Social media marketing has been one of the most important topics over the last few years. Every marketer knows that every company must have accounts on the most important social media networks in order to attract new clients and to keep contact with their existing clients. Social media networks like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram, LinkedIn or Pinterest have different tactics and tips in order to make your presence on this social networks useful for your brand and for your clients and potential clients as well.
I asked some of the most well-known social media experts to tell our Hot in Social Media audience what their best two social media marketing tips for 2016 are. You can read below all of these social media marketing tips for 2016 from these top social media experts that have years of experience with different social media networks.
I personally want to say many thanks to all these social media experts who sent me their useful tips! Don’t forget to read the other 2 articles below, which contain some other important advice from these social media experts that will help you to have a great start to 2016:
22 Expert Predictions About Digital Marketing Trends in 2016
24 Expert Opinions About The Top 3 Most Useful Social Media Networks in 2016
Please recommend to our audience two of your most useful social media marketing tips for 2016
Donna Moritz
Founder
Socially Sorted – www.sociallysorted.com.au
Donna helps businesses, brands and entrepreneurs get more traffic, shares, and sales with visual social media and content strategy. Winner of Best Business Blog in Australia (2014) and a Top 10 Social Media Blog 2015 (Social Media Examiner), Donna has been featured in Forbes and Entrepreneur and regularly writes for sites like Social Media Examiner.
Answer:
Mike Allton
Author, Content Marketing Practitioner and SiteSell CMO
The Social Media Hat – www.thesocialmediahat.com
Mike is a Blogger and Author in St. Louis, and the Chief Marketing Officer at SiteSell. He has been working with websites and the Internet since the early ’90’s and is active on all of the major social networks. Mike teaches a holistic approach to content marketing that leverages blog content, social media, and SEO to drive traffic, generate leads, and convert those leads into sales.
Answer:
Lilach Bullock
Co-Founder & Director
Comms Axis – www.commsaxis.com
Highly regarded on the world speaker circuit, Lilach Bullock, co-founder of Comms Axis has graced Forbes and Number 10 Downing Street with her presence! Listed by Forbes as one of the top 20 women social media power influencers and likewise as one of the top social media power influencers, she is one of the most dynamic personalities in the social media market and was crowned the Social Influencer of Europe by Oracle. A recipient of a Global Women Champions Award (by the Global Connections for Women Foundation) for her outstanding contribution and leadership in business.
Answer:
1. Measure everything you do. If you can’t measure it. Don’t do it!
2. Engage with your audience where they are, not where you want them to be or think they should be.
Larry Kim
Founder of MobileMonkey, Inc.
Larry is the founder of Mobile Monkey and previously founded WordStream, the World’s leading provider of Facebook and Google advertising software for small and medium-sized businesses with over 10,000 customers worldwide.
Answer:
· Stop promoting junk social media updates. Only pay to promote your most engaging content. The top 1 or 2% of your stuff. You’ll get much larger ad impression volumes at much lower costs.
· Buy Real Twitter Followers
Ian Cleary
Marketing Technologist
Ian Cleary is the founder of RazorSocial which is dedicated to helping businesses build relationships and revenue from social media and content marketing
Answer:
Tim Hughes
Co-Founder
Social Selling Lounge – www.Socialsellinglounge.com
Tim has been in sales for 27 years and recently worked on the roll-out of Social Selling at Oracle, across Western Europe and 2000 people. Tim has created a methodology for companies to implement Social Selling which is expected to give companies a 20% uplift in revenue as well as providing a competitive advantage.
Answer: People need to stop thinking that Social Selling (and Social Media) as a Platform or a tool. Social is a strategy and culture, without that don’t expect the “needle to move”.
Martin Shervington
Founder ‘Plus Your Business’, Speaker, Consultant
Plus Your Business – www.plusyourbusiness.com
Martin is the founder and community manager for Plus Your Life and Plus Your Business and has built one of the most well-known brands around all things Google for business, including Adwords, Search, Reviews and Google+.
Answer:
My tips for next year are to focus and to measure closely what is working in existing channels. Every year the market moves and you need to move with it.
Another tip is the best I could give – social media is all about relationships, so look at who you can support, and lift higher. By having this view, you will help build a community of value over time.
Sue B. Zimmerman
Entrepreneur, Social Media Expert, Branding and Business Coach
Sue B. is the #instagramexpert, founder of Insta-Results (the world’s first comprehensive online Instagram course) and Ready Set Gram. She’s a popular CreativeLive instructor, powerful speaker on prominent stages like SMMW15 and highly sought after business coach. She’s passionate about teaching entrepreneurs and marketing professionals how to easily leverage the power of Instagram to get tangible business results. As a serial entrepreneur, Sue B. has 30 years of business experience, including SueB.Do, Boxer Rebellion and Susan B. Zimmerman Enterprise. With her extensive knowledge in social media and 30+ years of business experience, it’s Sue B.’s mission to teach, mentor and empower others to be highly successful entrepreneurs.
Answer:
#SueBNinjaTips
- If you want to maximize your social media marketing tools, you need to use a customized bit.ly link (https://bitly.com) in your Instagram bio. This shortened link allows tracking click-throughs and leads, which will provide you with data to see how many clicks are leading back to your website.
- Two Creative ways to use Search on Instagram:
Instagram’s Explore Feature allows for a one-click trip to explore everything from post related to trending hashtags. Keep an eye on trending hashtags that are relevant to your business, you’ll want to use those as part of your hashtag hub.
Instagram is now allowing users to search for emoji hashtags. These fun symbols are a creative way to express what written words can’t. Consider if emojis is a good tool for your brand’s strategy. For example, if you’re a coffee and 
donut shop consider using #
Ted Rubin
Social Marketing Strategist, Keynote Speaker, Brand Evangelist and Acting CMO Brand Innovators
Ted Rubin is a leading Social Marketing Strategist, Keynote Speaker, and Acting CMO of Brand Innovators. Ted is the most followed CMO on Twitter according to SocialMedia Marketing Magazine; one of the most interesting CMOs on Twitter according to SayMedia, #13 on Forbes Top 50 Social Media Power Influencers, and number #2 on the Leadtail list of Top 25 People Most Mentioned by digital marketers. ROR, Return on Relationship, hashtag #RonR, is the basis of his philosophy. His book, Return on Relationship was released January 2013. His latest book, How To Look People in the Eye Digitally was released January 2015. Connect with Ted… TedRubin.com or @TedRubin
Answer:
Adam Connell
Founder
Blogging Wizard – www.bloggingwizard.com
Adam is the founder of Blogging Wizard. Previously Operations Manager for a UK based marketing agency, Adam now helps others to become more successful online.
Answer:
Randy Milanovic
Principal & Marketing
Kayak Online Marketing – www.kayakonlinemarketing.com
Randy is an entrepreneur, marketer, author, and blogger on online marketing, SEO & social engagement topics. A 4x author, he’s also a stage IV Cancer Survivor who has been seen in: forbes.com, business2community.com, steamfeed.com, socialmediatoday.com, financialpost.com, spinsucks.com, the CTV News, and recently, he was featured nationally in the Financial Post Magazine: Entrepreneur/Innovator edition, the article titled: Keep Running.
Answer:
– Business people should treat social media management as a networking activity. Be polite, helpful and friendly.
Stephanie Frasco Clegg
VP Social Media
Convert With Content – www.convertwithcontent.com
Stephanie Frasco Clegg, VP Social Media Marketing, started helping businesses get results with social networks before Twitter even existed! Stephanie has worked directly with high profile clients like Oprah, Atlantic Records, Dashlane, The International Culinary Center, & many more. She specializes in helping business owners and marketers find massive ROI by developing targeted social campaigns focused on *engagement strategies* that work!
Answer: Connect with the right people at the right time. If your audience is online at night, that’s when you will find the most engagement.
Jennifer G. Hanford
Senior Community Manager
B Squared Media – www.BSquared.media
Senior Community Manager for B Squared Media. Social media & blogging freelancer. Coffee lover. Contributes articles on a variety of social media and marketing sites including Curatti and TweakYourBiz.com.
Answer:
1. The quality of the content you share with your social media audience (whether you create or curate it) is essential. With so much content out there, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to stand out. Consistently share the content that your audience finds helpful and entertaining and they will appreciate it.
2. Reply and respond as often as possible when people share your content – and always be kind (or, at the very least, neutral) in all your social media interactions. Never try to reason or argue with the “trolls” because you’ll never win.
Natascha Thomson
CEO – MarketingXLerator and Co-Author – Yogi
MarketingXLerator – www.marketingxlerator.com
Natascha is the CEO of MarketingXLerator, a marketing consultancy with a focus on social media. She consults with small and large clients including SAP, Polycom, SLAP Company, LookingGlass and HR Strategies.
Answer:
Andrew Hutchinson
Freelance Writer & Digital Strategy Consultant
Andrew Hutchinson is an award-winning writer, blogger and social media consultant from Melbourne, Australia.
Answer:
- Learn to use Facebook Graph Search. Facebook rolled out Graph Search a few years back, then de-emphasized it because it didn’t quite work as they’d have liked. But you can still use it, and you can still discover amazing insights using Facebook data – the biggest collection of personalized data points that’s ever been created. If you’re not sure how to use Graph Search, look it up, it’s worth taking the time to work out what’s possible.
- Use Hootsuite to Track Twitter Mentions. If you’re doing any kind of social media marketing, social media monitoring is also a must. Using HootSuite, you can search for mentions across a number of networks, but Twitter is by far the easiest to track and the best source of rich insights. You can search for mentions of your brand, mentions of your industry, hashtags – anything you can think of, and you can narrow those searches down to specific regions and areas, which really honest in your results. And once you’ve set up a stream in HootSuite, it’ll continue to automatically populate with new mentions.
Keri Jaehnig
Chief Marketing Officer
Idea Girl Media – www.ideagirlmedia.com
Keri is the Founder and CMO of Idea Girl Media, a Social Media Marketing Agency that works with business brands, public figures & non-profits to achieve social media success and positive online reputation. She is humbled to have received a 2013 Small Business Influencer Honorable Mention Award, and a commendation for Outstanding Attainment in Social Media from the Senate of the State of Ohio. Her insight has also been featured in Social Media Today, SteamFeed, Search Engine People, and AOL Small Business, as well as in Forbes, Business Insider, and other industry blogs. Non-fat lattes, travel & quick wit make Keri smile, and she is always enthused to meet new people!
Answer:
TIP 1: Schedule time to attend tweet chats and important Blab and Periscope broadcasts. These are excellent ways to stay engaged in your niche, and with potential collaborators and clients. Social networking with turbos!
TIP 2: Quality over quantity. Rather than have a mediocre presence on many networks, choose 2, 3, or 4 that you can do well so that you can lead your niche.
Julia Campbell
Digital Marketing Strategist
J Campbell Social Marketing – www.jcsocialmarketing.com
Julia helps her mission-driven clients find their audience online, using websites, email, blogs, and social media marketing strategies.
Answer:
1) Know who you are talking to on social media. If you are posting without a plan, or without deep knowledge of your target audience, you will fail. Always know who you are posting to and what they are interested in, what inspires them, what floats their boat. Then give them more of that content.
2) Quality over quantity. Pick one or two social networks or digital marketing channels and do them very well, rather than spreading yourself too thin on multiple channels. This mantra also extends to the types of content that you post. Take the time to create great content for your social networks rather than throwing stuff up just to make sure you are hitting your daily quota.
Gini Dietrich
CEO of Arment Dietrich and author of Spin Sucks
Gini Dietrich is the founder and CEO of Arment Dietrich, an integrated marketing communications firm. She is the author of Spin Sucks, co-author of Marketing in the Round, and co-host of Inside PR. She also is the lead blogger at Spin Sucks and is the founder of Spin Sucks Pro.
Answer:
- Better content marketing. It’s no surprise everyone is inundated with content and exhausted with the options…most of them not good. Create content that is more creative. Get smart about how to use influencers..and use them. Find new ways to amplify your content. Get better at it, overall.
- Paid amplification. I have a really good friend who thinks amplification is the next big thing. When you spend time amplifying a story for a journalist, what kinds of results do you see from them? Do you have a stronger relationship? I’m willing to bet you do. To get the kind of audiences you need—and break through the gross amount of bad content—we’ll have to throw some money against amplification, just like we do sponsor content.
Steven J Wilson
Founder
The Visual Life – www.TheVisualLife.net
I help digital entrepreneurs find success online.
Answer:
In 2016 if you want to do big things in social you should focus on social ads. It’s the way they developed the system and if you want to drive quality targeted traffic and grow your social accounts etc much faster. You need to learn, run and test ads on your favorite social platforms!
Jacob Curtis
Owner Branding by Jacob
An experienced new media marketer and personal branding advocate, I work with both companies and individuals in developing, maintaining and leveraging their digital identity online. Connect with me on Twitter or view my social media video tutorials on jacobcurtis.com.
Answer:
Find the balance between automation and humanization when managing your personal or business accounts social media accounts. Use the time saved from automation to engage with the community you’ve developed or are a part of. Recognize and develop relationships with your brand advocates online. Utilize user-generated content into your posting strategies to encourage brand mentions via social media.
Reginald Chan
Entrepreneur, Consultant & Content Writer
Reginald is a freelance consultant focusing on content marketing, search, and social media. Always thinking of Big Data and new marketing techniques.
Answer: The first tip doesn’t be afraid of paid advertisements. With proper strategy, you can gain thousands of followers with a super tight budget (like under $50). Of course, I don’t mean Fiverr but more towards services from Facebook and Twitter ads. Secondly, find the right platform for your business. Not every platform works well for your business. Therefore, always perform tests to ensure that you are sharing the best content on platforms which provide you with the best ROI (return of investment).
Nigel Ohrum
Fearless Social Media Manager
Social Toppings: Web Presence Development – www.socialtoppings.com
DARC: Digital native with Analytical chops, strong web Reach, and Content creation skills. Media marketing director by day, social media helper by night.
Answer:
1. I probably mentioned this last year, but it’s still as relevant today. Don’t try to be everywhere online. Social media is a time-consuming endeavor. Find the “right” channels where your audience is on and spend time there.
2. Focus on ‘density’. What I mean by that is we get hung up on optimizing every little detail of a social media post that we lose sight of the goal. Best time to post, daily post frequency, optimal text length, etc. All that is a waste if you’re not providing value and meaningfulness. Be insightful/knowledgeable… not dull. Be genuine/honest… not insincere. Be amusing/funny… not boring.
Marji J. Sherman
Social Media Consultant
Sherman Social – www.marjijsherman.com
Marji J. Sherman is a globally known social media strategist that has been featured in Inc. Magazine, Jay Baer’s SocialPros podcast, The Growth Factor and numerous other podcasts and publications. She writes a successful blog (www.MarjiJSherman.com) where she relates real-life experiences to the ever-changing landscape of social media and has over 160K followers on Twitter (@MarjiJSherman) where she focuses on positive living and leveraging social media while still remaining authentic.
Answer:
Stephanie Nelson
Social Media Maven / Owner
SBN Marketing – www.sbnmktg.com
Stephanie Boyette Nelson is a Charlotte, NC-based marketing professional. Her experience runs the gamut – print ads, print newsletters, event coordination, e-mail newsletters, paid search, SEO – you name it! She currently specializes in social media marketing and SEO for small businesses.
Answer:
- Be honest with yourself about your capabilities. Whether you’re a business owner or a social media professional, if you don’t have the know-how to pull off a particular social media marketing campaign, you stand to waste a lot of time and/or money. Business owners, it very well may be worth it for you to hire a professional that has the experience. Social media professionals, you’ll earn a lot more respect if you reach out to your network and either refer the business to someone who has the know-how or asks for help.
- If real estate’s motto is “location, location, location”, social media marketing’s motto should be “target, target, target.” Use the analytics available to get to know your fan base. Even with your public posts, put up information they’ll care about. And when you’re running promoted posts, narrow the audience well. It’d be better for one person who is almost 100% guaranteed to buy your product see your promoted post than have a larger audience who couldn’t care less.
Jen Lew
Founder / Creative Strategist
Jen Lew Marketing & Design – www.jenlew.com
Jen specializes in providing innovative strategies and developing support services to manage marketing efforts with ease.
Answer:
Tip 1: Be Flexible and Adapt
Tip 2: Try New Strategies & Tools
Ingrid Kibler
Social Media Expert
HCK2 Partners – www.ingridkibler.com
Ingrid’s passion is to help clients harness the power of social media for their business. From presenting innovative ideas to devising a winning strategy to staying in-the-know of the latest, she helps clients utilize this technology in surpassing their business goals and keep them ahead of the competition. She has worked with clients ranging from small businesses to global enterprises, and from a colorful array of industries including fashion, technology, and entertainment. Ingrid regularly executes and presents social media audits, gives group training sessions, consults one-on-one, as well as helps monitor, drive and report on activity for different brands’ social channels.
Answer: Always filter content through the 3 C’s (clear, concise and captivating), and always keep a focus on providing value to your audience.
