Why social networking and digital marketing is an effective platform for promoting and advancing businesses

By Tamara Reid, Founding Director of Beaute Industrie

It wasn’t until startup entrepreneurship with minimal capital backing for campaign spend that I realised how much the marketing industry has changed. The traditional pitch and promotion, market to mass style advertising and call to actions have been surpassed by influence and interactive digital messaging, as people spend less time off-site, and more time online.

Unique to the individual, their life experience and preference of learning environment alters the way in which one participates and actively engages with content. The evolution from coworking desk to Facebook groups has exponentially transformed the way we seek out community and transaction through word of mouth. The rise of digital platforms and copious amount of content creation that a brand or business can now take part in, allows for all communication processing styles to be engaged, and should be catered for when articulating your message.

The visual client is targeted through pictures, diagrams and maps, which can be curated and created on aesthetically pleasing platforms such as social platforms Instagram or Pinterest. While these platforms seem somewhat superficial in business (as they’re less about the written content and analytics and more about the image), a visual client will remember the picture associated with the written piece and retain that information for later purchasing decisions.

By engaging a content creator to place your product or service in a reality-like image of your perfect client, the purchase becomes tangible to the buyer’s lifestyle and they’re more easily able to place it into their daily routine.

An example of this may be an image of a mobile phone which has been drawn and labelled to reflect each individual component of the device. When trying to recall that information during the buying process, the visual client will flash this image in their mind to relay the information and ultimately act on the purchasing decision when next in-store or browsing online.

Podcasts, however, are great for the auditory client who engages best when information is spoken or heard. A musical introduction, verbiage, pronunciation, articulation and tone of a podcast host, can truly resonate with an auditory client and create longer-lasting brand impressions. Six, sixteen or sixty minutes long, an auditory learner can listen and consume content at the same time, via any device from a variety of applications.

Nowadays, the library of podcast topics and hosts available to advertisers is widely diverse, catering to all brands and businesses. Can’t find a podcast that speaks the same language as you and your brand? Why not create your own podcast channel to speak directly to your audience in an informal and organic way that builds trust and enhances brand awareness.

Facebook groups are a great way to engage clients with your brand in an informal manner and are a surefire way to build brand emotion through community and conversation. Groups allow a safe haven for moderated and targeted on-brand conversations. Through mediums such as posts and lives, we’re able to not only directly communicate with our clients but encourage them to contribute to the conversation through direct notifications and commenting features. Kinaesthetic clients are your ebook, webinar, online training portal, video and ‘live’ platform lovers. The physical aspect of downloading a piece of content and engaging with it via video or demonstration, combined with the physical movement to participate in the project, allows for the relay of information when it comes to repeat purchase. Encourage your clients to interact with your brand by providing them with fillable ebooks, worksheets, scripts or models to reinforce engagement and participation which are likely to help them opt into a future promotion.

Video engagement, from an algorithm point of view, is notably favourited by networks such as Facebook and Instagram. These platforms encourage you to go ‘live’ across your traditional sales and advertising pages to show the human side of your business and connect with your audience. For truly successful brand impact and reach, create a behind the scenes or a day in the life videos of your team for your audience to interact and connect with.

Easily accessible for all ages and technology levels, social networking platforms are only an internet signal away from reaching an exciting and untapped pool of warm clients for your brand to engage with. For engaging advertorial pieces, be prepared, be confident and know your content. Be present and consistent with your message, communicate authentically and remember to be social on social media!