Want to raise the bar on your social media marketing? Wondering how leading industry professionals deliver exceptional results?
In this article, six marketing experts share the social media marketing tactics they’re using to execute successful marketing campaigns.
#1: Be a Strategic Marketer on Facebook, Not a Creator
Newsflash: being a creator is only sustainable as a revenue model for about 5% of Facebook business users. Despite Facebook foisting its agenda on you to switch your personal profile to Professional Mode and crank out enormous quantities of reels—with the promise of monetizing your content—it’s unlikely to work for most users.
In fact, these are the four different types of social media business users I see:
- Influencers (10%): People with a decent-sized loyal following. They have an established business and generate revenue from their own offerings. Plus, they monetize their content via third-party revenue-sharing payouts.
- Creators (5%): People who publish massive volumes of highly produced content. They monetize by relying almost exclusively upon third-party revenue-sharing payouts and bonuses. They’re at the mercy of the algorithms and Facebook’s whims every day.
- Marketers (75%): Everyday businesses of all sizes that do their best to maintain a basic social media presence and often struggle to get measurable results due to using dated methods.
- Strategists (10%): Savvy professionals, business owners, and brands that post strategically. Everything they do is connected to driving traffic, leads, and sales. They allocate their resources properly and track the right metrics.
It’s time to take back control! Focus on what’s important to your business. Be a smart, strategic marketer by deploying proven organic and paid Facebook marketing methods. Just because Meta wants us all to be creators, you need to question if this is the right fit for you.
(And, heck, if you’re ‘crushing it’ as a creator, kudos to you. You’re an outlier! Meanwhile, the rest of us are building long-term, sustainable businesses that don’t rely one iota on algorithms.
Mari Smith is the undisputed “Queen of Facebook” and the world’s foremost expert on organic Facebook. Mari shows marketers exactly how to develop winning strategies—without running ads—on Facebook.
#2: Create a Branded AI Thread in ChatGPT for Your Business and Brand
ChatGPT is sourcing information from all over the world, and it's not uncommon for it to misunderstand or not quite nail your requests to have a unique approach to how you interact with your ideal target audience and viewers of your content.
Teach ChatGPT more about your business, who you serve, and your unique approach to serving your ideal target audience.
This will not only ensure you get more detailed responses to your prompts but also help you get much more accurate responses tailored to your brand specifically.
Begin a new thread where you share the following prompt with ChatGPT:
My name is: (share your name)
Here's a little bit about me: (share your bio)
My business name is: (Share your publicly known name or DBA versus your LLC name if it's not how you're known.)
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My website address is: (share your website)
My business is about: (describe your business)
My ideal target audience is: (describe your ideal audience)
Please retain all that information I shared with you today to refer to later, okay?
You should receive a response similar to this as a reply from ChatGPT:
“Absolutely! I have retained all the information you shared today and will refer to it whenever needed. If you have any further questions or need assistance in the future, feel free to reach out.”
This will begin a reference document you can use later to get more specific, detailed results from ChatGPT when creating content or entering prompts that need to be more specific to your brand.
Keep this thread open and constantly add to it. To keep up with what you're entering if it's not already collected in some other area of your business, create a pageless document in Google Docs or similar documentation program to be able to refer to later.
Pro Tips
- To enter paragraphs into your ChatGPT prompt for more writing space, hold the SHIFT button and press ENTER to create paragraphs or sections, versus one continuous wall of text in your prompts.
- Enter characteristics, behaviors, or a description of who’s not your ideal target audience as well, to further refine the results you get back from ChatGPT.
Diana Gladney helps busy entrepreneurs who want to learn how to use video to share their vision and impact more people’s lives. She effortlessly simplifies the tech of YouTube and breaks it down so anyone can understand, regardless of skill level.
#3: Hyper-Personalize Your 1-on-1 LinkedIn Messages
The key to tapping into one of LinkedIn's most potent lead generation capabilities is quite literally at your fingertips.
To explain: If your LinkedIn messaging strategy is solely focused on text-based conversations with your ideal prospects, you've barely scratched the surface of what's possible!
Here's how to harness the full potential of the LinkedIn mobile app's robust messaging features, empowering you to personalize your engagement with prospects (in just a few seconds!) through captivating “selfie” videos, customized audio “voicemails,” and so much more.
Start by taking advantage of LinkedIn's audio messaging feature. Instead of sending a plain text message, hold down the microphone icon next to the message input field and record a voice memo for your prospect.
Example Audio Message Script
Hey [Prospect's Name], it's [Your Name]! Just wanted to touch base with you and put a voice with a name. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on [Free Content or Tips you shared in a previous message]. Also, I noticed from your profile page that you … [personal note or comment about where they live, work, went to school, etc.] Again, great to connect and excited to talk more soon!
Why stop at audio when you can take it up a notch with video? By sending a “selfie-style” video message, you can create a more personal and engaging experience for your prospect. Record a selfie-style video and send it directly to your prospect's LinkedIn inbox in real time! (Watch this video to see how it works.)
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GET THE DETAILSExample Video Message Script
Hi [Prospect's Name], [Your Name] here! I wanted to put a face to the name and show you just how excited I am to help you with your [specific service]. I think our expertise in this area will be a great fit for your needs. I went ahead and sent you [Free Content, Tips, Demo, etc.]. Also, I noticed from your profile page that you … [personal note or comment about where they live, work, went to school, etc.] Again, great to connect and excited to talk more soon!
Pro Tips
- Personalize your messaging: Focus on prospects who have already shown interest in your services and use audio, video, and fun elements like GIFs and emojis to create a more engaging experience.
- Be genuine: Use your personality and stay true to who you are. Don't feel pressured to use elements that don't resonate with you.
- Create a one-on-one connection: The goal is to replicate a face-to-face interaction as closely as possible. Use your prospect's name, look them in the eye through video messages, mention their name in audio messages, and keep the conversation focused on their needs.
The more you can hyper-personalize your 1-on-1 LinkedIn messages to mirror real-life interactions, the more engagement you'll get as a result!
John Nemo is the bestselling author of LinkedIn Riches: How To Use LinkedIn for Business, Sales for & Marketing! and runs a “Done For You” LinkedIn lead generation agency based in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
#4: Prioritize Facebook and Instagram Lead Generation Ad Follow Up
Lead generation ads are a basic on-platform ad type that syncs to your CRM gives anyone who fills out your form access to your offer via their email: a webinar, a free consultation quote, or an entry level offer from your business.
Currently in beta, is the ability for people to access your asset directly from the ad and download your brochure, checklist, or ebook directly to their mobile device without opening their email!
Regardless of what you're offering in your lead generation ad, the key to successfully acquiring clients and customers is in the follow up.
First, align with Facebook's recommendation that you follow up with every lead within 15 minutes. Following up within this window increases the chance that you'll keep that lead to 80%. Thankfully, automating your follow up sequence makes this easy.
Second, demonstrate that you're responsible and want this potential customer's business. Develop a follow up sequence that has seven to 11 touch points within two to four weeks, depending on the type of business you're in. If that seems excessive, stay with me… research shows that most high intent leads become customers between the third and fifth follow up touch points. Using 7 to 11 touch points across SMS, email, and a phone call ensures that you don't lose the chance to convert the balance of your warm leads.
Third, support your follow up with retargeting to pull leads deeper into your sales funnel. Maybe drive those leads to your sales page or to a landing page with next steps for them to become a customer.
Get this system in place and you'll begin to see a cheaper cost per result from your lead generation ad campaigns.
Tara Zirker helps marketers achieve massive returns on their Instagram advertising, even with a small budget. She’s built a successful membership program, Successful Ads Club, that helps marketers take the pain out of online advertising with play-by-play training, no matter their experience level.
#5: Give Instagram Viewers a Reason to Follow You
Many Instagram marketing tips focus on increasing your content reach and getting more eyeballs on your Instagram page.
While this is important, these tips fail to cover how you get new visitors to stick around. This tactic involves creating a valuable proposition that encourages your audience to follow your Instagram page and continuously check in and engage with your content.
There are two core ways to encourage your audience to follow you:
- Add a positioning statement to your bio—a short phrase or sentence that clearly states the value you offer your audience; for example, “self-care tips for Millennial moms.”
- Produce a regularly Live series—Instagram users love a regular live series! Committing to going to live on a regular basis and promoting this in your bio will encourage people to follow you as a way to keep up to date with your live series.
Both tactics will encourage repeat visitors and help you convert viewers to followers.
Jade Beason is a creator coach who specializes in helping content creators and entrepreneurs leverage social media to increase their income. Her programs include The Creators Club and Creator Income Academy. She also has a podcast called The Creators' Corner with Jade Beason.
#6: Refine Your Facebook Ads Campaign Structure
Understand proper campaign structure for testing and scaling your campaigns to reach optimal results.
Too many marketers set up their campaigns incorrectly, which prevents them from actually testing the variables necessary to find the winning ads or ad sets quickly.
This means they waste time and money on ads that aren’t the best performers. This prevents them from reaching the optimization and scaling phases.
A big part of this is how Facebook delivers your budget. I recommend using ABO (or ad set budget optimization) for testing with one ad per ad set. If you use Advantage+ budget (formerly CBO or campaign budget optimization) Facebook will decide which ad sets get budget when you should be testing everything equally.
Putting more than one ad per ad set does something similar. Facebook will take your untested ads and decide which will get budget, when all should get the same budget to make the test viable.
Once you’ve found your winning ads and audiences, you can then move to other budgeting options such as CBO or cost cap bidding to continue to scale.
Allie Bloyd is a local marketing and Facebook ads expert helping marketers create strategies and systems that stimulate growth. She’s a highly sought-after trainer and speaker who has been featured in Forbes, is a member of the ClickFunnels Two Comma Club, and is a recurring voice on the Social Media Marketing Talk Show.
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