Social media has taken over the world and is starting to dominate every possible industry.

Business-wise, it has become a critical tool for fast promotion and growth. So, it’s easy to see how information-sharing platforms are now an important element for entrepreneurs to consider.

Boom Social is a popular social media marketing blog. It delivers high-quality content on everything from traffic to user engagement and conversion. Their posts are very well written and accessible. And best of all, everything is free, so all you need to do is search, scroll and read away!

Here are some of the best tips from the Boom Social blog, presented in bite-sized bits.

Facebook Ads

• Setting Audiences
  • Email Lists. Email lists are an invaluable source for finding your right audience. Export your email subscriber list into an Excel spreadsheet and then link it to Facebook to create your audience. Targeting people on Facebook who already know your business is a good way to stay top-of-mind with people who may be in the market for your product or services.
  • Lookalike Audiences. Lookalike Audiences allows you to reach out to people who have certain interests or demographic characteristics. If you can picture your typical or ideal customer profile, you can get a Lookalike Audience based on that. Try finding similar audiences, based on a set of criteria that applies to your already existing audience. Find key points they have in common with your original audience and build from there on.
  • Facebook Fans. Not all of your Facebook fans are suitable for Facebook ads. Not every fan wants to buy what you are selling. You will need to do a little research on your audience based on geographic and demographic criteria to sort out the best candidates you can for your ads. And it prevents you from spending precious money on people that are unlikely to click on your ads. The great thing about Facebook ads is you can scale easily based on your budget. But, this means that you can also spend too much if you aren’t careful.
  • Blog Readers. People that read blog posts on specific subjects are very likely to click ads that are related to that same subject, so this could potentially become an important part of your audience.
  • Blog Readers Lookalike Audience. This is a strategy that never fails. What other blogs’ readers would also be interested in what you do? Look for people that regularly read blog posts that are similar to yours because they’re bound to be interested in your content too.
  • Cold Audience. Find people that have similar interests to what your business offers or businesses similar to you. That means that you can also target your competition and their audience to build your following.
  • Cold Audience of Tools and Publications. Cold audiences can also be built around the tools and publications your customers usually use.

For more tips on setting audiences for Facebook Ads, please read this full article here.

• Building Ads
  • Location. Facebook Ads can be run from three main locations:
    • 1.Facebook Fan Page – has four types of ads you can easily run (Promote Your Call to Action, Promote Your Website, Promote Your Page, Invite Your Friends)
    • 2.Power Editor – a very powerful Facebook Ad editor that can be somewhat difficult to manage, as it works in bulks with ads that don’t have any character limit
    • 3.Ads Manager – used in a very large proportion, and is easier to use than the Power Editor, recommended for new and intermediate users
  • Budget. You don’t need a big budget to create an effective Facebook Ads campaign. The amount of money that is necessary depends on what your goals are. Launch your ads with only 25% of your maximum daily budget and constantly work on improving them over time.
  • Audience. Regardless of the quality of your ads, sometimes they can fail if they are not directed towards the right audience.
    • 1.Cold Audience – Cold Audience is the category of people that have no information about you, your company, and the products or services it offers. In this case, it is advised to use the Audience Insights option on Facebook. Since a cold audience doesn’t know anything about your business, you will need to be very selective on choosing your cold audience. It will be harder to convert a cold audience member to becoming a subscriber or buyer of your product or services.
    • 2.Warm Audience – Warm Audience is the category of people that are somewhat familiar with your business, which can range from fans on Facebook to Twitter followers and regular readers of your blog. A good strategy with warm audiences is retargeting, which is essentially resurfacing content that you know your fans or followers have read, as an ad in their feed. You can also retarget offers or webinars to your warm audience, as they’ll be more likely to sign up since they are familiar with what you do.
    • 3.Hot Audience – Hot Audience is the category of people that are already clients of yours and may also be subscribers on your email list who know who you are, what your products or services are, and consider them to be valuable.
  • Links. Where are you going to send someone who clicks on your ad? They need to go to a landing page targeted towards people who view that particular ad. A good landing page can convert at a rate of 60-70%, so everything about it is important since it will be the first thing prospective customers see after clicking your ad.
  • Design. Graphics are an integral part of Facebook Ads. Try experimenting with different styles and see which ones turn out to be the most eye-catching for your audience. For maximum effectiveness, your ads should have engaging color, a clean design style, and not too much text. Also, make sure you do not violate the Facebook Terms of Service! Facebook can “read” your graphics, and will flag if a graphic has too much text on it. Too much text on a graphic turns off your audience. And, Facebook doesn’t want that. So, be judicious about your text on graphics.
  • Copy. Your ads will need to be short and concise since you have a limit of 25 characters for the headline, 90 characters for text and another 200 characters for the description you will use in your news feed. Also, it’s been proven that ads that incorporate a call to action button generate a higher click rate than those without one.
  • Results. Results are important! Make sure you get a return on your investment, or else running Facebook ads is quite useless and not to mention time and resource-consuming! Track your progress, review you’re A/B tests, and make sure you know your conversion rate. If it costs too much to get 1 new subscriber or buyer, it either is not worth the effort, there are issues with your copy, or you could be doing a better job on the landing pages.

For more tips on building Facebook Ads, please read this full article here, where you can also get your free copy of Facebook Ads Recipe Card.

Snapchat Marketing

• Gain Trust. Try putting yourself in the customers’ shoes and think about the kind of content you’d like to see from your favorite businesses, then act accordingly.
• Create Appropriate Content. Don’t just copy and paste content from Facebook or your blog. Take into account that Snapchat is a different platform and use it appropriately.
• Post Interesting Videos. Use interesting video content to capture the attention of your customers by not only showcasing your products but by posting other related activities as well.
• Offer Behind-The-Scenes Glimpses. Connecting with your audience is key, so let them take a look behind the scenes or share pictures from your most recent team meeting and make them feel like they’re part of the business.
• Post Stories. Engage as much as possible with users by showing small snippets of what your business is about, whether you’re posting production videos, pictures of products being used and so on.
• Show New Product Teasers. Use short videos and images to tease users about products that are about to be launched and make everyone talk about it before it gets out.
• Increase Your Following. Content quality is crucial to increase your count of followers, and a good tactic is to share this content on other social networks you use, as well. Make it engaging, catchy, and interesting as to make sure to get them to follow you on all social media platforms.
• Keep a Professional Tone. Snapchat’s typical user is not like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Instagram’s. A huge proportion of Snapchat users are underage. Be mindful of this in your marketing. Ensure that everything you post is professional and could not be easily taken out of the context.
• Offer Contests. User engagement is important so why not try to improve that by running contests on Snapchat? Ask your customers to share their opinions about products and your brand, show how they use the product, or when they visit your website, then offer small prizes such as deals and discounts.
• Work With Influencers. Think ahead by inviting influencers with large followings and are also somewhat industry-related, to work with you. You may even find influencers who have used or currently use your product, and who would be glad to promote your product or at least give some testimonial about what they think of it. A good idea could be to ask them to take over your Snapchat account for a limited period and present your business and its products from a user point of view.

For more tips on how to use Snapchat as an effective marketing tool, please read this full article here.

Content Distribution

• Facebook
  • Pin your content on your Facebook page.
  • Join relevant Facebook groups and then engage in discussions with members – share your posts, and comment on relevant questions by also including links to your content.
  • Ask friends and family to share your content.
  • Share your content on your Facebook page.
  • Share your content on your account and don’t forget to set the privacy settings to public.
• Snapchat
  • Send snaps to your following about your latest content and ask for feedback.
  • Share videos on your story and explain what your posts are about.
  • Use Snapstorms and then put URLs of your content so users can check it out.
  • Send direct messages to people asking to check out your content.
• Instagram
  • Put links to your content in your bio and mention them in your Instagram posts.
  • Use paid Instagram advertising.
  • Work with industry related influencers that have a big following and could help promote you.
  • Explore relevant hashtags and comment with a call to action on people’s posts that include these hashtags.
• Email Marketing
  • Send emails with your latest content posts.
  • Ask people that you know have large mailing lists if they could share your content.
  • Have your content be featured in industry related newsletters.
  • Compose your newsletter that includes content that you post.
  • Try experimenting with different signatures, whenever you have new content by including it in the signature.
• Twitter
  • Use Twitter for sharing the content you create and add relevant hashtags that you know your audience uses to gain more reach.
  • Retweet posts other users make to share your content.
  • Use a mix of posts, and make sure not to share only your content, but add in other relevant elements and information.
  • Engage with your audience by responding to their posts that share your content.
  • Bump your older tweets, as to get them back in your audience’s feed.
  • Engage with influencers by tagging them in posts or sharing their quotes.
  • Directly engage with your audience by sending messages about your latest posts they might like.
  • Follow people that tweet about things related to the content you post and send them direct messages with your content after they follow you back.
  • Pin posts to your account for organic reach.
• Reddit
  • Submit links to your content to Subreddits that are relevant to your content and following.
  • Compose a denser post and then link it on a relevant Subreddit.
  • Make sure to comment by linking your content to relevant Subreddit discussions.
  • Upload visual elements with an included URL on Subreddits, such as quotes from your posts.
• Online Communities
  • Submit only marketing content.
  • Answer questions by linking your articles to your response, if possible.
  • If allowed, use a signature to brand your content and better promote it.

For more tips on content distribution, please read this full article here.

Conclusion

I’ve made sure to include the reference post on Boom Social blog for every topic, so feel free to read them at your leisure. There are plenty of other articles on interesting topics that I haven’t mentioned in this post, so make sure to subscribe to their blog to get regular updates. The Boom Social Blog is a great resource for tips and guidance on improving your social media strategy.