Your 2019 Marketing Plan: What You Need to Know
December 20, 2018
Every good social media marketing campaign starts with a clear and concise outline. Just as a writer begins every novel with a breakdown of a beginning, middle, and end, your online campaign should be laid out with all the basics like an easy to follow “how to” guide. Nobody knows your business better than you, and similarly, nobody else is as driven or focused as you to see it flourish and grow. Who better to draft a marketing plan? Now, of course, you can still bring in the experts. Hire a marketing manager or a search engine optimization company, or a team of social media experts, but being able to give them the foundation of what you want to see is what will really set apart your marketing campaign from competitors.
So, what should you include in your plan other than the desired outcome? Here are a few tips for the fresh new 2019 social media campaign.
1. Get Some New Content: This is crucial and will bump up your game from last year. New content will put a fresh face on your brand and encourage newcomers who may not have been interested in last year’s content. The goal for any social media campaign is to create web traffic and bring in consumers who will help your numbers go up and increase cash flow. Of course, this is easier said than done, but don’t stress yourself out trying to come up with this content.
One of the best untapped resources for content is your very own news feed. What are people raving about, who has the most likes, what type of content are you seeing being shared by others? You need original and unique writing, no copy-catting, but this doesn’t mean you can’t draw inspiration, or put your own twist on something you find entertaining. They say everything in literature has already been done and now all we can do is dress is up and remarketing it as something new, so remarket the things that make you go “oh, that’s cool!” and your followers will too.
2. Kick the Click Bait: One of the things your new marketing plan shouldn’t include is click bait. A once hot item to add to any social media post, you’ll find that many of these platforms are now filtering out anything that appears as spam or click bait. The more genuine and authentic your content appears, the better it looks for your online persona. Sure, click bait will grab attention and garner you a few extra hits, but when the reader lands on your page, how many seconds do they stick around before realizing it’s not quite what the tagline promised? This is the big issue with clickbait; it draws them in for all the wrong reasons, leaving the sight of your logo with a negative stigma you just don’t want to be associated with.
Inventing a fresh brand in 2019 should involve minimal glitz and glam and more of the real and truly interesting. Having your readers stick around for the entire article is more important than how many initial hits a post gets. Nobody wants to share something that doesn’t deliver, and shareability is what makes social media content a marketing necessity.
3. New Content Should Be Voice Centric: Voice searching has become a huge trend toward the end of 2018 and experts predict it’s only going to become more successful in the new year. In the past, all marketers considered the way that a consumer would ask a question in short hand while typing, but now you’ve got to zero in on the way someone might ask something in real time with their voice. It’s so much faster to ask Siri, Alexa, or Google Assistant where to find the closest Asian grocery store, than it is to type it all out, which is why many typed searches end up missing words and grammar or turning words into shorthand slang. This question might turn into, “Asian grocery Anaheim” if it were to be typed.
Be thoughtful about keywords, including the type of titles, descriptions and tags that will draw in crowds from both ends of the spectrum. You don’t want to block out typed searches altogether, because the majority of search is still being done by hand. But with newer and more exciting AI features appearing all the time, there may come a day when voice is the only way people search, and your site should be ready for that.
4. Deliver Your Brand on a Platter: Finally, consider using a tactic called “brand storytelling” to sell your brand as an emotional entity rather than just a business. Put a face to the logo, names to the products, behind the scene sneak peek videos, photos, and stories posted to social media will begin to grow your following in a more personal way. It closes the gap between cold calculating corporate company and the warm genuine human being running the show.
You are the brand, so make it shine with its own personality. You’ll know if your new method of emotional interaction is working based on analytics. Watch as likes, shares, and followers increase or decline and tweak the plan based on these changes. Don’t be afraid to be bold in the new year. Many companies are sure to be grabbing the bull by the horns, so to speak, in 2019, and marketers who stick to old practices might get left in the dust.