In addition to guest posting on the UpCity blog, Elogic Commerce is featured as one of the Top Content Marketing Agencies in the United States. Check out their profile here.
Practically every successful online business makes heavy use of social media marketing. Compared to traditional marketing, driving traffic with social media is organic, inexpensive, and effective.
Compared to standard online ads, getting your message in front of as many people as possible requires the right message and platform. With so many social media platforms available today, it can be hard to choose the right one..
Each social media platform has its own niche user base. While some platforms, like Twitter and Reddit, have users in all sorts of sub-communities, others are primarily suited for some kinds of content. Knowing this in advance is critical for effective social media marketing.
Oftentimes, the platform with the most users is not the platform with the most potential customers for your company. A less popular platform might have more users who are interested in your product.
In this article, we’ll cover marketing with TikTok, Pinterest, and Medium. These three platforms are less frequently targeted compared to Instagram and Twitter, so they offer different opportunities for businesses.
Taking Advantage of TikTok
For the uninitiated, TikTok is a short video sharing platform. Like Vine and musical.ly before it, TikTok users shoot vertical video, edit it in various ways, and publish it for others to see.
TikTok’s defining characteristic is its algorithmic feed. In the so-called For You page, viewers get an infinite list of videos tailored to their tastes. As they continue scrolling, TikTok picks up on subtle clues—like the difference between watching a video all the way through and scrolling by quickly—to determine their interests.
As a marketer on TikTok, your primary goal is to appear on users’ For You pages. To achieve this, you’ll need to meet some basic criteria:
- You have to post content regularly. TikTok’s algorithm favors frequent posters over those who use it less.
- Each video must draw the viewer’s attention within the first second or so. If most users scroll by your video without watching further, it will appear less in For You pages.
- Your product should be demonstrated in a humorous or entertaining way. You can’t attract TikTok viewers through infomercial-style writing (unless you become a meme like Phil Swift’s Flex Tape).
- You have to attract engagement in some way—viewers should feel compelled to like, share, or leave a comment. This will help increase the visibility of your videos.
Companies such as Spikeball, Vessi, or Gymshark are already using TikTok successfully and reaching millions of new potential customers every month.
However, whether you’re a consultant, coach, or trying to build your personal brand, you might be able to benefit from implementing TikTok growth tactics. Even lawyers and doctors are using the platform to develop their brands and stand out from the competition.
Picking Up Pinterest
Pinterest’s core user base was artists and DIYers for many years. Over time, it has expanded to other niches, with content on all kinds of topics.
Pinterest allows users to view, post, and save “ideas” in the form of images. It brings the concept of a pinboard or bulletin board into the digital world, allowing viewers to save designs and photos they like for project inspiration or brainstorming.
Pinterest results frequently appear in Google Images results. This can be a great way to pique the interest of potential customers.
A few points to keep in mind:
- Pinterest images should be self-contained since they will appear on a variety of platforms where linking is impossible.
- Each image should clearly show how your product can be used in a unique way. The viewer should want to learn more.
- Writing must be kept to a minimum and set in large fonts. Pinterest images can be heavily compressed, especially when shared on other platforms. Your text should be readable no matter what.
State Farm teamed up with creative lead agency, The Marketing Arm (TMA), to set a creative approach, doing something unexpected for an insurance brand.
The team pushed creative boundaries with Pinterest video ads, using innovative techniques to make their Pins even more eye-catching. Their videos flipped and spun, pleasantly disrupting the home feed with unexpected movement.
They pioneered a new way to use the format, featuring different articles and lifestyle content to help educate viewers about why they should get life insurance.
Another brand IT Cosmetics was looking for the way to attract more potential customers. And that’s why they turned to Pinterest search ads.
On Pinterest, 91% of beauty searches are unbranded. IT Cosmetics saw that this discovery mindset created an opportunity to reach people when they’re actively searching for a CC cream, before they decide which one to buy.
They found that a combination of different creative concepts drove the best results. Top-performing ads included before-and-after Pins and content emphasizing product benefits.
Mastering Medium
Medium is a centralized blogging platform. Users can write posts and share them with the whole world. Other people can highlight and comment on articles. Medium will recommend similar and related articles to readers, although the recommendation engine is not nearly as important as TikTok’s.
Users primarily arrive at Medium articles through Google searches. Driving traffic to your website from Medium is similar to driving traffic through Google. However, you get the advantage of Medium’s existing SEO work and on-site recommendations. Plus, your company doesn’t need to worry about hosting a blog as well.
Raymmar Tirado links to his website at the end of each article, and he sometimes includes links to his site in the middle of his posts.
Some already successful Medium publications allow third-party authors. If you think that your product would be a perfect fit for an existing publication, ask if you can write a guest post or purchase a sponsorship.
Since Medium is a blogging platform, content is mostly long-form text. However, you don’t need to write thousands of words to be successful on Medium. Short articles that clearly explain a problem and offer a solution (maybe tying into your product) do well on Medium.
Tesla Motors rides a fine line between annoying self-congratulating and publishing interesting content. The Tesla Collection consists of posts that spend a lot of time talking about how great the company is, but in the midst of all their bragging, they tell some pretty cool stories.
Programming and technology articles are some of the most popular on Medium, although plenty of people write about other topics as well.
Stay Engaged with Your Users
Regardless of which platforms you end up choosing to target, your business can gain goodwill and improve its community standing by engaging directly with users.
On TikTok and Medium, watch the comments section for each piece of content your company produces. Respond to comments asking for more information—both to look like your company cares about its customers and to avoid misinformation being spreaded about your products.
If you wanted to address a source of confusion in your product once and for all, consider creating a video, image, or blog post specifically explaining the issue. This way, you can direct consumers to your polished explanation instead of your support team.
Good social media marketing blurs the line between marketing and customer support. Engaging users means responding to their queries and selling them on products.
Takeaways
Like choosing between Magento vs WooCommerce for your ecommerce site, you’ll need to select the right social media platforms and communities to target with marketing.
Less commonly used platforms might have users who are specifically interested in your product, so look outside the most common options. You can also take advantage of sub-communities with hashtags and “sides” of each platform.
No matter which platform you choose, seek to understand and engage with your customers. Marketing can be a two-way street between your company and your customers—this is often the most effective strategy.