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Do you ever feel as if your product is not the most exciting one out there? Maybe you feel that it is not flashy enough to market?
Here is the hard truth of social media marketing: Anything Can Be Sold (with the right tools).
We do not NEED an iPhone or a jet ski or a high-tech drone. What we need every day are toilet seats, screws, duct tape, elevator switches, and batteries.
The only real challenge you have in social media marketing a boring brand or product is a lack of direction.
Here are 21 social media marketing strategies to turn a tragic branding into something magical:
#1 Tell Me a Story
You have a useful product with over a hundred great specifications. Telling me about the specifications is a guaranteed way to make me fall asleep.
You have a story about your brand that says why you started it up and what challenges it can overcome. Wait, what? Tell me more!
Social media marketing is not really about selling your product. It is about selling an emotion – a story. One of the finest examples of brand storytelling is Airbnb – essentially, a company that arranges for a place to stay when you travel.
To Airbnb, the customer is quite literally everything. The hosts and the guests are both customers. In fact, the brand’s story is made largely of small stories that involve hosts and guests.
That is why Airbnb features real Travel Stories by actual customers on its website to get more people hooked. Works like a charm!
#2 Be Personable
Every brand has a personality. All you have to do is find yours. Take a look at Netflix – it is basically a new way to watch TV.
But people already HAD cable TV, right? So, how did Netflix become so huge?
Netflix started to leverage the power of memes, show snippets, and promotional content. The best part was that they got their content directly from shows that they featured.
In a matter of months, Netflix turned its social channels into fan clubs for all the shows that it hosted. To tip the scales further in their favor, Netflix introduced a ‘binge-watching’ fad and really went all-out with it.
By simply becoming more personable on social media, Netflix turned a dull product into one of the most exciting platforms ever.
#3 Hire an Influencer
Influencers are called influencers for a reason. Hiring an influencer to market or endorse your product can make an immense difference.
This simple strategy worked immensely well for HRX Band, which is a company that sells wearable fitness trackers.
By any standards, one of the least exciting forms of wearable tech is a fitness gadget. With one video featuring Indian superstar and brand ambassador Hrithik Roshan, HRX Band created a viral campaign that helped them sell a ton of fitness bands.
Using a catchy hashtag (#DefeatDefeat), HRX Band leveraged social media marketing to its fullest by selling an inspirational message delivered by a mega-influencer.
If you cannot afford to spend as much on marketing to hire a major celebrity, you can hire a local one too. The bottom line is that this social media marketing strategy works without fail.
#4 Teach Me Something New
Even the most boring products become instantly interesting when you impart your wisdom to more people.
If you happen to do it for free, you become an instant hit in the most boring of niches.
Ucorkd is a beverage management solutions company that posts blogs on wine, cocktails, and the latest beers trends – who would want to miss that!
As a result, 72.64% of their traffic is purely organic (Source: SimilarWeb).
#5 Say Please and Thank You
Two simple phrases that your mother always taught you to say – “please,” and “thank you!”
This is a simple social media marketing strategy that has worked immensely well for even giants such as Wikipedia.
Wikipedia gets most of its money from donations by saying please. As soon as they receive a donation, they send out a thank you tweet to their fans.
By simply being gracious, you earn a lot of social currency from your fans and customers to keep them coming back to your business.
#6 Be Memorable
One of the biggest problems with most brands (big or small) is that they forget how important a lasting impression can be.
Being memorable sets you up to be the go-to brand in your industry. It does not take an exciting product to be memorable either.
Pidilite sells glue – yes, glue. Yet somehow, they managed to make their products memorable by using a bunch of TV commercials that will definitely crack you up!
As a result, Pidilite now holds 70% of domestic market shares.
#7 Share Your Company Culture
Zendesk builds software for customer engagement. Big Whoop! But Zendesk is so much more than just a generic software company. It is an organization o awesome people.
In their corporate culture video (which received over 220k views on YouTube), Zendesk put together a montage of their company’s best moments.
By sharing your company culture, you become instantly more human and remind your customers that the brand is made of real people working together.
You can showcase quite a lot in three minutes as long as you are passionate about your company. The real question is – what is stopping you?
#8 Create a Little Something Extra
A simple, sure-fire way to gain a lot of traction from social media marketing is to give more value to your customers.
NerdWallet is an online personal finance service website. A tagline like that is never going to succeed in Social Media, right?
Nerdwallet made a nifty little tool that calculates home affordability rates. It was so good that it was picked up and promoted by over five hundred other websites including Forbes, NASDAQ, and Buzzfeed!
Creating a handy tool like that is not really all that expensive but it kills on social media marketing.
#9 Show Off A Bit
General Electric makes engines for jets. Not very exciting. So, they released a video of the world’s fastest ferry powered by their engines.
Watch the ferry with 1,000 passengers and 150 cars on board hit 67 MPH! Impressive, right?
They were quite literally showboating! The best part? They got some great results with their social media marketing too.
#10 Create a Series
This is one of the best social media marketing tips I have ever received in my lifetime. So, now it is time to pass it on to other people.
Creating a series that revolves around your products makes you so much more attractive as a brand.
It is important to find awesome content ideas for your series to provide quality.
#11 Create a Contest
Nothing excites customers like a contest. The contest could be built around a poll, a freebie, or even a discount.
This simple social media marketing tool has helped Charmin (a brand that sells toilet paper) become truly Charming.
By setting up regular polls, they not only understand their buyers much better but also drive more traffic towards their business.
#12 Be the Funny One
Kallo is a Dutch brand that sells organic low-fat rice cakes. So, instead of saying how delightful their organic low-fat rice cakes (which, incidentally no one has ever said), Kallo went all out with humor.
On each of their product pages, they feature a short, funny poem that nudges the customer to buy. Instead of giving the customers the same old drivel, Kallo makes a genuine connection.
#13 Coin a Term
One of the major players in the SEO game is Brian Dean. Brian is the guy who made something as confusing and drab as SEO cool with his blog posts and videos.
How did he do it? He started to coin terms such as the Skyscraper Technique, the Moving Man Method, and so many more.
Coining a term instantly makes you stand out from the rest of the industry.
#14 Be Simple
Simplicity can be one of the most powerful, yet underrated tools for social media marketing. If people cannot understand your product, you are in real trouble.
Here is the simple truth about simple marketing:
Just because you have a complex product, your product descriptions do not have to be as complex.
Take the marketing for Amazon for instance. Amazon markets the convenience of shopping from your handheld devices.
Instead of a bunch of complicated services listed one after another, the customer gets the bottom line.
Simple. Clean. Effective.
#15 Be Visual
Visual marketing works a lot better than text. 32% of marketers say that images are the most important form of content for their marketing model. (Source: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/visual-content-marketing-strategy)
Using custom graphics is the best way to spread the word about your brand. The best part is that it is a really cost-effective way to boost your traffic.
One of the most booming ways to hack your business growth is through the use of Pinterest as a marketing platform. From simple images to infographics, Pinterest is a place for all kinds of visual marketing strategies to come truly alive.
#16 Be Receptive and Proactive
No matter what your product is, it is not meant for everyone out there. So, it is perfectly fine to get a few bad reviews as long as you are receptive to criticism and proactive enough to take the feedback to improve.
This article on handling customer reviews will help you understand how to deal with different situations.
Most people buy products based on customer reviews. Engaging with the reviewers will add a lot of credibility to your brand.
#17 Be Bold, Be Weird
Worldwide Breast Cancer Awareness is one of the most unexciting topics to think of. But that did not stop Worldwide Breast Cancer charity from creating a bold and weird marketing campaign.
The #KnowYourLemons turned into the universal symbol of breast health education with the help of Social Media.
The marketing campaign used lemons as a metaphor for breasts and encouraged women to check their breast health regularly. In the process, they also raised funds for cancer treatment.
#18 Stick a Few Channels
Not every social media channel is meant for your product. Find two or three social channels to work with and whip up a concrete social media marketing strategy.
Take, for instance, Neil Patel Digital. This multimedia marketing giant has been galloping at a rapid pace using Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.
They also have other traction channels such as Instagram, but not for marketing purposes. In this video, Neil Patel talks about using a couple of social media channels for more focused marketing.
#19 Get Some Press Action
Journalists are experts in the art of crafting good PR. In the case of NerdWallet, they were picked up by Associated Press.
Now, getting a major press syndicate in your corner is a difficult feat. For most businesses, even a single good article from a serious media house can change your life.
The simplest way to get some press is to respond to journalists on Twitter. Some many journalists tweet out with #JournoRequest for genuine sources on different niche industries. Simply helping them out is a great way to get some free press.
#20 Ask and Answer Great Questions
One of the best ways to drum up a lot of credibilities and a lot of awareness. Some of the best places to get started are special forums, Quora, Reddit, and the Verge.
This is the easiest way to establish authority on any topic. Thousands of people market their company’s products and services using forums.
The best part? You can get a targeted audience by simply asking and answering questions. Forums have a huge audience just waiting for you to leverage them for traffic.
#21 Stop Being Sales-y
When was the last time you saw Nike asking you to buy their products? Never, right? There is an important reason why they never ask you to buy.
NIKE DOES NOT SELL ITS PRODUCTS. Period. Nike sells you an experience, a lifestyle choice, an emotion, a social issue – NEVER its products.
Their sales simply follow because their marketing is not sales-y. Think about it – with millions of products being launched every day, how jaded is a customer to a sales pitch?
Find a new angle for your product.
Just Do It.
Like Nike.
The Wrap Up
The bottom line is that boring products are only as boring as their marketers. Find your story. Find your voice. Spread the message.
Starting small is not a challenge. Not growing every day is your real enemy.
Is there a success story that you would like to share? Or maybe we forgot your favorite marketing tactic. (Sorry, we’re on a deadline and a word count limit!)
Let us know in the comments below! Love our blog? Share it with more people. The more you share with other people and comment, the more marketing ideas you can discuss with your peers!
Which tactic are you going to use first?
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