Finding success on social media may seem like finding a needle in a very, very big haystack. And it’s easy to see why:
The average user has the attention span of a fish (8 seconds); competition is greater than ever, with posting times revealing highly aggressive content strategies; and if that wasn’t enough, there are so many social media channels to reach to that makes the simple task of publishing a single content on a single channel even more challenging.
The strategies of the past don’t work in this new environment. And if evolution has taught us anything, it is that the only way to grow in an aggressive environment … is to adapt. Hacking the system, and creating a new path.
What is Growth Hacking?
Now, before we proceed we need to drop a little bit of theory for everyone to be on the same page (we promise to make it simple).
In a few words, Growth Hacking actually refers to a group of marketing strategies derivative from growth marketing, and they are all designed to achieve considerable growth in a relatively short span, that is easy to repeat, and made to “attack” various sections at the same time of the famous Sales Funnel.
This is what we mean we say “beyond the funnel” strategies. Because while traditional marketing considers one section per strategy, Growth Hacking strategies cover multiple sections at once. And that is why its results are usually so fast and sustained.
However, that’s not as easy as it sounds. It requires constant trial and error (the A / B is perhaps the best example of this), and great knowledge of your target audience (main segments, the social networks they use, their schedules, behavior patterns, etc.).
Taking the time to get to know your audience better is always a great investment, not only to improve the content on your social media but to also get data to know how to present the content.
In other words, doable strategies. So without further ado, we present to you 4 of these strategies to bring your audience and brand to the next level.
1. Aggressive content strategies
When looking for quality over quantity, we tend to say that “less is more”, However, we believe that it’s possible to achieve both without sacrificing either of them.
It all comes down to knowing what content your audience consumes the much, and finding out ways to efficiently reiterate said content.
Enter your social networks and those of your competitors. Look for the most successful posts. Why did they have so much interaction? What makes them different/similar to the other successful posts? How can you improve them? What do the metrics say about what they really like from my content?
Once you find the answers you were looking for (that is, with data to support them), segment each one of the contents that your audience usually consumes into “pillars”, and then put those pillars into different presentation templates, so that you may produce several publications. in a row without having to spend too much time thinking about how to produce them.
Remember: you are not looking to make much of the same, but to create a solid foundation on which you can improve later, get data, use that data to redesign a better strategy, get better data, and so on.
Case Study: TaskUs
TaskUs is an outsourcing customer support & customer experience company. Meaning that to the brand, the human element is a fundamental content pilar.
What makes their social media work so amazing is not only their great ability to generate content that expresses their content pillar in unique ways, but also their ability to reiterate it in so many unique ways.
Whether it’s a video, a traditional post, or a carousel, TaskUs found fascinating ways to take something very simple – employee and managerial phrases – and share it in ways that bring value to their users.
Tips for Strategies:
- Diversify your content – find the pillars that interest your brand and your audience the most. Sometimes something as simple as a joke or a well-implemented motivational phrase can do wonders for your metrics.
- Use A/B Testing regularly and wisely – And use your metrics to find new areas of opportunity, and repeat the testing until you create the best possible post for your audience.
- Make it easy to share – Create design templates and copy that your audience considers worthy of putting on their feed. Because it doesn’t matter how well designed or written is if it does not add value to the feed of your followers.
2. Follow the trends
Using trends as a content pillar can be a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it assures immediate attention from thousands of users and the great possibility of being shared; on the other hand, your audience can see this as a hypocritical act on your part, or for the trend to be so used so much in a short time that it would cease to be a novelty.
The key is to ask yourself two questions:
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What trends interest my audience?
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How can I implement them organically in my content strategy?
The goal is to constantly navigate between these two points so that your posts feel genuine to your brand. Let the content speak to your audience, not the trend alone.
Case Study: Netflix
When a company’s brand is all bout entertainment, they live or die on trends. But of all the companies’ social media, few are as good as Netflix.
Yeah, they have the advantage of also generating many of the trends, but it’s still impressive how they manage to bring those conversations to the exact segments that are interested in them. They understand that no matter how big a topic is, the most important thing is to present it in an ideal way for those interested in it.
And that’s why no one capitalizes on trends like Netflix; They don’t “hop” on a trend, they find out who hopped in and then they give free food (or in this analogy, free content).
Tips for Strategies:
- Use one trend at a time – “Jack of all trades, master of none” is the best way to say this. In other words, it’s not likely that your audience knows or likes all of the trends. Focus on the one that most understand and like.
- Memes are your friend – Relax, one meme doesn’t make your brand less prestigious, and besides, few things are as powerful on social media as humor.
- Incentivize conversations around trends – Everyone has opinions, and social media is a place designed to express them. So allow your audience to have a voice in this regard, create a space to express themselves, and use the opportunity to bring more to the conversation (and moderate the discussion correctly).
3. Renew previous content
Many social media strategies tend to be very ambitious, creating only a few posts full of content, or attempting to cover 4 topics at once to avoid filling up the feed.
It’s not a bad strategy in theory: you bet on quality and quantity in just a couple of posts, and you avoid your account being overloaded with meaningless posts.
In practice, on the other hand, that tends to backfire; you are forcing your audience to consume a lot of time in a single publication, removing the possibility of other types of content and, in addition, you scare away a sector of your audience by creating a user experience antithetical to that of current social media.}
The error lies in confusing economy with consistency. It’s not a bad idea to have posts full of content … that is, as long as they can be useful in the future. Like investing in a gold mine to then extract from it in the near future.
Case Study: Simon Sinek
Simon Sinek is the entrepreneur, speaker, and author of some of the most important motivational books in recent times. And his social media have the tasks of promoting the brand and sharing motivational content (which in itself is highly consumed in networks) in the simplest way possible to consume.
And the strategy they use is, honestly, pretty brilliant:
Every couple of months, Sinek holds a couple of large lectures (either in an auditorium, or a live Q&A) and uploads them to all his social media. Then he takes that presentation, turns it into many videos of as little as 1:00 or 1:30 minutes, and systematically shares them over the next 2-3 months until his next lecture comes in.
He managed to convert a video of 50 minutes and 80k views, into up to 20 contents of around 1 minute and more than 50k views each (that is, a performance of more than 2,000%).
Moral: if you want to invest in high-quality content, find a way to get the most out of it.
Tips for Strategies:
- Renew content in new formats – Do you have a video that had very good metrics? Try to get out the most important moments or qualities of it, then share each one as an individual piece of content. Diversify to attract new segments.
- Renew content in other channels – If in one channel your audience consumes more of one specific format, it doesn’t mean you can’t upload that format on other channels. Have a copy that worked well on Twitter? Try uploading it to Instagram in a simple template. The results may surprise you.
4. Content that encourages referrals
Lots of companies forget the “social” part of social media. That is to say, they usually create campaigns and posts of all kinds, but really, they don’t think about how the audience interaction can do more than all the paid campaigns they could afford.
Your audience already interacts with each other and has contacts with similar tastes. So invest in your audience! Encourage conversations between them and before you know it, your brand will become the middle man.
Case Study: Starbucks
Few companies have communities as strong as Starbucks. And they have worked hard to make their audience aware of it by creating content specifically designed for them to be recognized, or better yet, for them to share with acquaintances who feel recognized with it.
Now it’s practically impossible to talk about Starbucks and the “experience” they offer without making a meme out of it, but it’s not an exaggeration to say that few brands – or rather, few communities – refer to their content so well on this planet.
Tips for Strategies:
- Giveaways – What does your audience appreciate the most about your channels? Your products/services? Or the culture around your brand? Once you know, give it for free!
- “Challenges” – These are essentially trends, but if you implement them well they can create a chain of content being generated by your audience that will most likely be shared with other people.
- Publishing content from your audience – Create an atmosphere of reciprocity, make your audience feel heard. Let the content inform your audience how to participate in the community, and share those participations to encourage others to do it as well.
At Nomad Digital, we want to help you grow your business one step at a time. And we know that your brand, like any other, is unique in its goals and needs.
Let us meet you! Contact us, and schedule an appointment so that we can work together to bring your brand to levels of performance you have never seen.
