SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGIES FOR YOUR BUSINESS: BEST PRACTICES

Discover ways to enhance your social media marketing strategy with our guide to the leading platforms.

87% of consumers think that social media helps them make purchasing decisions¹ – proof, if needed, of the importance of a social media marketing strategy to your business’s success.

The leading platforms’ reach spans billions of users across the world, making them an unrivalled marketing channel for almost every type of business. For SMEs with a limited advertising budget, social media has plenty of free ways to build and engage an audience.  

How do I promote my product on social media?

The best practice is to follow the five Cs of social selling:

What social media is best for selling products?

With so many platforms to choose from, which social selling platform is recommended for building and nurturing relationships? Let’s explore the leading ones and the best practices to getting the most out of each.  

Getting to know the LinkedIn audience

LinkedIn has 500 million professional users. Around 106 million users log on and engage with content every month. Almost a quarter of users are aged 18 to 29 and 61% are aged 30 to 64, with 21% over the age of 65.

More than 44% of users have income above US$75k.

Where do they live?

Users are active in more than 200 countries and territories around the world, with the largest percentage residing in the US, followed by India, Brazil, the UK and Canada.

LinkedIn etiquette

Identify your prospects carefully, focusing on their organisation, role(s) and work history. Be professional, so avoid the 'hard sell'. Instead engage your audience with business insights, and genuinely useful and interesting content like interviews, videos and articles.

Why sell on LinkedIn?

Four out of five LinkedIn members drive business decisions, and its members have double the buying power of average web audiences making it the top platform for B2B lead generation, rated by marketers.

Building your presence with Company Pages 

- Create a native ad in minutes to run in the LinkedIn feed across desktop and mobile.

- Send personalised messages straight to your prospects’ inboxes.

- Drive targeted traffic to your website or landing page.

- Increase your audience engagement with dynamic personalised ads.

- Create added engagement with Premium display ads.

Getting to know the Instagram audience

Instagram's reported 800 million monthly active users in September 2017, with 59% of 18 to 29 year olds and 33% of 30 to 49 year olds using the platform. Adults earning less than US$30k per year make up 38% of Instagram users, and adults earning more than US$75k make up 37% of users.

Where do they live?

According to Statista figures, the US ranks first for Instagram popularity, with 110 million monthly users, followed by Brazil with 57 million and Indonesia with 53 million.

Instagram etiquette

Find the right hashtags for your business – and use them.
And, as with all social media platforms, be engaging – ask your audience for their opinions and join the conversations that are relevant to your business. But don’t over-post – one to three posts a day is the general rule for businesses.

Why sell on Instagram?

Instagram has more than 25 million business profiles worldwide, and more than two million advertisers worldwide use Instagram to drive business results. More than 200 million Instagrammers visit at least one business profile a day, so Instagram puts you in touch with an audience who are actively looking to be inspired and discover new things.

Start selling on Instagram

1. Download the Instagram app for iOS from the App Store, Android from the Google Play store or Windows Phone

2. Tap 'Sign Up', enter your email address and tap 'Next', or tap 'Log in' with Facebook to sign up with your Facebook account

3. Create a business profile within the app. Find Settings, then scroll down to 'Switch to business account'. When you have an account, add useful information such as opening hours, your business address or a phone number

4. Post content using relevant hashtags and start following relevant accounts. Go to Instagram to get started

Tell your story in compelling ways

You can create Instagram photo ads, video ads or let people swipe to view additional photos or videos in a single post with Carousel ads. Drive engagement, interact with your customers, and show your products in action with Instagram Stories, which has 300 million daily users.

Use Shopping on Instagram

Shopping on Instagram can turn your business into a virtual shopfront, allowing the Instagram community to explore your best products with a single tap or click.

Getting to know the Facebook audience

With 2.2 billion active users, Facebook is the world’s biggest social media platform.Twenty-nine percent 29% of users are aged 18 to 24 and 29% are between ages 25 and 34. Seventy-seven percent of Facebook users have an income of US$75k or more, and usage skews towards women (83%) over men (75%).

Where do they live?

North America has the highest active Facebook usage rate, with 72.4% of it's total population using the site. This is followed by Latin America and the Caribbean, with 57.3% of the population, and then Oceania and Australia with 48.1%.

Facebook etiquette

Have a personality – don’t be afraid to use humor to engage the Facebook audience.
Look to create relationships rather than constantly pushing your products and services.
Don’t overdo hashtags – posts that don't use them at all are often more successful – but if you're using them, limit them to two per post.

What sells best on Facebook?

Digital Intelligence research found that the kind of products which sell via word of mouth are the products that sell best on Facebook. These include ‘interest’categories like beauty, fashion and sports; ‘service’ categories like financial services, telecoms and travel services; and ‘high price’ categories like computers, vacations and cars.

Facebook tools

The Facebook Audience Insight tool allows you to target your audience by location, age and gender, and also by education level, relationship status and life events.

The Facebook Marketplace makes it easier for people to buy and sell within their local community – with a total audience of more than 450 million people worldwide, that’s a lot of local communities.

Getting to know the Snapchat audience

Snapchat is one of the fastest growing apps and networks worldwide, with 187 million daily active users. Audiences are predominantly young – 60% of Snapchat users are under the age of 25 and it's become the key platform for targeting teens and millennials.

Where do they live?

Snapchat has 80 million daily active users in North America and 60 million in Europe.

Snapchat etiquette

It’s all about being fun, creative, cheeky and engaging by mixing up photos, videos and text to make your stories more engaging. Keep your posts short – 200 seconds on Snapchat is a long time.

Home of news, current affairs, and a fair few political debates, X attracts those with something to say. The social network has more than 540 million monthly users – over 35% of whom use it to follow or research brands and products¹¹.

Social media marketing on X: best practices

Join in

X is predominantly about community and conversations. Reply to tweets, and retweet and like others’ content. Keep tabs on trending topics and join in the discussions to help your brand build its presence.

Craft your bio

Write an interesting – but concise – description about your business: what it does, its unique selling point, and a link to your website. 

Be consistent

Post frequently – 2-4 times a day – to keep your followers engaged. Audiences crave variety, so share a mixture of original tweets, retweets, photos, videos and polls.

Host Twitter Spaces

This feature allows users to have live audio conversations – with another user or a group of users. For brands, it’s an opportunity to engage directly with customers; to let them know about a new product or service, invite feedback, or host a Q&A session – to name a few examples. All of which helps them to nurture relationships and build meaningful connections with prospects and customers.  

What sells best on Pinterest?

Products that reflect the audience’s shared interests do well here, for example fashion, home, gardening, DIY and holiday shopping ideas and inspiration.

Why Pinterest ads work

Promoted Pins look just like normal Pins and can help get your product seen by more people. Pinterest’s marketing solutions help you to align Promoted Pins with your business goals and 73% of Pinners say that content from brands makes Pinterest more useful.

People use Pinterest to shop and plan, so they're receptive to new products and ideas, and they're also ready to act – 61% of Pinners have made a purchase after seeing promoted content.

The Pinterest audience saves ads to their boards and will often revisit them later, giving you free publicity and additional sales.

The new kid on the block has enjoyed phenomenal growth. In 2021, the video-sharing platform was the most downloaded app¹². Today, it has more than 1.7 billion users worldwide¹³, and is particularly popular with Gen Z and millennials, making it an important channel for any business wishing to target those demographics.

Social media marketing on TikTok: best practices

Make the first few seconds count

Users tend to scroll through videos quickly, so the first couple of seconds of yours need to grab their attention – which means it’s time to sharpen up your creative skills. Be original and stoke a sense of curiosity; use captions to tease something interesting or surprising might happen if the user watches to the end.

Optimise for search

Use keywords within your captions to help your content be found by people actively interested in your topics. Alternatively, you can approach this from a different angle – i.e. see what keywords are trending and use them to inform what content you create.

Engage with other users

The best way for your brand to be discovered by new users is by appearing on their “For You” page. This is determined by the TikTok algorithm, which prioritises accounts with high engagement. A key way to increase yours is by using analytics tools to identify when your followers are most active online and then schedule your content accordingly. You can also build engagement by joining in with viral trends and challenges.

Keep it fun

“Entertainment” is the most popular content category on TikTok. Make your videos snappy, and fun, and don’t be afraid to use humor! 65% of TikTokers say professional-looking videos from brands feel out of place¹⁴, so focus on authentic but “lighter” content – behind-the-scenes videos are a great example.

Set up a TikTok Shop

It’s relatively simple (and free!) to start selling on the platform – either by listing products directly on a TikTok Business account, or by linking your existing TikTok account to an external e-commerce platform (like Shopify.) You can then promote your products with shoppable videos and livestream shopping events. The platform also promises a wide range of educational resources – from detailed walk-throughs to fun, short TikToks – to help sellers get the most out of the service. 

Once your social media strategy is polished, you’ll need a logistics partner to help you manage the extra orders! Open a DHL Express Business Account to receive support from the international shipping experts – wherever in the world your customers may be.