Why should social media campaigns be creative?
Social media has never been more important. 51% of business executives predict that social media is going to become the #1 most important source for data in the next three years. What’s more, almost half of consumers (43%) say they use social media to find new brands.Despite social media being a key engagement tool for brands – maybe more so than websites in some sectors – many brands find that their content fails to stand out from the social media crowd because it lacks creativity. So how can marketing agencies and marketers create content that stands out from the 95 million other Instagram posts shared every day?Here we share five top ways that brands can use creativity to maximise the effectiveness of their social media channels.
1. Know your brand
One of the quickest and easiest ways to help your business stand out on social media is to reflect the brand’s personality in your content. You know your brand better than anyone, so flex your brand’s personality, after all social media is a ‘comfortable’ channel for customers and prospects and it’s where your brand can be at its most engaging and accessible. So if your brand personality has chatty elements, dial them up for social content. If it has witty traits, make them shine. Professional personality, well let’s hear it!
2. Know your target market and engage them
Successful social media campaigns are all about creating long-lasting relationships, rather than one-off posts and to do that it’s crucial to get into your customer’s shoes. Use social media listening tools such as Sprout Social to monitor brands and Pulsar to track trending topics and monitor how conversations are spreading. That way you can build on trends your customers are already loving and take part in conversations that they’re already a part of. Companies like Starbucks create social media campaigns around limited time offers such as the #starbucksunicornfrappuccino, as a way of engaging a target market that is known to respond well to new product variations.
3. Get the right look
When you really understand your brand and your target market, then you can create a distinct look and feel and consistent creative theme across your social platforms.This is a great way to boost your presence, especially on Instagram and works because it conveys your brand quickly to your audience which means more recognition and faster recall! @newbalance have their products and their people at the front and centre of their social media campaigns – their social campaigns are recognised for high energy and high drama which appeals to their target market and they continually adapt them when trends change and sporting stories develop – ensuring @newbalance remains current.And always remember about accessibility, brands that deliver on their equality claims by designing social content with accessibility in mind are reaping the rewards!
4. Get creative
- Visual content gets three times more engagement on Twitter than plain text
- Explore ways to use visuals in unexpected ways – for example trying puzzle feeds and grid images on Instagram. This keeps your content relevant and keeps your target audience engaged and invested
- Use different posting techniques and content types, such as videos, gifs, and celebrity endorsements
5. Make use of social channels’ functionality – they are continually developing their functionality in order to stand out too!
Snapchat now enables advertisers to incorporate multiple video ad formats within a single ad set, with its new ‘Multiple Formats’ delivery option. Check out how each social platform operates and explore features they offer. Twitter polls, Twitter lists, multiple image posts, live videos and Instagram Stories and whatever other tools might be at your disposal for a specific social media network. Again, depending on your target market – some of these creative tools will resonate with them and some won’t!
Brands which take a creative approach to social media give themselves the best opportunity to stand out in busy markets and build enduring relationships with prospects and customers. Creativity doesn’t need to be radical, instead it needs to be lead by your brand personality and delivered in the most engaging way for your target audience. To find out more about leveraging creativity in your social media campaigns, talk to the ThinkOTB team.
