Social media marketing has changed the way that businesses connect with consumers. Businesses that use social sites like Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook can post trending, engaging content that piques the interest of potential customers and builds a buzz around their brand. 

However, creating content that connects with your audience can be difficult. Consumer trends change quickly in the digital world and it’s easy to look out of touch if businesses aren’t constantly updating their approach. 

Companies that want to improve their social reach can connect with customers by tailoring their content to meet the genre expectations of each social platform. This can help marketers build a connection with a multi-generational audience, too, as different demographics have vastly different preferences in the digital world. 

Characteristics of Social Media Marketing

Understanding the difference between traditional marketing and digital marketing is key for any business that wants to improve its social following. While traditional marketing can be repurposed for social content, it’s usually best to adopt an entirely different strategy to target social sites. 

Digital marketing is an innately audience-focused approach to content creation. It’s less expensive than traditional marketing and can help businesses reach a global audience. Digital marketing on social media can significantly improve consumer connection, too, as social platforms offer businesses a two-way conversation in the form of direct messages, comments, and shared content. 

However, no two social platforms are the same. Each site has its own unique conventions and norms that dictate consumer preferences and content creation. These platforms can be categorized into five types of social media, including:

• Social networking (LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter);
• Photo sharing (Instagram and Pinterest);
• Video sharing (YouTube and Vimeo);
• Interactive media (TikTok and Snapchat);
• Blogging and Community Building (Reddit and Tumblr).

While there is overlap between these categories, distinguishing between them can help marketers produce creative content that connects with users. Once marketers understand the differences between social sites, they can start to plan and produce content that redirects users to omnichannel services for improved customer communication. 

Embracing Creativity

Creativity is a skill that can be refined with practice and the right approach. Businesses that want to be more creative with their content marketing should adopt an honest, research-driven approach to ideation. Even small changes, like encouraging internal collaboration, can have a huge impact on reach and engagement online. 

Marketing departments that have run out of creative marketing ideas can use the “Wonderland” game to produce unique and engaging content. The “Wonderland” game is an ideation technique used to discover connections between unrelated things. Marketers use Lewis Caroll’s iconic brain teaser “Why is a raven like a writing desk?” as inspiration to form their own questions. This can result in remarkable, eye-catching content ideas like: 

• “What I learned about content marketing from my grandma”
• “How I increased my open rate by 174% with a roll of duct tape”.

Even if marketing departments take a different direction, the “Wonderland” game is a great way to spark conversation and generate ideas. Ideally, the “Wonderland” game should be used in tandem with other social media trends like influencer marketing and video-based content. This ensures that posts are relevant to current consumer preferences. 

Embracing creativity is particularly important for businesses trying to reach a multi-generational audience. Content creators will have to get creative to adopt a Gen-Z or baby-boomer mindset when crafting digital content.

Generational Marketing Tactics

Generational differences have a huge impact on customer preferences and digital behavior. Trend-driven marketing content may resonate with younger users but will likely put off older consumers who are looking for easy-to-understand posts.

Ideally, businesses should use their social presence to target one or two generations online. This simplifies the content creation process and maximizes the impact of a business’s social media strategy. This is particularly important for businesses that want to use social media to break into a new market segment. 

Companies that want to connect with new users should use high-profile social pages to direct their content creation strategies. For example, if a business wants to create a buzz amongst Gen-Z consumers, it can follow Doritos’ example and post content that utilizes trending sounds and content.

Using high-performing pages as a guide is a great way to streamline the content-generation process and create materials that connect with audiences. This will free up time for engagement and ensure that marketers can spend most of their time tracking key metrics and utilizing analytic data. 

Utilizing Analytics 

Social media is a treasure-trove for consumer data. Content creators who want to produce materials that connect with consumers must use data analytics to refine their approach and spot emerging trends. To get started, marketers should familiarize themselves with the basics of: 

• TikTok Analytics;
• Google Trends;
• Instagram Insights;
• Meta Business Suite.

These services are in-built analytic services that track key metrics like follower count, growth, engagement rate, and views. They’re largely user-friendly and can be used to direct future marketing strategies based on the performance of previous posts. 

Marketing professionals that want to amplify the impact of their social media content can look to external services like HootSuite, SproutSocial, and Brandwatch to improve their consumer connection. These sites help businesses track useful metrics and improve common key performance indicators (KPIs) like:

• Growth rate percentage;
• Theoretical reach;
• Social share of voice;
• Engagement rate percentage.

These KPIs give marketers quantitative data to track and measure consumer connection. They give content creators a benchmark to measure performance and can even be used to plan future posts. This is particularly important today when stiff competition makes capturing a piece of the social pie harder than ever before. 

Conclusion

Creativity is key to successful social media marketing. Adopting an honest, research-driven approach to ideation and content generation can help businesses produce unique and engaging content that resonates with a multi-generational audience. 

Today’s marketers must become savvy data analysts, too. Data analytics are essential when refining existing campaigns and measuring performance. By tracking KPIs, businesses can improve their social media campaigns and produce content that authentically connects with consumers.

Featured image by Pratik Gupta on Unsplash