20 Social Media Marketing Methods to Boost Business

Social media has in the recent past become one of the most significant platforms for promoting businesses. This is because of the high traffic on social media sites at a given time. Never run out of ideas o social media that can take a business to the next level after going through the following comprehensive list of social media marketing methods. From promotional posts to personal and business related promotional ideas, the list is likely to inspire business marketers and social media users for a very long time.

• Use humorous, famous and inspirational quotes while posting on social media platforms
  Social media users are highly attracted to quotes by famous personalities. Users are highly likely to be attracted to social media posts that contain famous or hilarious quotes. When you amalgamate such quotes with promotional information for your goods and services, you will most likely get the desired traffic for such posts.
  Do not hesitate to use quotes that have been used before. Social media users never mind reading a famous quote more than once; so long as they find it worth reading. Therefore, in the process of reading such quotes, social media users get to read the promotional information attached to the quotes and hence goods or services are promoted in the process.

• Use creative fill-in-the-blanks posts for promotional purposes
  Naturally, people like to have their anxiety provoked and social media users are not left out. fill-in-the-blanks posts are posts that leave readers wondering what would happen if they got involved with whatever promotional idea is passed across in a social media post. If I had one million dollars I would……… This is a good example of fill-in-the-blanks.

• Conduct regular polls on social media for creating engagement
  While most social media platforms like Facebook offer built-in polls, one ought to note that running polls manually can go a long way in not only increasing traffic but also creating engagement from a given post. Try to impose questions that seek to know the level to which a product or service is acceptable to its consumers.
  Polls that demand yes or no answers can make your existing or expected consumers air their views regarding the products or services you are selling on social media platforms. As a result, they not only provide their views regarding the questions posted but also build engagement for other social media uses in which they form a discussion. Once an active discussion is achieved, the posts will attract more and more traffic thereby making the products or services known to a wide range of people.

• Upload behind-the-scenes-photos on social media
  Always telling potential consumers on the goods and service you offer and their probable competitive advantage over other similar goods in the market is monotonous. Every internet marketer does that and internet users are used to it. It is always the order of the day. However, you can be cleverer to include on your posts behind-the-scenes photos that show how the goods or services are being produced or consumed by consumers.
  Sometimes showing photos of your employees, your warehouse or workspace makes potential consumers more likely to be interested in your posts. It is therefore imperative for you to include unlikely photos in your posts on social media in a bid to woe more traffic.

• Always update real time statistics and data of your company
  Customers are always interested in your real time progress. They are always eager to know whether your business is progressive, stagnant or dwindling and falling. Show it to them this can be achieved by regularly posting statistics and data regarding the progress of your business.
  On most occasions, internet users, especially social media users, find it interesting to know that their contributions on your products or services have positive impacts on your sales. It is therefore important to provide this information to them on a regular basis. Additionally, never hesitate to tell your audience whenever your company statistics go to the negative.

• Recycle your posts that did really well by attracting more traffic
  There is absolutely wrong with recycling your old posts that went a long way in building great traffic and thereby making more sales for you. However, you should take into close consideration not to recycle posts that still have active discussions and engagements. It will look so desperate for you. One ought to be keen to only recycle expired posts that did great when they were still active.
  Re-introduce old posts by including relevant links on them. As such, one can promote a different aspect of product or service using an old post that seemed to attract more engagement as compared to other posts. You will be amazed at the enthusiasm in which social media users will receive a recycled post. Once interesting; always interesting. This will never change.

• Guest-post on other famous posts or blogs
  You will be surprised on the outcome of using other people’s traffic to your own advantage. Internet marketing begins from scratch and before you create your own massive following, it is never wrong to borrow from other established internet marketers. Guest-posting simply means posting your ads on other posts that you contribute to in another site. Always be active to engage yourself on other sites that might be promoting different goods or services from yours.
  Growth in internet marketing, especially on social media, has never been achieved by single efforts. It requires combined efforts to achieve the desired results and making use of traffic created by other is one way to make this happen. It is human nature to return favors. If you contribute positively to promote other people’s promotional activities on their sites, it is almost definite that they will welcome your own promotional activities on their sites. Therefore, never hesitate to use a person’s traffic for your own advantage.

• Accompany your posts with branded images
  People readily identify funny or branded images. These are common images that haven used on other sites before and have had a wide range of following. There is not sin in using the same images for your won advantage. On most occasions, social media users will always take a second to glance at an image they have seen before on a different platform. Additionally, they are always more interested in the event that such images are used in a different context or if the images have been altered slightly. Make use of this common practice to lure more and more traffic to your posts, blogs or sites.
  Most branded images are funny and hilarious. Social media users like funny and hilarious stuff. Give it to them. The trick to winning the hearts of social media users is to give them exactly what

they intend to get when they log into their social media accounts. A greater percentage of social media users visit these sites for the purpose of interacting and relaxing their minds. Funny plays pivotal roles of making meeting these desires so do not shy from providing exactly what they need.

• Make use of info-graphics while making posts or blogs on social media
  Certainly, promotional information put across in words alone is dull and less likely to draw the much anticipated traffic. Most social media users are more attracted to pictorial information as compared to written information. Therefore, it is highly recommended that you spice up your promotional information with pictures and branded images. Of course this will show your audience how serious you are about making them have an interest in whatever information you are attempting to put across.

• Link your posts to other controversial blog posts
  People like controversy. There is nothing as interesting as eliciting engagement on your blog posts as including a little controversy in them. It is always human nature to get involved with controversial things. As a matter of fact, controversies draw so much attention that is incomparable to even religious posts. Take advantage of this human nature and draw traffic to your blogs posts.
  At the end of the day, a controversy will have attracted traffic to your posts. No one will care what kind of controversy brought potential clients to your site, all they will care about is whether your efforts of drawing traffic bore fruits or not. Controversial blog posts will definitely bring enormous traffic to blog or social media posts and that is the only desired end result.

• Ask your followers for their suggestions on your products or services and how best they can be improved
  As a consumer of a particular product or services, nothing is more inspiring that the feeling of having contributed to the betterment of a product or service you are consuming. Return the favor. Ask your social media followers to offer their suggestions and thoughts regarding the quality of service or product you are offering. Additionally, do not forget to seek their ideas on how best the products or services can be improved in order to meet their demands in a better way.
  You will obviously develop customer loyalty by engaging your followers and seeking their suggestions about the products or services. Customer loyalty is perhaps the single most important aspect for meeting marketing goals. Therefore, never shun away from engaging in any activity that might bring loyal customers to your doorsteps.

• Use photos that have nothing to do with your products or services but that convey the feeling and attitude behind your brand
  Always posting pictures of your products and services is okay. However, other social media users might find this monotonous and boring. Why not try something different like posting pictures that have totally nothing to do with the brand you are promoting but instead convey feelings and attitudes of your brand? This has worked for many internet promoters and marketers. For example, Starbucks share photos on Instagram to link their brand with sunshine. Therefore, instead of posting images of their products, they post different images of the sun to associate their brand with brightness, warmth and friendliness.

• Push your handles widely and to the best of your ability
  If you are really eager to increase the number of your followers especially on twitter then never be afraid to promote your handle at the slightest opportunity you get. Do not hesitate to be a bit shameless. The goal is to achieve an increased number of followers and so make use of every means possible.
  It does not matter whether you are making a presentation at a conference or giving a speech. Always remember to tell your audience how they could reach you on social media and this includes providing your name on Facebook and your handle on twitter. This is not enough, give your audience a reason to visit those social media sites and actually have an interest in you and whatever it is that you do. For example, include your social media links and handles in every slide share when giving a presentation at a conference. Additionally, never forget to leave a soft copy of your slide share with your audience.

• Synchronize all your social media accounts, sites and blogs
  It is possible to synchronize all your social media sites in such a way that a user that finds you in one of the sites almost automatically finds you in the rest of the sites. This is an important way of increasing following especially in the event that these sites are used for promotional purposes. One some occasions, linked social media sites are able to share information. This is an implication that one is able to post on one social media site and the information relayed automatically to the rest of social media sites liked to that account. Thus, it makes your work easy when writing promotional information that eventually reaches a wide range of audience. Therefore, always make sure to link all your social media sites.

-Be part of weekly hash-tag themes
In order to build the desired social media following, it is imperative to be an active participant in the community. It is only through active participation on social media sites that you can create a following for yourself. When you join fun weekly social media traditions like throwback Thursday and become very active on them, you are highly likely to develop a following from such engagement. This is because such hash-tags have developed loyal audiences over the years and therefore have massive traffic.
It should be noted that posting regularly on social media traditions and hash-tags makes people like you. In social media marketing, all you need is to be liked by your audience and you are good to go. Make them like you by liking what they like.

• Keep close social tabs on your competitors
  You must remember that you are not alone in social media marketing. Therefore, be cognizant of the fact that every mechanism or measure you are applying in a bid to woe support from your audience might be the same ideas applied by your competitors. Much worse, your competitors might be applying more effective measures to win the hearts of the same audience you are clobbering with outdated tactics. Therefore, always be sure to keep close tabs on your competitors to know what they are doing to win their audience. Identify their strengths and weaknesses in order to build a strong strategy that will stand out amidst the competition.

• Always join photo contests on social media platforms
  Currently, social media users have developed photos contests in which they upload photos of the same backgrounds. Photo contests are always photos taken in relatively the same backgrounds. In photo contests, users tend to take advantage of relatively similar backgrounds to see whose background best suites the photo taken. It is important to note that these contests do not

necessarily require winners and losers but are instead meant to instigate discussions and engagements that pass time.
During social media photo contests, users tend to incorporate a number of discussions in which they compare photos and discuss how these photos impact o their daily lives. During such discussions, sponsors of user-generated content are attracted. This plays a significant role in attracting more and more attention towards the photo contests. You should therefore take advantage of the traffic drawn by photo contests and take part in these contests as a way of attracting more viewers to your promotional information.

• Get engaged in video contests as well
  Video contests act the same as photo contests. Social media users take advantage of the platform to upload videos that have similarities in terms of backgrounds and themes. During video contests, users upload many videos that have the same themes for the purpose of comparison. Just like photo contests, video contests are not made for the purpose of ascertaining winner but instead for fun purposes. However, numerous videos are uploaded and heated discussions are made out of them.
  One can take advantage of this platform to upload videos in video contests as a way of soliciting discussions and subsequently attracting traffic to a given blog post. This is a verifiable means of attracting more traffic to a given post. It therefore has a ripple effect of making more sales for an intern marketer.

• Crete caption contests
  Caption contests can be compared to photo or video contests because of the nature in which they are presented. On most occasions, captions contests are initiated by submitting captions by social media users. They can bring about some pretty laughs if presented correctly. A social media marketer should take advantage of caption contests as a way of drumming support for his or her promotional information uploaded on social media platforms.

• Take part in sweepstakes
  Sweepstakes are perhaps the oldest form of marketing. One ought to note that sweepstakes have in the recent past been incorporated on social media as a form of increasing awareness for particular products and services that can be promoted through social media platforms. Sweepstakes are simple to enter and use. In addition to their simplicity, they are famous and known to many and therefore play a significant role in the promotion of products and services on social media.
  You can take advantage of sweepstakes on social media to attract more traffic to your posts and blogs. This can be achieved by including these sweepstakes in your promotional posts as a way of ensuring that social media users are not only attracted to but also interested in your posts. As a result, this is expected to have a ripple effect on the number of sales you will realize on a give product or service on promotion.