Community Management
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There are many ways you can help your brand stand out on social media - but ensuring you’re spending time on the best possible options, and avoiding tactics that do not provide as much return, is the key to success.
Here are 11 reliable options for helping your brand stand out in 2016.
Use consistent branding.
Ensuring your brand’s presence is aligned across all social platforms is vital. From the content you produce and how it is presented, to the colors your brand uses - ensure users can instantly recognize it owned by your brand.
Utilize real-time response.
Real-time response is key to standing out in 2016. Users expect a response within 60 minutes or less from a brand, and if your team can support responses in real-time with no lag, customers loyalty will follow.
Employ real-time moderation.
Similarly, real-time moderation is growing in importance. Ensuring your social media feeds are free of crass language, competitors’ information, and negativity is an important way to ensure brand profiles remain appealing to all demographics.
Publish high quality content.
Content for content’s sake is over. The way to stand out in an oversaturated market is to provide content that goes above and beyond what users can find everywhere else. Consider writing in depth long-form articles on subjects that are relevant to your brands niche, becoming an authority for the problems your audience needs solved.
Get creative on the platform.
Doing things that are unexpected in your niche is a great way to separate your brand from everyone else. While Lululemon is a workout apparel brand, they branched out their social media to include Spotify playlists so their customers could rely on them to quickly find music for working out to.
Partner with relevant influencers.
While this has been important for years, the relevance of having influencers support your campaign will only continue to grow in importance throughout the year.
Create a well-used hashtag.
Hashtags are not going anywhere anytime soon. They are how most social platforms tag and categorize niche information, and big brands have an opportunity to create a hashtag that trends long-term if they focus in on a relevant idea their user base regularly creates content around.
Be transparent.
When something goes wrong, own up to mistakes. Nothing can truly be deleted once it has made its way online, so owning up to the rare mistake right away is the best way to control the conversation.
Leverage social reviews.
Platforms such as Facebook allow customers to review a brand’s product or services. This can be a strong way to build reliable word-of-mouth marketing. Share the best reviews with your audience.
Run a Periscope Q&A.
Go beyond the standard Twitter or Facebook Q&A and experiment with a live stream Q&A over Periscope, to answer fan questions and further build trust and loyalty.
Stand for a cause.
When a brand stands up for a something important, it resonates with consumers. Sports retailer REI decided to go against the trend and remain closed on Black Friday, instead encouraging customers to head outdoors for the day and avoid the crowded madness. 1.4 million customers pledged to do just that, earning them credibility and a lot of positive, free press.
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With all these tactics employed, social media managers can feel secure that they are on top of the trends and in a strong position to grow their brand’s customer retention in the long-term.