5 Social Media Hacks To Stay Ahead Of The Competition

It's essential in this day and age for businesses to have social media accounts and to engage with customers. But social media must be used in the right way, for best results. Here are five tips provided by Kobe, a company which helps businesses by matching them with influencers who can help them spread their message through social media platforms.

Get Personal With Your Customers

Companies that personalise their messages get a better reaction from customers. If a customer constantly receives notices that aren't relevant to them, they'll soon get irritated by your organisation. Get data from your own business inventory so you can match every customer’s intent to the content, products, deals and services that you offer.

Individually-tailored content recommendations and messages triggered according to your business criteria will add a human touch and make your social media sites or emails feel less generic. And it's important to make things easy for the customer too, with easier sign-in processes.

Make Your Brand’s Personality Obvious

When you project a clear message, it's easier for customers to decide if they want to do business with you. Some important questions to ask include – what does your brand want to be known for, who is your target audience and which social media networks are they most likely to be using.

Once you've narrowed down your audience, decide on the type of content that they're most likely to find interesting. Photos are a good choice for easily relatable and direct businesses, while videos are more suitable for businesses that are less straightforward and require some clarification.

Find Relevant Influencers for Your Brand

Social media influencers are all the rage these days and companies should get on this bandwagon too, to get a bigger reach. But finding the right one is the key factor here. Influencers' personalities have to be aligned to your brand's personality and they should be able to produce content relevant to your brand.

Ensure that they're able to generate content that's compelling and engaging as this will translate to more comments and 'likes'. They should also be able to engage their audience well and practice two-way communication.

The frequency of their postings is important too, as more consistent posting ensures more traffic and increased visitor rates, with more exposure as a result. Instead of using celebrities, it's advised to instead use influencers with a smaller base of followers (between 1,000 and 10,000).

Include Captivating Photos

While words alone do get a message across, its effect is amplified when combined with a picture. It could be as easy as just adding a headline to a stock image. Even text over a plain background works to quickly communicate a very specific message.

There are several user-friendly image editing tools available, to make photos fit for photo sharing; these include Pixlr Editor, Statigram, Infogr.am and Canva. If you're shooting photos of your products, follow the creative trends on social media. Find the ones that suit your brand best and stick with them.

Tips for using photos in your posts

• Text with a photo for visual storytelling
  • Tip 1: add a headline on stock image that you’d chose, with a splash of colour infused
  • Tip 2: a quote on its own may be great on its own, but the message gets amplified when combined with a picture 
• Text over a plain background for impact
  • To quickly communicate a very specific message when featuring inspirational quotes, attractive headlines, or intriguing excerpts from a blog article or book.  
• Ask influencers for their Instagram worthy photos

Make Your Posts Engaging

Posts need to build trust between the consumer and your business so include rich content by credible sources as references in your content. It's also important to share your data by including numbers and stats of your area of expertise.

Posts should also be mobile-friendly so that they have the potential to go viral. It's also a good idea to add a touch of humour as consumers want to be entertained on social media. Create a witty side to your brand but make sure it isn't offensive.