6 Social Media Insider Tips You Need to Implement

Social media is changing fast, with new social networks popping up daily and innovative advertising features being introduced more frequently.

Marketers need to be responsive and adaptive to stay ahead of the curve. But instead of trying to figure out best social media strategies alone through trial and error, learn from seasoned practitioners. Here are six power tips I picked up from a group of veteran social media marketers at the recent SocialPro conference here in Seattle, WA:

1. Pinterest engagement happens over time

Pinterest is a bit of an anomaly in the social media world. Unlike Instagram, where posts generate 90% of all social interactions within their first 13 hours after going live, it takes a pin three and half months to get 50% of its engagement. Although Pinterest’s prolonged engagement window works against the goal of having an instantly viral social media success story, there is a long-tail benefit for advertisers, who generally pay only for the initial clicks or engagement. Any remaining activity essentially represents free media.

Because 80% of Pinterest pins are repins, representatives from the company advise marketers to tag and caption each pin carefully and make it easily discoverable and maximally keyword-friendly. Indeed, many have compared Pinterest to a search engine for compiling shopping lists, where people search for specific keywords and bookmark relevant links.

2. Facebook is an excellent Lead Gen tool

This social media juggernaut has worked hard in recent years to turn into a commerce powerhouse. The transition has included introducing a “Buy” button to take users directly to e-commerce websites and a “Shop” tab for small businesses to sell directly through Facebook. The company has also been testing a product-dedicated news feed or shopping section with a select number of retail partners.

To enhance the ROI of its mobile ads, Facebook also launched “Lead Gen ad products,” which allow prospects to submit contact information without leaving the app. According to a senior executive at a digital ad agency, this new tool has made it easier for users and thereby greatly increased Facebook campaign conversation rates.

3. Pay attention to Snapchat

With 10 billion video views daily, Snapchat is quickly becoming the most active social network after Facebook. Although one might legitimately question the value of producing Snapchat content only to see it disappear after 24 hours, the short life cycle  of “snaps” can make short-term marketing campaigns like flash sales and limited-time promotions work magic. According to Snapchat marketing experts, advertisers who are new to Snapchat can use their existing Facebook, Instagram and Twitter channels to cross-promote their Snapchat accounts, which can lead to great results. Another trick of the trade is to hire Snapchat “influencers” who can either create native content targeting the platform’s younger users or take over advertiser Snapchat accounts and help attract followers.

4. Social ads are part experience, part sales

Obviously, the ultimate goal of any form of advertising, social ads included, is to generate sales. But in order to cultivate long-term relationships with customers, advertisers need to invest in user experience when constructing social ads. Instagram, for example, is an environment platform where highly aesthetic images overwhelmingly trump sales tactics like spamming hashtags to increase reach. To create better ad experiences for its users, Facebook introduced its new Canvas ad format -- a full-screen, immersive, and fast-loading interface that’s built for the mobile audience. Marketers clearly need to set up different KPIs for campaign goals on different social platforms, such as a “view-through” rate for enhancing brand image via video, and click-through rates for measuring purchase intent.

5. Video ads are an unstoppable force

From Twitter to Instagram and Facebook, all major social platforms now offer autoplay video functions. Twitter has rolled out “conversational ads,” in which brands can include a call- to-action button alongside branded videos to encourage users to share video content with their followers. Strong engagement numbers speak to this trend: native Facebook videos generate twice as many views and seven times as much engagement as embedded videos hosted on external sites like YouTube. Another interesting fact is that 85 percent of Facebook videos are watched without sound, which means that marketers need to produce ads accordingly and caption auto-play videos with eye-catching text overlay.

6. Plug social media into every step of your customer lifecycle

For social media marketers, one of the biggest challenges is to document a direct correlation between social activities and sales performance. But it is possible to track how social media helps drive consumers down the purchase funnel by documenting the impact of social interactions with brands through each step of the process. In today’s 24-7 social-driven world, consumers look to social media for information at every stage of the purchase process -- whether they are looking for inspiration, weighing different options, or in the final stage of making a purchase decision. Therefore, advertisers should develop a range of social content tailored toward consumers at different phases of the sales cycle. They should also use rigorous conversion-tracking tools that shed insight into the effectiveness of social promotion in influencing customer decision-making.

What social media marketing strategies help you stay ahead of the curve?