When barriers to entry are eliminated, the competition intensifies. With social media brands, businesses and users interact on a nearly level playing field. Everyone has access to everyone else within the network. This has helped local small and medium-sized businesses punch above their weight for years. Nowadays, however, space is crowded and getting your brand’s voice across to your target audience is as difficult and expensive as ever. Here are seven creative marketing strategies to help your voice dominate the digital space:
1. Focus on mobile video
By the end of 2018, experts expect the mobile video advertising space to grow to $8 billion. Facebook’s live streams and Google’s YouTube still dominate the space, so these are the best platforms to focus your resources on. If you want to get creative, try applying video adverts to mobile games and apps. This should help your videos stand out.
2. Crowdsource
Collaboration and crowdsourcing content is cheaper and easier than creating it by yourself. Marketers have realized that there is limited attention and a lot of quality content out there. To get ahead, you need a variety of voices from different perspectives. The best way to do this is to crowdsource content ideas. For example, allow users to generate and post their content directly on your platform. Let them vote on surveys and leave reviews for your business on a social platform. Getting other influencers and brands to cross-post on your site is a clever crowdsourcing strategy that makes it easier to create quality content. You can also generate ideas from within your organization. Get your employees talking about how they feel about working on your product or service and why they picked their career.
3. Get interactive
Content has improved in nearly every way. Some of the best digital marketers create long-form and short-form articles with great videos and infographics to keep viewer attention. To drive engagement, you need to stand out with a more interactive piece of content. Quizzes, polls, and games are simple to create and highly effective. Connecting with your audience and getting them to interact with you online is a surefire way to create a bond with potential customers and affiliates.
4. Get personal
Automation and marketing tools have helped all businesses curate and distribute high-quality content online. One of the few remaining ways to differentiate yourself is to speak with authority, have a unique voice, and connect with people on a personal level. Make your brand stand out by simply being yourself. Despite all the advances in digital technology, most customers still refer to a friend or someone they trust when making purchase decisions. Word of mouth is a highly potent marketing element and by giving your brand a personal touch you can tap into it effectively.
5. Pay to play
Pay to play is becoming more common as major social networks like Facebook and Twitter try to squeeze out more ad revenue to keep their shareholders happy. According to a recent report by Forrester Research, somewhere between 10% and 16% of your followers on Facebook and Twitter can see your posts. This means organic traffic is no longer a possibility and if you want your posts to reach your followers you have no option but to pay more than your competitors.
6. Advertise natively
It’s expensive, time-consuming, and difficult to pull off, but native advertising is highly effective. This is a form of marketing that seamlessly blends your brand and message with the style and content on the platform. Everyone from Buzzfeed to the Wall Street Journal is getting in on this new trend. If you want to attract more attention from your target market, native advertising is certainly worth the investment.
7. Target behavior
If you’ve tried searching for hotels online and then noticed all the ads across your platforms mention the destination you’re visiting, you’ve experienced behavior targeted marketing. This new strategy allows your ads to follow people based on their search and web browsing behavior. It may seem creepy, but it is highly effective and getting more pervasive.
Final Words
These seven strategies should help your brand cut across the noise and reach potential customers online. However, it is worth noting that traditional digital marketing tactics are still vital in order to make your voice heard. Get versed on SEO with online videos and tutorials, such as SEO: The Movie, and keep focusing on creating quality, contextual content. The best marketing tactics are always the ones which cover all angles.
