How AI in Digital Marketing Will Shape the Future

You’ve probably heard of artificial intelligence and digital marketing separately, but the idea of AI in digital marketing is exciting and intriguing. So let’s get started with this blog.

  • What is AI?
  • Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Digital Marketing
  • Benefits of AI in Digital Marketing
  • The Future of AI in Digital Marketing

What is AI?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a machine intelligence simulation. These machines mimic human cognitive patterns. Simply put, these machines can think, respond, and perform tasks like humans based on the data they receive.

These smart algorithms make decisions based on data.

Today, AI is redefining digital marketing. Amazon, Shopify, and other brands use AI to understand consumer behavior and make data-driven decisions quickly and accurately.

Continue reading to learn more about AI’s potential and skill requirements in digital marketing.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Digital Marketing

Artificial intelligence in digital marketing is rapidly expanding. Here are AI’s roles and uses in digital marketing.

  1. Recognizing patterns in data

Customer relationship management (CRM) is vital in any business. It recognizes the need for a customer-centric approach. AI can efficiently gather user data from various platforms, gain insights, and target customers accordingly.

The data input is the behavior. How someone shops, what products they use, etc.

These insights help marketers better understand their customers’ needs and adapt AI to increase conversions. You can easily map the user’s journey and make appropriate recommendations.

  1. Digital ads

Digital ads are among the most successful AI applications. Google, Instagram, and Facebook are some examples of enhanced user experience social media platforms. They analyze a user’s demographics, interests, likes, and preferences to show relevant ads, improving digital ad campaigns.

  1. AI with AR/VR

A/R augmented reality and VR virtual reality create a unique experience.

Consumers can learn more about a brand in novel ways. It also helps build brand identity, increasing brand awareness and loyalty.

  1. Customer services

Chatbots are the future of customer service. It is low-cost and can provide personalized solutions based on input data.

  1. Email Marketing

Personalized emails based on past actions are possible for marketers. This means personalized emails, recommendations, and conversations based on consumer behavior.

AI-powered email personalization and targeting tools like Phrasee. Messages targeted to the right customers at the right time are more likely to convert.

Benefits of AI in Digital Marketing

Artificial intelligence has many benefits in digital marketing.

1. Better Advertising

A marketing campaign’s success depends on reaching the right audiences. The right consumers are easily targeted with AI.

Data is collected, analyzed, and forecasted by artificial intelligence. This data can be used to target ads globally.

Google and Facebook use AI to understand user intent and which users are more likely to convert. Demographics, interests, and other variables are considered.

2. Customer Services

Chatbots are very useful in customer service. It can help multiple users in multiple time zones.

Real-time responses to all customer queries. Unlike humans, AI chatbots can work continuously without rest. They also improve customer experience much faster. The user can also select different languages, making custom customer solutions easier.

3. Increased Productivity and ROI

The ROI is directly related to the right information reaching the right audience. Companies reported increased productivity and conversions with AI.

4. Improved Shopping and Purchasing Experience

Artificial intelligence is changing our shopping habits. During the pandemic, many brands started using AI to provide users with a better shopping experience from home.

Retailers like Lenskart and IKEA have already used AI. It allows users to shop from home, saving time.

The Future of AI in Digital Marketing

The impact of AI in digital marketing is immeasurable. It is ever-changing and growing. Its exceptional data collection and analysis capabilities could revolutionize industries globally.

It is also used in the medical, banking, and transportation sectors.

Digital marketing with AI can help brands improve their strategies and customer experiences. Web development, emailing and customer service have all changed as a result.

Artificial intelligence is not here to replace marketing professionals, but to help them maximize the results of their strategic efforts. Marketers and digital advertisers readily accept and use AI.

5 of the Most Common Digital Marketing Mistakes and How To Avoid Them

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Businesses today must have a digital presence in a world where nearly 4.6 billion people used the internet last month. Thus, digital marketing is required. But having a website isn’t enough. How well-versed are you in digital? How effective is your digital marketing? If you don’t know where to look, you might be throwing money away. These are the top 5 digital marketing mistakes.

  • Relying only on Customer Acquisition
  • Ignoring Mobile Users
  • Poor Customer Service
  • Not Setting Goals
  • Not Offering Promotions or Discounts
  1. Relying only on Customer Acquisition

New customers are important, and you need to grow your customer base to survive, but don’t forget to keep the ones you have. You want repeat customers, so you must also focus on retention. A new customer costs 6-7 times more than retaining one, according to a Harvard Business Review study. The same study found that increasing retention rates by 5% can increase profits by 25-95 percent.

  1. Ignoring Mobile Users

Globally, 3.5 billion people own smartphones, with 77% of Americans owning one. Your site must be mobile friendly, but also mobile optimized. What do I mean? To be mobile friendly, your site must display correctly on both desktop and mobile devices. The website will be smaller and may not be touch friendly, but it will still work. You don’t want your mobile users waiting too long for pictures to download or links that are difficult to find and click. You want a mobile site. A mobile optimized site will reformat itself for common mobile devices, have larger navigation buttons, and display content differently for mobile viewers. Links will no longer be stacked on top of each other, but rather appear as buttons, and the site will be redesigned to help mobile users avoid typing.

  1. Poor Customer Service

In marketing, most people don’t consider customer service, but how happy your customers are directly affects their loyalty and referrals. If your customers are unhappy, they will post negative reviews online for all to see. Quick customer service will help. If your team sees a negative review, responding quickly will help improve your image.

Positive customer service experiences increase customer loyalty and retention. Your team can help promote your marketing goals if they understand them. It’s also a good idea to encourage customers to follow you on Facebook so they don’t miss out on new product announcements and discounts. If someone contacts your team asking about possible discounts or specials, your team can inform them of the newsletter and ask for their email address to get them subscribed.

  1. Not Setting Goals

It’s easy to enter the digital world without considering your goals. You can’t measure your success if you don’t know what you want. Make SMART goals. They must be precise. You can’t just say you want more business; what does that mean? Goals must be measurable; how will you know if you are on track? They must also be feasible. You can’t expect to gain 10,000 followers overnight. Are these goals actually related to digital marketing and improving your business? They must be time-limited. With no timetable, a wish is.

Make sure you don’t set too many goals. Overwhelming yourself won’t help you achieve any of them. Write them down and review them regularly to see if they are still relevant to your business goals. Once you have goals, you can make decisions that help you achieve them.

  1. Not Offering Promotions or Discounts

Discounts and promotions drive traffic to your site and encourage purchases. Promotions can usually boost sales. Better yet, coupons have been shown to increase oxytocin levels, happiness, and customer loyalty. Discounts reduce abandoned carts, encourage new product testing, and increase new customer loyalty.

Discounts are also a great way to build a customer loyalty program. Your newsletter subscribers can get special discounts, allowing you to keep marketing to them and keeping them happy. You can offer products for free. Scientists discovered that people who receive something for free will value it more than its face value. Customers feel better served when they receive something for free rather than a purchase discount. For example, selling hand lotion in a bonus pack sold 73% more than selling it at a discount. Offering promotions and creating a customer loyalty program that rewards customers will bring in new customers, retain existing customers, and increase sales.

Top 7 Email Open Rate Boosters

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Boosting email open rates is simple. However, there are some basic and data-driven decisions that should be kept in mind when creating your email marketing campaign.

  • Keep Content Relevant
  • Update Your Email List
  • Sort Your List
  • Time Your Moves
  • Write Like A Friend
  • Have A Clear Call To Action
  • Ignore Spam Filters
  1. Keep Content Relevant

When customers believe you will send them interesting and informative emails, they are more likely to open them, increasing your open rates. Your messages will go unopened or end up in the trash if you keep sending them without offering new and interesting content or content tailored to your audience. You want to send useful information to your audience. Make sure it’s not something they can easily find online.

  1. Update Your Email List

You won’t get the results you want unless you have the right audience. You want your audience to want to hear from you. Buy no lists. Get your audience to sign up for your email updates instead. Offering a freebie or holding a contest in exchange for an email address will help you build your list organically.

Unrefreshed lists have lower open rates. People change email addresses, so you may be sending emails to an inactive account. Maybe they’ve lost interest in your product or service. Remove bounced emails and check for obvious typos like “@gmal.com.” Your open rates will improve if you keep your list updated and avoid paying for subscribers you can’t reach.

  1. Sort Your List

Segmenting your email list can help keep your content relevant. Add tags to your subscribers and send emails based on their actions. You can segment your list by people who have made purchases, what types of purchases they have made, or how long it has been since your last interaction. Organizing your list into groups of similar recipients allows you to send more targeted emails. Your audience is more likely to open a message that is relevant to them.

  1. Time Your Moves

If you send daily emails, your audience will be overwhelmed and your emails will go unopened or in the trash. Industry dictates how often you should send emails. Maybe you only send out a monthly newsletter or a weekly email. Regardless of the interval, be consistent. Your open rates will increase if you send consistent emails with quality content.

  1. Write Like A Friend

Even if you are writing to thousands of people, imagine it is only going to one. Unsurprisingly, if the email appears to be written directly to the recipient, they are more likely to respond. Use the recipient’s first name in your opening and keep the tone casual. A more informal tone with contractions and colloquial language usually adds to the personal touch. Instead of “You must see our spring sale!” try “You must see our spring sale!”

Remember to be funny. Humor allows you to instantly connect with others and strengthen those bonds. It makes your message more personal, entertaining, and memorable. It will help you sound less robotic and create a human connection with your customers.

To write a personalized message well, you must understand your buyer’s problems, desires, values, and preferences. This data-driven email content will help your message, open rates, and conversion clicks.

  1. Have A Clear Call To Action

Your email campaign has a goal. Make sure your audience understands the call to action. Why are you contacting them, who are you contacting, when, where, and how? Your email’s opening should be warm and personal, but also address why you’re emailing. The message’s body should contain all pertinent information, with a call to action at the end. You want your audience to visit your page, perhaps to register or buy something, but you need to get them there—your email should have a large button or text link.

  1. Ignore Spam Filters

If you aren’t careful, spam filters will delete your email. Spam filters have improved, but they aren’t perfect. Even well-written emails can be spammed.

Conclusion

To be noticed, you must stand out. The key is to constantly evaluate your email marketing results and see what engages your audience. What works in one industry or region may not work elsewhere. If you want to start or improve your email marketing campaign, follow the advice in this post and monitor your results. You can improve your email marketing results by knowing your audience and following these data-driven tips.

The Simple Guide to Overcoming Email Deluge

There is a better way to manage email overload. The process is easy and works with all email clients and platforms.

Once you understand the steps, you can confidently manage email. No need to fear opening your inbox. Email is a fantastic tool when used properly. When used properly, email can help you achieve your goals.

To get the most out of this email workflow, you need to understand three simple concepts:

  • Inbox zero
  • Touch-It-Once
  • 2-Minute Rule
  1. Inbox zero

Inbox zero is an email processing strategy. The term was coined by productivity expert Merlin Mann in an email series on his website. Despite its name, Inbox zero does not aim to be empty. Even if your inbox is occasionally empty, you can apply Inbox Zero principles without reaching zero messages.

The Inbox Zero system focuses on email management. When it comes time to open your email inbox, you won’t be afraid because you’ve prepared. The Inbox Zero steps are heavily based on GTD principles (Getting Things Done by David Allen). Delete, delegate, defer, or do.

  1. Touch-It-Once

Time, attention, and energy are limited. You can’t waste them. Touching something twice requires twice the effort to finish it. Touch-It-Once says you should act on something the first time you touch it.

Have you ever forgotten what a piece of paper was on your desk? You need brainpower to read it and decide what to do next. Touch-It-Once means act immediately. If not, you’ll have to start over. It is inefficient. Multiply that by hundreds when processing email. Touch-It-Once helps you master your email inbox.

  1. The 2-Minute Rule

The 2-Minute Rule is a core practice of David Allen’s popular productivity method Getting Things Done. If a task can be completed in two minutes or less, do it immediately. It may take more time and energy to record it than to complete it now.

Consistently applying the 2-minute rule yields exponential results. You not only finish tasks (and free up mental space), but you also free up mental space for larger jobs and projects. Everything else becomes clearer.

The 80/20 rule of email handling is achieved by combining the Touch-It-Once principle with the 2-Minute Rule.

4 Essentials of Video Content Marketing Success

Videos are becoming increasingly popular as an online marketing tool. Videos are vital in any brand’s marketing strategy, whether they are made for entertainment, information, or instruction.

According to a Demand Metric report, 70% of marketers now use videos in their campaigns. Another 82 percent of marketers say video content marketing is effective. Given these figures, there are many reasons to incorporate video content marketing into your current marketing strategy. If you plan to use video content marketing in your strategy, make sure you follow the guidelines below:

  • Set goals
  • Audience appeal
  • Call to action
  • Video distribution
  1. Set goals

Consider what you want to achieve with your video content marketing strategy. Do you want to promote your goods and services? Want to use your videos to recruit? Do you want to raise brand awareness?

Define your goals for your videos. Only by defining your goals can you accurately measure the success of your video content marketing strategy. Decide how you will know if you have succeeded.

  1. Audience appeal

Consider your target demographic when creating a marketing strategy for your video. Don’t miss out on the chance to get creative to reach new audiences.

  1. Call to action

No matter how well produced your video is, it may not achieve the desired results if it lacks a call to action. Consider what you want viewers to do after they watch your video. To maximize impact, include a visual and audible call to action.

  1. Video distribution

Don’t forget about social media when deciding how to distribute your videos. Promote your videos on multiple channels and make sure they’re optimized for mobile viewing, as more people watch videos on their phones.

Cisco predicts video will account for 69% of all consumer online traffic in two years. As online video becomes a more important source of consumer entertainment and information, it is critical that brands of all sizes include video content marketing in their overall marketing strategy.

5 Online Cold Email Software

 

Table of Content

  • Yesware
  • Streak
  • Vocus.io
  • Snov.io
  • SalesLoft

1. Yesware

Simple but effective email tracking for prospecting teams

Yesware is an ‘all-in-one toolkit’ for sales. It lets you send emails, track results, schedule meetings, and integrates with both Salesforce and LinkedIn.

You’ll be able to track how prospects interact with your email, seeing if people receive, open, and engage with content like links to proposals or sales decks.

Yesware’s email automation features mean you can schedule emails to send at specific times and send follow-up campaigns on autopilot, which will make your sales prospecting simple and predictable.

2. Streak

Adds useful CRM functionality to your Gmail inbox

Streak, in a similar way to GMass, integrates directly into your Gmail account. However, they add even more functionality on top by transforming your inbox into a flexible CRM.

It saves you having to connect standalone cold email software with a third-party CRM by handling everything in one place.

You can also create snippets, which are templates that you can quickly use to eliminate repetitive work and speed up the time it takes to reply to emails.

3. Vocus.io

You can use Vocus.io to draft, schedule, and send cold email campaigns. You can add attachments, which is a good way to increase engagement on your follow-ups (for example, by adding a more proposal or portfolio of work). As well as that, you can install their Gmail extension to track opens and links and get reminders to follow-up inside Gmail.

You’ll also be able to create a calendar, similar to MixMax, so it’s easy for prospects to book meetings with you.

After you’ve sent your campaigns, you can see detailed reports that are easily shareable to ensure your whole team stays up to date on what’s working.

4. Snov.io

Combines a sales CRM and cold outreach automation platform

Snov.io is a platform to help you identify good leads, engage with them using email outreach, and manage deals in a sales CRM.

If you want a platform that helps you with everything from prospecting to managing deals in your CRM, it’s a great option. They collect data on companies and accounts to help you identify good-fit prospects, then import them into your campaigns and automate your sending and follow-ups.

There’s a Gmail extension to track engagement inside your inbox, and you can also see stats on performance inside Snov.io itself.

5. SalesLoft

Helps B2B sales teams with a large team of sales reps

SalesLoft is a platform for sales engagement designed to help you engage with prospects and track your activities to see what’s working.

You’ll have a clear overview of your sales activities and important tasks in one place, so you never leave a prospect waiting for a reply for long.

SalesLoft integrates with Sales Navigator and Salesforce, so you can easily review your CRM records and make sure every email you send is personalized and timely.

As you would hope, you can also create and save templates that you can re-use, and see detailed metrics on things like open rate, reply rates, and click-through rates.

6 Simple Searches on How to Clear Your Inbox

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Few people can say their inbox never got out of hand. Even if you prefer inbox zero, you may find yourself with a flooded inbox after a vacation or when working on a project for a few days.

Let’s take a look at some searches that identify emails that require less individual processing. Using these searches, you can quickly clear your inbox of emails that don’t require individual attention.

To use these six searches, you must first create two email folders. Create “Archive” in Outlook or “All Mail” in Gmail, then “Readings” in any email service. After that, here are six searches to use to find emails that don’t require individual attention.

  1. Archive/All Mail all emails older than 7 days

A 2018 study of 1,200 consumers found that only 13% of customers and 1% of coworkers expect an email response within 2 days. A week-old email is unlikely to still be expecting a response. Change it to five or three days to remove more emails.

Identify these emails and move them to Archive/All Mail:

  • Gmail: older than:7d
  • Outlook: 1/27/19 (replace with the date 7 days ago)
  1. Move all cc’d emails older than 3 days to Archive/All Mail

When you are cc’d on emails, you are less likely to need to respond. Find these emails and move them to Archive/All Mail.

  • Gmail: cc:meolder than:3d
  • Outlook: received: 1/27/19 (replace with the date 3 days ago)
  1. Move emails with no signatures and older than 3 days to Archive/All Mail

Non-personal emails are less likely to require a response. The combination of the missing name criterion and the 3-day-old criterion reduces the risk of missing something important.

  • Gmail: -matt older than:3d
  • Outlook: NOT matt received: < =1/27/19 (replace with the date 3 days ago)
  1. Transfer newsletter and mailing list emails to Readings

No need to read a newsletter. Set up rules/filters to send them to your Readings folder automatically.

Finding these emails isn’t easy, but you can get most of them using the following searches:

  • Gmail: unsubscribe
  • Outlook: unsubscribe
  1. Search for common mailing list terms to move remaining emails to Readings

After the previous search, search Gmail and Outlook for “privacy policy” or “terms & conditions” or “preferences” or “view in browser” or “view as web page” to find any stragglers.

  1. Delete calendar invitation response notifications

However, you don’t need to keep receiving emails notifying you that someone can attend a meeting when you can see everyone’s responses in the invite itself.

Isolate and delete these emails:

  • Gmail: from: [email protected]
  • Outlook: (replace with your time zone). Sadly, there is no easy way to isolate these emails in Outlook.

A few emails will be archived, but the benefits outweigh the risks. Plus, you can find emails in folders just as easily as in your inbox.

7 Low-Cost Marketing Tips Every Startup Can Afford

The struggle to stay cash positive is one of the most dangerous and life-threatening for startups. The Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA) estimates the average cost to start a business at around $30,000. This figure varies widely, with some businesses starting for as little as $100 and others requiring millions.

Remember, these are just startup costs. All the while, new businesses are struggling to secure enough revenue to stay afloat.

In this desperate financial balancing act, most entrepreneurs abandon investments they deem unnecessary, like marketing and advertising. The cruel irony is that ignoring marketing completely stunts a company’s growth, leaving it with less revenue and a tighter budget.

Not surprisingly, marketing gets the axe frequently, with roughly 80% of entrepreneurs unable to measure marketing ROI.

That said, effective marketing doesn’t have to be expensive. Some marketing strategies are more visible and consistent than others, but there are plenty of highly effective — and low-cost — marketing strategies you can use to grow your startup. Here are nine low-cost marketing tips:

  • Referrals
  • Content Marketing
  • PPC ads
  • SEO
  • Press releases news features
  • Self-promotion
  • Social media marketing

1. Referrals

One of the best ways to market is to let your customers do it for you. Consider that people are four times more likely to buy a product if a friend recommends it.

Despite tech magazine reviews, we trust personal recommendations the most. Moreover, establishing a referral program is inexpensive, and in some cases, free. If you really believe in this strategy, you could offer current customers a discount on their subscriptions or a cash reward for referring new customers.

2. Content Marketing

Content marketing comes in many forms and costs little. The simplest approach is to maintain an on-site blog with fresh content added weekly that informs or entertains your readers.

Content marketing includes infographics, videos, and podcasts. All of these content types can help improve your brand’s reputation, increase inbound traffic, and complement other strategies.

3. PPC ads

Pay-per-click ads can get expensive if you target high-traffic head keywords, but there are niches and platforms that are budget-friendly. For example, on Facebook, certain ads can be purchased for as little as $1 per day.

4. SEO

If you’re writing articles for your content marketing campaign, why not invest in SEO?. It may appear difficult, but with a little reading and dedication, you can easily grasp the basics. You can use online tools like Moz’s Keyword Explorer to find relevant keywords that have low competition and then tweak your site to include them.

Create high-quality content and build links to your domain. It’s a lot of work, but the only cost is time, and the long-term benefits are enormous.

5. Press releases news features

People read the news, and most news outlets will gladly report your story for you. You can get your brand mentioned in major publications for a relatively low cost. Press releases can be a free marketing strategy if you do all the research and emailing of journalists.

A release syndicated through a service like PR Newswire may cost several hundred dollars. Get yourself referenced by donating to Help a Reporter Out (HARO).

6. Self-promotion

Personal branding is similar to corporate branding, but it applies to you as an individual. Then you’ll promote yourself and your expertise on social media, and maybe even a separate blog, gaining new followers and traffic.

People trust people more than corporations, so you’ll eventually have a powerful outlet to syndicate your content or attract new leads — all without spending a dime.

7. Social media marketing

Social media marketing isn’t something you can do on the side, but it is something you can learn if you put in the effort. Create a business profile on major social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Compile a list of content that your target market will enjoy.

Reach out to people and stay connected. With time, you could amass a tens of thousands-strong audience.

Email Extractors for Lead Generation

Lead generation is an important but difficult marketing tactic. Moreover, qualified leads are vital for B2B companies.

Email marketing is now widely used by individuals, groups, and businesses. They need a large email list to effectively email. Also, as a business, you may need to contact another to inquire about their goods. Searching for these emails without any device or program can be a nightmare. Email extractors come in handy here.

  • What is an email extractor?
  • Why Should Sales and Marketing Teams Use Email Extractors?
    1. Helps in Preparing a powerful email list
    2. Saves Time

What is an email extractor?

An Email Extractor usually extracts email addresses from LinkedIn so marketers and sales reps can build contact lists and send email campaigns. Email extractor tools automate the process of obtaining email addresses.

Why Should Sales and Marketing Teams Use Email Extractors?

B2B companies need email extractors. An email address extractor is required when email marketing a product or service. Use them for two reasons.

1. Helps in Preparing a powerful email list

We all know the value of a large email list. It’s a huge relief for online bloggers and marketers. Manually building an authoritative email list can be arduous.

Consider a scenario. You’re looking for prospects’ phone numbers and email addresses to build trust and execute email campaigns. You got a few email addresses by visiting multiple web pages from a single platform. But, there are more websites to search for! You also can’t tell if the emails you found are valid. Another situation where email extractors will surely provide mental relief.

2. Saves Time

An email extractor can help businesses save time when searching for contacts and reaching out to prospects. Email extractors can take email marketing strategies to the next level. Instead of wasting time checking hundreds of sites for a handful of email addresses, your team will be motivated to focus on executing productive work instead.

Manually creating an address generator for an email list may be difficult. Using an email extractor, you can do it in minutes.

Overall, email extractors simplify the lives of salespeople and marketers. Choosing the right email extractor is vital to the success of this strategy.

Things to Note About Social Media Strategy

Do you have a social media strategy? What is a social media strategy? We’ll explain what it is, why it’s beneficial to your company, and what it isn’t.

What a social media strategy isn’t

A social media strategy isn’t just posting on whatever social media channels you or your business are on, whenever you feel like it.

A social media strategy isn’t just posting on social media because you think you should, hoping for something positive to happen.

What a social media strategy is

A social media strategy outlines what you intend to do on social media, including which channels, content, and goals. The data informs the strategy on what works and what doesn’t.

The data is then reviewed periodically to assess strategy effectiveness.

In other words, a social media strategy is the antithesis of spontaneous posting.

So, how do I create a social media strategy?

  • Goal-setting
  • Know your audience
  • Specify your goals
  • Create the content
  • Be prompt & accessible
  • Review, adjust, repeat
  1. Goal-setting

Remember to set SMART goals: specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound. Your goals might involve increasing brand awareness, to drive more traffic to your website, gain more followers for your community and many more. The goal is you need to set goals.

  1. Know your audience

Don’t assume you know your target market. Investigate social media statistics to learn more about your audience’s expectations.

LinkedIn is used by a well-educated audience for business-to-business marketing. Instagram is for shoppers, and TikTok is for teenagers. Women use Pinterest more than men. This kind of information can help you focus your social efforts in the right places.

There are so many online resources to help you better understand your audience. There’s also the old-fashioned research of observing your competitors’ interactions with their audiences. Can you learn anything from this?

A word of advice: don’t try to be everywhere. Rather than spreading yourself too thin, focus on two or three channels and post regularly.

  1. Specify your goals

Data is the key. Decide how you will increase brand awareness and engagement. Count clicks, likes, or shares? Make sure you know where you stand with this data and where you want to go.

Your goals must be quantifiable.

You may also want to increase positive engagement with a hashtag, track the performance of certain hashtags, or increase website click-throughs.

  1. Create the content

Those without a social media strategy usually skip this step, unsure of who, how, or why they want to engage on social media.

Remember, quality over quantity. With this knowledge, you should be able to target your images and messaging more precisely.

  1. Be prompt & accessible

Posting time matters. Examine your engagement at various times of the day. Your audience’s timings will vary.

And you must be available to respond to questions and comments. Leaving a glowing comment unacknowledged is a sure way to lose a follower and harm your engagement metrics.

  1. Review, adjust, repeat

Your strategy should evolve based on what you discover works and what doesn’t. Set a review deadline and focus on the data to understand what it is about the successful posts that you can replicate going forward.