Dolly Parton can help with the #dollypartonchallenge
Hello, Dolly! The famous singer/songwriter showed the world a flashback of images of herself, each with a different profile picture for a social media platform. The meme instantly went viral and celebrities and brands all jumped in on the action to showcase their personas on each platform.
You can see from Dolly’s meme that her LinkedIn profile is professional and classic. Her Facebook profile is a fun, Christmas sweater that has a nod to her name, “Have a Holly Dolly Christmas.” The Instagram shot includes her guitar and a backdrop that is from a show — it even is in black and white, an acknowledgment of filters nowadays. Finally, for fun, she includes a risque photo for Tinder dressed as a Playboy Bunny.
The meme is hilarious and brands are doing their spins on it to capture some of the success. Pets are getting dressed in glasses, ribbons, and bikinis to show their brand image. Food products are highlighting their brand by the props paired with it. In a very clever pitch, PAWS Chicago promoted pets that are ready for adoption.
While it’s true that you might use different photos on each platform to achieve a certain look, the same can be applied to marketing. Just like you would take the time to pick the right profile picture on each platform to attract viewers, the same is true for your messaging and knowing who the audience is. I’m going to discuss some of the demographics for each of the platforms, content tips, and how to create a call-to-action to achieve your end goal.
Full disclosure: I’m not on Tinder and have never marketed on there nor written copy for it, so I’ll be swapping that out for Twitter instead. Apologies in advance for anyone who was hoping to learn how to beef up their Tinder profile to close the deal. If you’re looking to close business deals and attract clients, continue!
This platform is great for B2B marketing. That is businesses selling to other businesses. LinkedIn is mostly for professionals. Students are joining while in college, but it’s largely a networking tool. You can connect with contacts who can become leads, write articles, comment on and share other articles to build engagement and present yourself as a thought leader in your industry, and you can develop an employer brand if you’re a premium member to hire directly from the platform.
LinkedIn is like your resume, portfolio, and references one-stop-shop for showcasing your goods.
As an individual, you can post your employment achievements, samples of work, and references from people you’ve worked with before. As a company, you can highlight testimonials from employees, highlight partnerships and case studies, and share articles you’ve written to drive people back to your site.
There are word limits to articles and posts, but still long enough for you to write a few paragraphs and demonstrate your skills and value. For your action step, encourage readers to respond to a question you ask to begin a discussion and to see what topics people are interested in. You can also link back to a blog post on your website to drive conversions and traffic there.
The most widely used social media platform with many people on it. Millennials, Gen X, Y, Z, and Baby Boomers all have accounts. The wide-spread age range of 18–49 is most likely to share content and “like” a post. This platform is frequently used for consumers (B2C) but some businesses could be attracted to your content.
I’ve had the most success with ads on Facebook. Their targeting is rather close, it can be a cost-effective way to test/learn who your audience is, and you can adjust as you go.
Sharing articles, infographics, or memes, are good content ideas for Facebook. Videos are also important on the platform, and younger audiences are more like to engage with and share video content. You can encourage users to click on a link to drive them to your site and ask them to like or share your post to increase exposure.
This platform is highly visual and appeals to younger audiences. Like Facebook, it does well with the consumer public. Posts can be arranged in a design pattern to further your branding. While it is a visual platform, the hashtags chosen can help find your audience and attract customers. This content is similar to SEO keywords used in content writing for your website.
Instagram stories and TV have allowed users to go live and create a personal connection with consumers. Once you have enough followers, you can even use stories to connect to your store for purchases or drive people to read a blog you wrote.
Calls-to-action are different on Instagram since you cannot directly link to your site from a photo or caption, and you can only do so from stories once you get 10,000 followers or more. The best way to link to your site or blog post is to put your website in your bio. Tools like Linktree allow you to have a dropdown menu to link to various pages. Outside from directing traffic away from Instagram, you can ask people to double-tap and like your post, leave a comment to start a conversation, or to tag people — this helps raise your followers and increase brand awareness.
This platform is used the least amount but popular with the most common trends being politics, sports, and entertainment. Events are also recommended allowing companies to create hashtags just like on Instagram. Live-tweeting during events can extend your reach and establish your thought leadership.
Tweets are limited by characters so you do have to be succinct and direct when writing copy. You can tag people to enhance your visibility and the power of a re-tweet can grow your following tremendously.
You can link to your blog post or a spot on your website to drive traffic from twitter to there. You can pull quotes or teasers from the blog and post to Twitter encouraging readers to click to learn more.
Now that you have some basics about each platform and how they can be used and who might be using them, let’s look at an example of how one company might take a singular brand and promote it on each platform for maximum results and engagement.
Let’s say you work for a skincare company and have a new product that is a lotion. You can market it directly to consumers and also to physicians to give to their patients. How would you incorporate each social media tactic?
LinkedIn. You could write a blog post under your Chief Medical Officer’s name or another doctor or scientist on staff to discuss the scientific benefits of your product. Key messages could include patient care, the impact on office revenue, and innovation in the industry. You can either post that article directly to LinkedIn or you could link back to your site if you host a blog there. You will be targeting providers in this post, so it will be more formal and include more scientific and medical terms.
Facebook. You could write another blog post but this one is geared towards patients who can buy the product. You would come up with a question to reach your target consumer such as: Do you struggle with dry skin during winter months? Then talk about your product and examples of how it can help. Your call-to-action will be to read the blog post on your site, but also include a link to view and buy the product.
Instagram. You’ll want to create a catchy hashtag to promote your product. The more personal to your brand it can be, the better. You can position your product around sweaters, accessories, and boots that showcase winter-time and promoting your product as a must-have for the season. You can link to the consumer blog in your bio. You can also go live or create a video that shows how you apply the product, use customer reviews, or before/after photos. If you have enough followers, you can directly link to buy your product from the story.
Twitter. You can leverage industry conferences. If you attend, you can feature quotes from key speakers and include the event hashtag. Even if you don’t attend, you can use the event hashtag to get your message and brand out there during high traffic times and engagement. You can also link to your provider-focused blog.
The last tip for messaging on social platforms is timing. Because of the character limits on Twitter, you can post multiple times a day and not experience customer fatigue. For LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram, you may want to limit to one post a day. You can include multiple stories throughout the day on Instagram that help build up your brand in a personal and real-time way. You also will want to make sure to view other posts on LinkedIn and Facebook and leave comments to gain exposure and produce two-way communication.
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