Social media is an effective marketing tool for businesses to use to target their customers.
It’s not surprising that in a recent study from Wpromote in partnership with Ascend2, six in 10 respondents surveyed ranked social media as the most effective digital marketing channel at driving revenue. This is up from 50 percent last year and 57 percent the year before.
Social is the top revenue-driving channel and contributes the most to achieving top-of-funnel goals. Social is becoming a true full-funnel powerhouse for B2B marketers; in the past, marketers were more likely to use social platforms to drive brand awareness in the upper funnel, but this year, it topped the list of most effective bottom funnel channels for the first time. This is driven by the digital transformation that accelerated through the pandemic.
Brand awareness strategies are at the top of the funnel and are a critical focus for B2B brands. Next up was content marketing (49 percent), followed by email (45 percent), display advertising (36 percent) and paid search (32 percent).
Since the pandemic, social media has digitally transformed and continues to keep B2B buyers in mind by prioritizing their experience across different apps.
Social media is poised for budget growth: 56 percent say their social media budgets will increase this year, making this the area with the most consensus around budget growth. It’s followed by content marketing (52 percent), with fewer (34 percent) expecting to spend more on streaming TV.
To get the most out of budgets, whether you’re increasing by a lot, a little, or not at all, make sure to monitor your performance and move dollars between channels to follow demand.
In a world where fashion and lifestyle influencers are in abundance, trade influencers are not to be discounted. One of the most popular trade influencers on TikTok, a pool cleaner with the handle @thep00lguy, makes over $14,000 per post and almost $1.3 million a year with sponsorship deals. TikTok influencers are gaining traction and making money, with the possibility of making up to one million dollars a year, and here is why:
Influencers are a very enticing marketing prospect for big brands and companies. Sponsorship opportunities are endless between influencer and brands, shown by @thep00lguy who has capitalized on his niche content to get deals with multiple brands. These sponsorship deals are a chance to get brands noticed and content creators some extra money. Companies can partner with influencers on TikTok to promote their brand by giving them free products to use and advertise for their followers.
TikTok sees many tradesmen influencers. The most popular are automotive and plumbing. One of the most popular trade influencers, with 1.5 million followers, is Sydney Sweeney from the hit TV show Euphoria. Sweeney collects and restores rare vintage cars and documents her progress on TikTok, amassing hundreds of thousands of likes.
The reason influencers on TikTok see more success on this app as opposed to ones like Instagram or Twitter is because of TikTok’s algorithm. It is organic and based on user-generated content, not follower based, meaning that it collects information on what you enjoy and commonly watch and promotes more videos like that on your feed. Instagram and Twitter are more focused on follower content, so if you are not following people who routinely post about the trades, you are not likely to see that content.
Viewers liked being entertained and taught, something that is easy to do when you have a passion, be it your job or a hobby, which is uncommon as some of the trades are. People with no connection to the trades will see videos from trade influencers and, since it is not something they see in their daily life, they will want to learn more.
The Internet is also a place for DIY hacks and learning how to fix things yourself. Trade influencers is how you learn. As long as people have cars that get old and houses that need repairs, trade influencers will be in demand. A big part of social media strategies for influencers are tutorials and how-tos for this exact reason. When things go wrong, people go to the Internet for answers and solutions.
Another factor for the traction that tradesmen influencers have found could originate in part due to the COVID pandemic. During the nation-wide quarantine in 2020, the emergence of niche interests became important just as a way to stay sane. People picked up hobbies, some of them in the trade sector, to keep busy in a time when they could not go about their daily life as usual.
The rise of trade influencers has been a steady, yet undeniable incline. Whether their purpose is entertainment, education or to inform, tradesmen have found a way for their message to be shared by social media and an audience to listen to it. For as long as there are buildings and roads and electricity and more, there will be trade influencers to teach us about them.
To learn more about user-generated content, check out this blog post and see why you should take advantage of it.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is no longer a thing of fantasy. It is real and, while it isn’t going to take over the world any time soon (at least I hope not), your brand can have added value by using AI.
AI’s biggest benefit is in gathering information. It takes into consideration customer preferences and can allow your brand to offer a more personalized shopping experience. This, in turn, will help you reach your target audience. What does this person like? Who else would like this product? These are the questions that AI will help your brand answer.
Businesses also use artificial intelligence to increase productivity and operational efficiencies while avoiding mistakes and human error. A customer experience agency called Servion predicts artificial intelligence will power 95% of customer interactions before 2026.
The future of marketing in a world with AI is endless. You can use artificial intelligence for social listening, or identifying how the world is talking about your brand, which could in turn help you to change your brand strategy. With the use of AI for things like data collection, targeted advertising and analyzing customer behavior, you can devote more of your time to the more personable side of business.
Despite artificial intelligence being a great boon to business, there are times when human beings just cannot be beat. Artificial intelligence is just that: artificial. No amount of technology can compete with the insight and individuality that comes with real people. Brands should be warm and inviting, and when customers want to speak to someone about a complaint or a question about a product, they should be met with an authentic human interaction.
This is where you can use artificial intelligence to your advantage. With AI collecting data, creating graphics and analyzing how the public views your brand, you can dedicate your time to ensuring an authentic human connection with your customers. Whether it is by doing community outreach or just spending a little more time talking with a potential customer, you can establish a relationship that will make your brand a more appealing option compared to those that have traded human connection for the ease of AI.
An even balance between artificial intelligence and real, human interaction is key to bringing value to your brand. Work smarter and not harder but remember to utilize genuine human connection when the need arises.
Since the dawn of civilization, humans have been social animals. What first manifested as a basic shared language has since evolved into subcultures on a multitude of social media platforms. The human impulse to know and be known has driven social media into the awe-inspiring network it is today.
When the first social media site was launched in 1997, it was nowhere near the expansive behemoth we know it to be. Six Degrees, credited as the first social media platform, was meant as a way of direct electronic communication. It wasn’t until we started getting to the 2000s that sites began to fill out their own separate niches.
In 2002, LinkedIn came into existence to fulfill a professional niche with a purpose of connecting users with businesses and potential employers. LinkedIn is still the seventh most popular social media site among adults in the USA.
In the decades since, social media has evolved into a source of entertainment and news, a new form of marketing and a retail platform. Sites like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram and TikTok rose in popularity and have stayed there since their conception. TikTok is even the most downloaded app in the US.
The creation of mobile phones has only added to the popularity of social media. In fact, 90% of the US population actively uses social media as of 2023 according to Pew Research. In case you aren’t someone who likes percentages, that’s 302.35 million social media users.
Brands, universities, sports teams and just about everyone else in between are using social media as a creative outlet to tell consumers what their organization is about.
Social media has changed the game in every way possible. No one could have predicted the way social media has evolved since its creation, nor will we be able to predict how it will continue to evolve.
Video marketing is a trend that must be taken advantage of. The third ranked social commerce platform is the app TikTok, which reached one billion users only four years after its creation – for reference, it took Facebook twice that amount of time to reach that many followers, and Facebook is the top social commerce platform.
But social media can be intimidating, especially when there are already so many brands that get thousands of likes on every video. Here are five video ideas to boost engagement.
#1: Tutorial videos
Short, helpful tutorials are an effective way to release educational content about your product. TikTok has video length options up to 10 minutes in length if you want to give a more in-depth tutorial but remember that most users’ attention spans don’t last that long.
Use tutorials to highlight your product in a non-judgmental way for users who didn’t know how to use it and add in tools and tricks that users may not have known about.
Get creative with your tutorials as well! Don’t be afraid to get silly with your video – you want it to stand out against the rest!
EZ Home, a TikTok influencer who posts DIY and tool reviews, has many videos like this one giving tutorials on how to fix sinks, locks, lights and more.
#2: Partner with influencers and content creators
There are thousands of influencers across social media platforms that want to pair with brands just like yours. Reach out first and ask if an influencer would be interested in receiving a free product to display in one of their videos. You can repost those videos on your own channels.
RIDGID Tools partnered with the influencer Plumbing Sk8er on TikTok and was featured in his recent video when they sent him a new SeeSnake Mini Pro Camera
#3: Show your product being used
Show off your product! Grab viewers’ interest and make it irresistible to them. Find fun and creative ways to show off your product to entice people to buy it. Two popular ways that brands are doing this are by creating videos of them testing their products in comparison to competitors and sharing before-and-after videos.
RRBuildings, a construction influencer, posts videos on TikTok for his 1.7 million followers. Many of his videos, such as this one, show him using a product and demonstrating how it helps make his job as easy as possible.
#4: Participate in trends and challenges
Pay attention to what is trending across platforms and find a way to jump on it. Brands that participate in trends that regular accounts are doing come across as relatable and have a better chance of resonating with their audience.
A popular trend across all forms of social media are compilation videos of satisfying actions. One account on YouTube, Technical Mamaji, posts videos of construction workers doing their job in satisfying ways, amassing 16,000 views.
#5: Share educational content
Use your platform to teach your audience about something related to your brand or products. You can make your educational content humorous still and, while you shouldn’t strictly stick to educational videos, they are a clever way to vary your videos to increase engagement.
See this video by She’s a Tiny Plumber on TikTok. She uses the duet feature to react to a leak repair, and she explains each step in a comprehensible way while keeping it light and humorous.
Feeling inspired yet? Start making your own video content to get the most out of your brand!
