Your content, products, services, messaging, and identity are all part of your awesome and amazing brand! One exceptional way to increase awareness about your brand, and get people talking is to use social media.
Oh yes, I know what you're thinking:
Well, what's new, Fabrizio? We all know social media is great for increasing awareness about our brands.
Correct, but which platforms are the best, and in what particular order?
No one really knows for sure, but with some insightful data, we can comfortably work out which ones we should be using more of.
Now, I'm sure that 2021 has been a wonderful year for you and your business, and that you have every cause to celebrate your successes and milestones.
But, 2022 is just around the corner, depending on where you're reading this. Heck, 2023 could be on the horizon even.
Nevertheless, it's time to start planning your brand promotion strategy right now, using good old social media, of course.
I get it, you've heard this record play before. You know that you should be using social media for brand promotion.
In which case, let me ask you something else -
Do you know which social platforms are working for you? Or are you just firing everything you've got on all the outlets and hoping that you'll hit a chord with someone or a group of people?
If all you're doing is churning out content after content and blasting it all over your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest accounts, and have no idea what's working and what's not, then something is seriously wrong with your tactic.
There are three things that will help you grow your social followers, as well as get more people talking about your business, products, and services -
So many business owners and marketers burn themselves out by believing that they have to be literally everywhere with their content. Every darn platform that is available, they need to be on it, even if it's not working!
In my opinion, that is the worst strategy ever. It's counter-effective, that's what I believe.
I believe that a marketer should focus on what works best for them. For you, if you've been using digital marketing and social media for some time now, then you should have a respectable idea of which platforms are working and which aren't.
OK, with all that said, let me now share with you the top six social media networks sites that I think are the best for increasing brand awareness in 2022.
I'll also be sharing some interesting statistics with you. Let's go!
If for some unexplainable reason you are not already using any of these platforms as of right now, you know what you've got to do, right?
Make a start.
I'm placing these social network sites in what I believe to be 'the order of importance for 2022', again, purely my opinion and based on my experience. Of course, I try and also base these on the current trends and any stats that I've observed over the last few years.
For the past several years, Instagram has been the top-performing social platform for all of my businesses. If you're still waiting for the right time to come to start using Instagram, the time is now. Well, actually, the right time to start was yesterday, if you get my drift.
As of 2020, Instagram reached 1.08 billion users worldwide, 500 million of which are daily active users. (Source)
Interestingly, you can see the growth trend over the last few years or so above.
And let's be honest, 1 billion users is a pretty big audience to tap into, especially when you consider that 60% of Instagram users claim that they've learned about a new product or a service using the platform.
Even if you have no idea where to start with Instagram, you simply can't afford to ignore it anymore.
You can begin by studying how other brands similar to your own make use of Instagram to promote their products and services. Research and analysis can be tedious, but it's a good start.
I would assess their content quality and check the engagement value (comments and Likes). See what their followers are engaging and responding to the most. Check how often those other brands are posting on Instagram too. Takedown as many notes as you can.
By learning from other brands and businesses similar to your own, you will have a better idea of how to construct your own marketing strategy for Instagram.
Once you start distributing your own content, you can begin fine-tuning your tactics according to your audience and level of engagement.
A useful tool I use for scheduling content on Instagram is CoSchedule. It's useful for me, and it might be useful for you too. CoSchedule also boasts some pretty useful Analytics tools I can use to make sure I'm posting the right type of content at the right time of day.
One more thing regarding Instagram. Organic reach is NOT dead, despite what you may have read or watched somewhere on the big bad web, especially recently!
Sure, it's not what it used to be, but what you have to do is try and play by Instagram's ever-changing algorithm rules.
You can win on Instagram by -
If you're already using Instagram but are having little success, try to figure out why.
Find ways to improve the quality of your photos, be more consistent, and, of course, other than post images you should most definitely consider adding some videos to your Instagram too.
In a 2018 survey carried out by Animoto, they found that 48% of consumers said they made a purchase simply from viewing a brand’s video on Instagram.
That's your cue to take action!
OK, that's all I have to say about Instagram for the time being, please do check out my profile to get an idea of how I use this social app to promote my personal brand business, products, and services.
Here are some additional articles you might find useful about using Instagram -
I also believe that 2022 is going to be a monstrous year for YouTube content creators.
Video marketing, if you can still call it that, has been around for a good number of years now. It's nothing new or out of the ordinary. But, the trend is on the rise still and many businesses are yet to utilize this platform for brand promotion.
Let's begin with yet another interesting statistic -
According to Cisco's predictions, by the year 2021, video content will account for 80% of all internet traffic!
80 percent! Wow, that's a lot... So, we're at the end of 2021 now as of updating this post. Has this prediction proved to be correct?
It has indeed! In fact, the new statistic is now 82% by the end of 2022.
Technology has without a doubt contributed to the increase of video content publication and consumption. With most of us having a smartphone, creating, uploading, and observing videos anywhere and anytime has never been easier.
How to start with YouYube?
If you've yet to make a start with video marketing or you don't even have a YouTube channel, it's so easy to start one.
You'll need a Google account to create a channel, and if you have a smartphone, then that is all you need to kickstart things off!
YouTube is currently my number one choice video social network for promoting my personal brand business. Since I'm a designer and developer, I think it's important for me to use this platform, not just for marketing and increasing awareness about my personal brand, but also to share what actually goes on behind the scenes, in the life of a designer.
You can subscribe to my channel here.
Here are some articles you might find useful -
Pinterest is a powerful visual discovery engine that can be leveraged to drive targeted traffic to your blog, marketing content, and products. It's one of the best social outlets for brand promotion.
For many bloggers and online businesses, Pinterest has become a key source of organic traffic.
John Dunlop, for instance, shows how he was able to drive five times more traffic from Pinterest with just 1,500 followers than he was able to by using Facebook or Twitter, with a combined 19K fans and followers.
In recent research, it was found that Pinterest was most popular with folks between the ages of 18 and 49. There's still time for me then 🙂
So, some quite diverse statistics, I know, but with those in mind, perhaps you should rethink your Pinterest strategy for 2020, especially if you've been hacking at it to no avail.
If you've yet to start with Pinterest and have no idea where to start, then let me recommend some great book titles on Amazon below -
The second link is a great read, you'll find plenty of inspiration, practical tips, and ideas for getting the most from your Pinterest campaign.
No need for an introduction to Facebook. But, when it comes to promoting your brand using this platform, I have some mixed feelings about it, personally.
I have around 10 years of experience using Facebook as a marketing platform. I don't have that many followers, and my engagement rate is low. So, I'm no expert.
Here's the thing:
I've had more failures than successes with Facebook in the past. And one of the reasons is simple: My audience is NOT on Facebook.
So, if you have never used Facebook before for brand marketing, then you can at least give it your best shot. Keep in mind, if you are targeting a particular demographic, Facebook might not be the place to be.
Also, without boosting posts and paying for ads, you're not going to get the most out of your Facebook marketing campaigns.
Heck, I'm even starting to have doubts about using any social media ads and their performance after Apple's recent BIG privacy update.
All that said, give Facebook a try and measure what engagement you receive. Plus boosting posts on Facebook is very affordable, so give it a try.
How To Start With Facebook?
Creating a Facebook business page is easy, but can only be achieved if you have a personal profile, just in case you were wondering.
I would recommend making use of all the features on your business page by adding as much information about your brand as possible.
Keep in mind, there are over 60 million active business pages on Facebook already, so depending on your niche type, you may struggle to get noticed without properly promoting your page to your target audience.
Use your page to follow and engage with other brands. You can also join communities and groups using your page, but don't use it to push out spammy-looking promotions on those pages.
When it comes to posting content on your Facebook page, that is related to your brand, products, and services, that's where it can get a little sticky.
Organic reach on Facebook has been well and truly killed off and buried. Some marketers will argue that it's been steadily declining but still alive. In my opinion, it's dead. It has been for some time now. This means you'll have to be prepared to... yup, you've guessed it... pay to play.
Did you know, that on average, videos shared on Facebook get around 59% more engagement than other types of posts?
Recently, in fact, it was discovered after studying 500 top Facebook posts that over 80% of those posts were made up of videos.
The more engagement, the more Facebook will deem your content to be relevant and authoritative and therefore make it more visible to a wider audience.
In a nutshell, Facebook for organic marketing seems that it's only 97% dead. It is still a great platform to use for your business if you're willing to pay and post content that Facebook's algorithms want to see. It is simply not what it used to be.
How To Start On Facebook?
Create a business page and fill out every part of your business profile. Don't leave anything left out.
When posting content on your Facebook page, don't just put up links to your latest blog posts, product sales pages, or lead gen pages.
Doing those things isn't exactly bad, but will have very little effect on your reach and engagement.
Instead, experiment by sharing more relevant, quality content that demands to be shared. such as images and videos. Remember, videos have become very popular on Facebook. The performance and engagement factors of videos are high.
LinkedIn is another fantastic place to promote your personal and professional brand! For my freelance web design business, LinkedIn has proven to be a fantastic source of leads.
I also believe that LinkedIn is the best place online for connecting with like-minded professionals and building meaningful relationships.
LinkedIn, as of 2021, has over 800 million members, 40% of which are logging into the site daily.
If you are creating pro-level content on a frequent basis, perhaps through your blog or other content channels, then you should be promoting all of that content on LinkedIn, no questions asked.
Why?
Partly because 91 percent of folks rate LinkedIn high on value when it comes to professional and relevant content.
Like Facebook, LinkedIn has been around for a good number of years for most people to have noticed, but whatever your strategy might be for 2022, make sure you take some time to share the very best of your content on LinkedIn.
Here are a couple of books I would like to recommend for learning marketing on LinkedIn -
Finally, we get to TikTok, which you may or may not have heard of.
TikTok is an iOS and Android-based social media app that's been around since 2016. The app is used for creating and sharing short videos, around 15 to 60 seconds in length.
This isn't a social app for everyone, however, with 1 billion users and growing fast, and 41 percent of TikTok's users aged between 16 and 24, it could be a platform worth giving a shot.
Whilst most folks might argue that TikTok is not the most relevant or appropriate platform for brand promotion, I think it could be if you are in the right niche and targeting a younger audience.
In fact, big brands like NBA and The Washington Post are already using TikTok.
So, there you have it, six prominent social platforms to consider using for promoting your personal or professional brand, products, and services in 2022 and indeed beyond.
Again, you might already be using most, if not all of these. In which case, put them in the order of which platform is bringing you the most value, engagement, growth, and focus your full effort on those.
Best of luck with your social media and brand promotion strategy for next year.
