By Murray Newlands
Source: Entrepreneur

Social media is crucial to the success of any company’s digital marketing strategy. Despite this, brands of all kinds and sizes are not using this tool to its full potential. Although the number of “follows”, “likes” and “shares” is still important, the credibility of a brand is distinguished by far more than just this. Today, social media requires a unique set of skills whereby brands need to fully understand the needs of their audience. To help you out, I’ve put together 10 social media strategies you need to implement this year, whether you are a young entrepreneur or a well-established brand.

1. Start using chatbots.

You may have already heard, but chatbots are in. This comes as no surprise as they are the one digital tool that can communicate and resolve problems for your customers without the potential need for any human interruption. In addition to the above, chatbots integrate with the platforms that consumers now feel most comfortable interacting through: social media. Platforms such as Chattypeople make integrating an AI-powered chatbot into your social media strategy easy. These tools allow you to create a chatbot that:

• Doesn’t require any coding knowledge.
• Can answer customer questions.
• Is able to take orders directly from Facebook Messenger and comments.
• Integrates with all the major payment systems.

2. Create a personalized experience for your customers.

Chatbots are not only a great way to automate certain everyday tasks, and if implemented properly, your chatbot will allow you to create more personalized experiences for your customers. To do this, stop linking your advertisements solely to your landing pages, and create ads that redirect your audience to a Messenger window with your chatbot. Linking ads to your chatbot will:

• Break the traditional views customers have of you only trying to sell to them.
• Make your customer’s experience more personal.
• Boost your sales.
• Create a loyal fan base.

3. Create an efficient content marketing strategy.

Quality is key and content is no exception. Content marketing has been a prominent form of marketing for a long time and this is not set to change anytime soon. Many brands are not linking quality content with the right posting schedule and the correct frequency of posts. High-quality SEO content coupled with all the above will help you bring in the right customers at the right time. Aside from its ability to attract an organic audience, a good content marketing strategy can be implemented for free. Be sure to create a relevant hashtag strategy along with your optimized and thorough content.

4. Create a community for your audience.

Although “followers” and the many other metrics are important, they are not the “be all and end all” to social media success. You need to show your audience that you are not just a robot. Integrate personality through humor and emotions into your posts so that your audience can relate to your brand. Social media is all about being social, and if your customers see the same types of posts time and time again, they will lose interest. Make your communications interactive by:

• Asking your audience questions.
• Gathering their opinions on certain matters.
• Sharing newsworthy information rather than just information about your products or services.
• Liking and sharing some of their posts rather than just the other way around.
• Asking them to interact directly with your posts through “likes” and “shares”.

5. Jazz up your profiles with a diverse content strategy.

People respond to good imagery, fun videos, and some interesting podcasts once and awhile. Jazz up your content by using this type of media regularly. Your social media pages will look bland if all you post and share is text, so be sure to use other types of media to catch your audience’s eye. This is also a great way to add a level of personality to your brand.

Read More: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/293321