The social media landscape is changing rapidly, as are the social media tactics brands use to stay in touch with their fans. Just when you’re on top of your game, you might need to go in a different direction to maintain your success. Unfortunately, many companies lose customers because they cling to outdated social media tactics. Meanwhile, other brands earn the lion’s share of engagement because of their community-driven strategy. These tactics present some key tone shifts you need to consider when crafting your social media strategy for success.

Forget About Likes, but Understand Algorithms

Buying likes used to be a standard (albeit largely frowned upon) practice to build a brand’s following. But this tactic ignores the social aspect of social media. Brands need to use social media to cultivate community with real people, and in turn, step away from vanity metrics. With algorithms changing to be less like-focused and towards related interests, it's important that your content engages first, and inspires individuals to follow.

Boosting views and content consumption to game algorithms can be a zero-sum game if you’re creating all that content in-house. Many brands are finding success across all social channels with user-generated content. Utilizing the content that your customers have already shared (with their permission) helps not only connect your brand to others, it also uses proven content to engage.

Embrace Diversity and Authenticity

Built on the concept of community, social media is often a powerful avenue for brands to convey their values regarding diversity and authenticity. Knowing your audience means knowing the diverse backgrounds and experiences they have to offer, which you can represent through resharing posts from members of your brand community or creating a question sticker or hashtag on Instagram to encourage your customers to share their personal experiences with your product, for example.

Social change and amplifying the voices of your diverse community can be extremely successful for a brand when done authentically; use your social profiles to identify your most passionate customers and highlight their content on your own page. Beauty brand Morphe grew its community to 7.5 million Instagram followers by highlighting diverse and authentic user-generated content from their most passionate customer. Beyond social, the brand uses this diverse content across all marketing channels to keep the audience engaged and connected.

Build a Two-Way Conversation with Your Audience

Listening and feedback go a long way with your target customers. Let your audience know who the people behind the brand are. Share details about how you spend your day at work and what goes into making the products or services you’re selling. The core team members behind your company should also express their unique voices. Add more personality to your posts to establish a stronger bond between you and your followers. Interact with your audience and show them that they can easily reach you. Respond to comments, give people advice, share your knowledge, and try to help your customers out and resolve any issues they might have with your products. Giving more attention to your followers will help you build trust with them, which means a lot in this climate where market saturation is high in almost every industry. Use your voice to let customers know you understand their needs and are willing to take action to address them.

Prioritize Video Content

According to a report made by Facebook in 2016, users on this platform watched more than 100 million hours of video a day. And that has only increased in the years following. This fact alone should encourage you to spend more time making and curating video content. There are a number of ways to create engaging video content for social media marketing.

One strategy is to create short and simple instructional videos that show how customers can use your products to get the most out of them. Make sure that your short instructional videos last less than 30 seconds to increase the chances of users watching them from beginning to end. This exact type of video performs well on TikTok. These videos are around fifteen seconds, and all embrace different industries and types of products.

When in doubt, user-generated content will prove to be the most cost-effective and engaging option.  

If you’re looking for ways to encourage customers to share on social media, read these tactics for encouraging customers to share more. Airbnb features user-generated video content to entice their fans to try digital experiences.

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Find a new groove. From home. Online Experience host LaJon (@lajondantzler), also known as Smiles from Step Up 2, teaches you hip hop choreography from Bangkok. Bring a towel and your best dance battle facials. #GoNear

A post shared by Airbnb (@airbnb) on Aug 13, 2020 at 4:20am PDT

Test New Social Media Platforms

Creating a brand new social account for every new platform isn’t a strategic use of time for every social media marketer. But when social media platforms start to gain a lot of traction with customers, like TikTok, it’s important to at least explore them.  Although TikTok is known for its talent, music, comedy, or lip-synced videos, that doesn’t mean you can’t find creative ways to use it to advertise your products. Just look at how a serious newspaper like The Washington Post managed to become insanely popular on this social media app.

Learn how other brands are using new platforms during social distancing to generate maximum ROI in this whitepaper.

Stream Live Videos

Live videos are an excellent way to connect with your audience and give them exclusive behind-the-scenes footage of your team working or exclusive previews of upcoming products. You can stream live videos on a number of social media platforms, including Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, and YouTube.

Social media tactics should always work towards the goal of creating a cohesive and engaged community. You have to make sure that you share quality content, collaborate with micro-influencers, and interact with your audience. Since things change fast in the digital marketing world, don’t forget to regularly check whether there are some new ideas you can implement in your strategy.

‍Tiffany Harper is an experienced freelance writer, who as a subject matter expert provides help to best paper writing services and essay writers at Essay writing services. Tiffany also consults some assignment writing services at Buy a custom essay. If she is not writing, you can find her studying new technologies and resources for her researches. Please do not hesitate to contact her on twitter.