based on their interests and the interests of their friends. Successful marketing appeals to those group interests, and repeats the message over and over again.
Capturing the attention of your audience requires the creation of compelling and relevant content. This can include blog posts, video content, brief instructional videos, or anything else that can entice a customer to interact and engage with your brand. When you think of building content for your social media strategy, think about the lifestyles of the people whom you’re targeting. Build content that helps them with their everyday and their aspirations — it does not need to be on-the-nose in relation to your product. A solid content marketing strategy meets your customers where they are, engages with them in an authentic voice, and helps build brand awareness.
Many eCommerce brands tap into the interests of their audiences by utilizing influencer marketing. Influencers are a viable way to build trust and access to a large audience that exists within a target market. Influencers may be famous for accomplishments beyond having a large following, but their main value-add is their loyal and dedicated audience. Influencers provide an effective means by which brands can spread brand awareness and engender trust. A successful influencer marketing strategy can result in huge success for young ecommerce.
3. Be authentic above all else (be human!).
You’ve probably heard all the horror stories of brands failing hard on social media. Usually this happens when a brand acts out of its traditional purview, or engages in a conversation that is not authentic to its mission. When an audience perceives brand messaging that is insincere or overworked, they’re likely to keep scrolling — or worse, comment negatively. Relatability is a key aspect that all companies need to keep in mind as they build their brand image, whether the work is done internally or with third party consultants.
It’s especially important for companies that sell products direct-to-consumer to be relatable in terms of their ideal audiences’ lifestyles. One way to do this is to leverage user-generated content and aggregate customer reviews, stories or photos of your product in the wild to provide social proof. Other users are then able to see how your brand shows up in the world authentically.
4. Use social listening and build a community with your customers
Another critical step for e-commerce brands staying authentic online is to establish thoughtful and consistent community management and social listening. Sometimes considered customer service, community management is the process by which a brand actively communicates with its audience base online.
Social listening involves monitoring and analyzing online conversations and discussions to gain valuable insights into customer behavior, market trends, and brand reputation. Replying to messages quickly and thoughtfully can help to establish long term trust with your cusotmer base and brand value on social media.
People are used to seeing brands on social media, so do not stray away from presenting the people who work for your company as well. Consider creating employee profiles, or asking coworkers to be featured in some of your marketing. Owners of successful DTC brands often create ads that feature themselves in the forefront.
5. Do something different than everyone else.
What works for one brand may not work for another. That’s why it’s critical to test and iterate on your marketing strategy, learning from the feedback from your current customers. Don’t be afraid of trying something you haven’t seen any other brands do before. Usually what pops the most on social media is that which feels uniquely special in the feed.
Of course, knowing what could be distinctive requires knowing what is common. You have to stay up-to-date on cultural trends (hint: see #4 and use social listening!). Staying relevant on social media is hard; ads that may have appealed to shoppers last year or even last month may be stale and unappealing today. Staying on top of trends and capitalizing on every opportunity to make an impact on a customer is essential to successfully marketing directly to consumers.
Tip: Try new tactics such as social media contests and hosting giveaways to increase brand awareness and boost audience engagement, experiment with interactive and immersive experiences (such as augemented reality filters or virtual shopping experiences), or even explor social media partnerships with complementary brands to tap into new and wider audiences and cross-promote products.
6. Pay your social media freelancers on time!
More and more small brands are outsourcing their social media work to freelancers. Talented social media creators can greatly help a company grow, but they’re often employed in unorthodox ways, which can lead to fleeting engagements.
Many freelance social media creators invoice for project-based or hourly work. Without the right tools in place, paying social media freelancers can be laborious and time-consuming, especially for small businesses and e-commerce companies. Streamlining payment to freelancers can ensure their continued contributions.
At Settle, we make it easy to quickly pay your suppliers, freelance marketers, and more. For qualified businesses, we can also pay your vendors (including your marketing agencies and inventory suppliers) upfront and you pay us back later with competitive, transparent rates to free up capital for more strategic spend to drive sales. Building efficient payment systems — just like building a savvy social media marketing strategy — can help your company scale.
Sources:
- How Much Time Does The Average Person Spend On Social Media? | DigitalMarketing.org
- Ahead of the curve: How can utilising influencer marketing benefit direct to consumer brands? | Telescope.co.uk
- 7 Social Media Marketing Lessons from D2C Brands | Falcon.io
