The short answer: Yes, definitely use hashtags. Hashtags are an essential asset in your digital marketing toolbox.

Hashtags impact the overall performance of social media content. Forward-thinking brands use them with specific goals and intentional strategies in mind—whether they’re making their product go viral or leveraging hashtag analytics.

Unfortunately, the confusion surrounding hashtags prevents some marketers from using them to their full potential. This is further complicated by experts who negate the benefits of hashtags or dismiss them as irrelevant.

In this article, we break down everything you need to know to hashtag with confidence. We explore what hashtags are, how to use them and examples of ways brands are successfully ushering in the new era of hashtags.

• What is a hashtag?
• Why use hashtags
• How to find which hashtags to use
• Tips for using hashtags
• Using hashtags on different social networks
• Hashtag examples to spark your next big idea

What is a hashtag?

Hashtags are words and numbers following the # symbol that categorize and track content on social media. You can add hashtags to social posts, bios and comments on most major platforms, including Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and Pinterest.

What is the history of the hashtag?

So, where did the hashtag come from? The first hashtag debuted on Twitter in 2007 from a product designer named Chris Messina.

“I designed the hashtag to thwart any one social network from becoming the dominant gatekeeper. Think about it: The hashtag is one of the few superstructures that spans across all social media platforms.

Only hashtags allow similarly-interested folks to find each other—whether they’re on Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, Reddit or elsewhere. It provides a glimpse into what an interoperable, decentralized social web could be like.” — Chris Messina, Inventor of the hashtag

What is the hashtag symbol?

Many social media users and marketers immediately recognize the # symbol as a hashtag, but its official name is an octothorpe. The term was first used in 1971 when telecommunications companies introduced the # symbol to the touch-tone dialing keypad.

However, depending on how you use it, the symbol is called many different names. Before its use on social media, it was most widely known as a pound or number sign (example: #2 pencil). Musicians also use the symbol to distinguish a sharp note (example: F#), while copy editors use it to denote adding a space.

In the early days of the internet, chatroom users referred to the symbol as a “hash,” a word borrowed from programmer culture. That’s where Messina was inspired to repurpose it on Twitter. Since then, the term hashtag has dominated modern popular lexicon.

What is the purpose of a hashtag?

Given the sophistication of today’s social media algorithms, it might be difficult to remember the chaotic social feeds of the early 2000s. Users had limited control over what content they saw and were frustrated by too many uninteresting or irrelevant posts.

Hashtags were invented to help bring order to the social media user experience. Hashtags group together similar conversations to help people find content that matters to them. Once a hashtag is published, it becomes a clickable, searchable link.

For example, when you click on #SummerVibes on TikTok, you can see all videos published on the platform using that hashtag. You can also see the top videos and overall popularity of the hashtag.

What is a hashtag used for?

While organizing feeds was the original purpose of hashtags, their use case has evolved. Now, they empower users to amplify their message. Hashtags have become so powerful they can be the spark that ignites social movements (example: #MeToo, #BlackLivesMatter).

Hashtags aren’t always a force of social change—some viral hashtags are just plain fun. Like #Gentleminions, a TikTok challenge turned cultural phenomenon that led to record-breaking box office numbers for the Minions franchise.

For brands, hashtags can help social marketers reach niche audiences and build community.

According to Messina, “Many more people are interested in finding their community—or growing the one they already run. Hashtags provide a tried and true method across nearly every social media platform.”

Hashtags also help social marketers create viral campaigns, increase brand awareness and reach their business goals.

Why you should use hashtags

Hashtags are powerful tools for growing your online presence. Regardless of which social platform you use them on, here are three ways hashtags can benefit your business:

Increases engagement

You can use hashtags to participate in larger conversations or trending topics, which can increase the reach of your posts, spark conversations and attract even more attention.

For instance, let’s say you’re a sports brand that wants to join in on the conversation around the FIFA World Cup. You can use relevant hashtags such as #WorldCup and #FIFAWorldCup to participate in the larger conversation around the event.

This will help your posts appear in searches and feeds related to the World Cup, increasing your visibility and potential for engagement.

You can also monitor these hashtags and engage with users who are using them. Like and comment on relevant posts, share user-generated content or even run a contest or giveaway using the hashtags to encourage engagement.

But be careful — including spammy, irrelevant, generic and too many hashtags can do more harm than good. Choose your hashtags wisely to reach like-minded audiences, and make sure your content is worth engaging with.

Makes your brand easier to find

Hashtags are a great way to increase brand awareness. They let you categorize your content so anyone interested in that particular topic can easily find it.

For example, let’s say you run a skincare brand and you create a post about your new moisturizer product. By including relevant hashtags such as #skincare, #beauty and #moisturizer in your post, you’re essentially tagging your content with those keywords.

Users who are interested in skincare products or searching for those keywords can find your post (and brand) by searching for those hashtags.

You can also include branded hashtags to help people who are already aware of your brand to easily find specific posts and pages.

Adds additional context to your posts

Hashtags connect your posts to specific topics or themes, making it easier for your audience to find, understand, relate to and engage with your content.

For example, if you’re sharing a new recipe you’ve tried, including hashtags like #recipe can help make your post searchable and differentiate it from other non-recipe food posts.

Similarly, if you’re attending a conference or event, using the event’s official hashtag can help your post get seen by other attendees and people following the event online.

Hashtags are also useful if you’re sharing creative visual content, and want to add the right context without writing long paragraphs of text.

How to find which hashtags to use

Just because a hashtag is popular doesn’t mean it’s the right fit for your brand. Before using a new hashtag, determine your goal (example: increased engagement).

After you have an endgame in mind, start digging into hashtag research. Here are a few ways to find the right hashtags for your brand.

Use a social media listening tool

Tools like RiteTag and Sprout Social’s Listening can help you identify relevant conversations by tracking keywords associated with your brand.

By monitoring these conversations, you can find out what hashtags are being used by your target audience and what topics they’re interested in.

Sprout also lets you track the performance of the hashtags you’re already using by analyzing the number of mentions, engagement and audience sentiment. This is helpful for knowing whether you’re using the right hashtags or need a change of strategy.

Research trending hashtags

Take advantage of trending hashtags to attract more attention to your posts.

Using popular hashtags is also a great way to come up with creative ideas for new content. Plus, it helps your brand become part of a larger community and join the conversation.

So, how do you find trending hashtags in your niche?

Begin by natively researching existing popular and relevant hashtags across apps. Use these hashtag types for inspiration:

• Product or service (example: #Pretzels)
• Industry or community-specific (example: #BookTok)
• Timely or seasonal (example: #NYE)
• Location (example: #Dublin)
• Acronyms (example: #SMMs)

Turn to your social media platform’s trend-specific page to find these.

On Instagram, for example, you can browse the Explore page to see which posts are rising in popularity. Take note of the hashtags they’re using and consider hopping on the bandwagon if they align with your brand.

Other ways to find trending hashtags include using hashtag research tools and keeping track of events, holidays and special occasions.

Review your competition

Studying your competitors’ online strategy is a clever way to find relevant and effective hashtags for your brand.

Start by identifying brands that are similar to yours in terms of offerings, target audience and overall brand image. Then, analyze the hashtags they’re using in their posts, as well as the ones in their bio or profile description.

Look for common themes or topics that are relevant to your brand. Evaluate the engagement level on their posts and shortlist hashtags you might want to “share the space” with.

Don’t forget to track the performance of any competitor hashtags you use in your own posts. Hashtags working for your competition may not work for your brand.

In that case, it’s best to understand your own brand voice, audience and niche, and use more targeted hashtags that resonate with your customers.

Tips for using hashtags

Despite the benefits of hashtags, some marketers are unsure how to use them strategically.

For example, if your goal is to reach a specific audience, adding popular hashtags (example: #ForYouPage) to your posts might cast too wide of a net and fail to connect you with the right people.

To perfect the art of hashtagging, you should conduct research, use hashtags thoughtfully and analyze your results.

Here are some tips for using hashtags to their max potential.

1. Create branded hashtags

You might find creating your own branded hashtag is the best way to reach your goals. Branded hashtags increase visibility, clicks, mentions and overall reach.

Make sure to use your branded hashtag consistently across all of your social media channels. And encourage your followers to use it when they share content related to your brand.

For example, Rare Beauty — Selena Gomez’s makeup brand — started the hashtag #rareroutine to encourage customers to share their beauty routines using Rare Beauty products.

You can also consider running a social media campaign or contest using the hashtag to further promote your brand.

For most brands, using the right mix of popular, niche and brand-specific hashtags is the sweet spot for exposure and engagement.

Above all, it’s most important to identify hashtags that will help your brand stand out from your competitors and contribute toward your unique goals.

2. Use relevant hashtags in your social content

Once you identify which hashtags you’re going to use, it’s time to start adding them to your content. With hashtags, the general rule of thumb is less is more. Avoid stuffing your posts full of hashtags. Not only could this deter people from reading your message, it could also lead the social platform to categorize your posts as spam.

In general, stick to a few hashtags that are relevant to or describe your post. To determine exactly how many hashtags you should use, follow the best practices of each social platform. Keep reading to learn more about platform-specific best practices in the next section of this article.

When you write your copy, customize your hashtag placement according to each platform’s guidelines. Keep in mind that hashtags are hyperlinks. Adding them to the bottom of your captions, descriptions or posts works best to prevent people from clicking away.

3. Analyze and report on your hashtags’ progress

Tracking your hashtags is the most critical thing you can do to make sure they’re impacting your social performance. Monitor key metrics on a regular basis, including:

• Popularity: How many people are using the hashtag?
• Reach: How many people see the hashtag you’re using?
• Interactions: How many people engage (like, share or comment) with posts that include the hashtag?
• Users: Who is seeing the hashtag?

You can find some of this data in the native apps. If you want to automatically generate and visualize it in one place, use a tool like Sprout Social.

In Sprout, there are multiple ways to track the performance of your hashtags. For example, you can use social listening to find out how frequently people are talking about your topic, what related terms they’re using and the sentiment around the topic.

Use data to determine which hashtags work well and which ones don’t. Continue to experiment and test new tags to avoid using the same hashtags on every post—this could register as spam. Instead, keep your best performing hashtags on rotation and try out new ones often.

Using hashtags on different social networks

When using hashtags across your social presence, don’t take a one-size-fits-all approach. Tailor hashtags to suit each platform. Here are up-to-date hashtag best practices you can follow to supercharge your content and grow your reach.

How to use hashtags on Instagram

There are a number of benefits to using hashtags on Instagram. According to Instagram’s Creator Community, IG users should “think of hashtags as a tool that provides context about your post and supports delivering content to people who are interested in a particular topic.”

The Creator Community also lays out these guidelines:

• Only use 3-5 hashtags at a time
• Use hashtags in your posts, comments and Stories
• Only use hashtags relevant to your community and brand

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Sprout Social (@sproutsocial)

How to use hashtags on Facebook

Facebook has steered away from giving explicit best practice advice since introducing hashtags in 2016. This has led some brands to shy away from using them, while others include them in every post.

Based on our research, follow these steps to make hashtags on Facebook work for your brand:

• Only use 1-2 hashtags
• Use hashtags in your posts, comments and Stories
• Use timely hashtags since many users turn to Facebook for news and events

How to use hashtags on TikTok

Some cite TikTok as the ultimate hashtag success story. And there’s no denying the impact hashtags have on growing your reach in the app.

To help your TikTok grow to its fullest potential, use these hashtag best practices:

• Only use 3-5 hashtags
• Use hashtags in your videos and Stories
• Stay on top of emerging, trending hashtags and use them thoughtfully
• Avoid using #ForYou, #FYP and #ForYouPage. If you do use them, proceed with caution.

How to use hashtags on Twitter

Hashtags are baked into Twitter’s DNA. Twitter users turn to the platform to catch up on what’s happening and hashtags make finding the latest content easy. Twitter makes it even easier by displaying trending hashtags and keywords on the homepage.

Use these hashtags tips to help your content perform well on Twitter:

• Only use 1-2 hashtags
• Use hashtags in your Tweets, Retweets and Replies
• Use community-focused hashtags (example: events, conferences, holidays)
• Join current conversations by using popular hashtags and jumping on trends (if it’s a good fit for your brand)

How to use hashtags on LinkedIn

LinkedIn users follow and interact with hashtags that are relevant to their job or industry. Tap into your audience’s go-to hashtags when creating your social content.

LinkedIn is also a great place to roll out your branded hashtags, and encourage your team members to use them too.

When using hashtags on LinkedIn, consider these best practices:

• Only use 2-3 hashtags
• Use hashtags in your posts and on your company page. Note: Hashtags in comments or articles don’t show up in people’s feed.
• Mix well-known and niche, branded hashtags

How to use hashtags on YouTube

Use hashtags on YouTube to help people find your videos. Hashtags boost your searchability and organize your channel, which encourages viewers to stick around.

To encourage more video views, optimize your hashtag usage with these guidelines:

• Only use 3-5 hashtags per video
• Use 1-2 hashtags in your title and the rest in your description

How to use hashtags on Pinterest

Pinterest helps create a personalized experience by sorting all Pins into categories. People look for “pin-spiration” for everything from holiday decor to muscle cars, so adding niche hashtags to your posts make it easier to reach the right audience.

Use these hashtag tips to help your Pins be seen by your intended audience:

• There isn’t official Pinterest data to support the number of hashtags you should use. Use your own discretion and, remember, less is more.
• Use timely hashtags since users are often on Pinterest to gain seasonal ideas
• Make sure your hashtags are relevant to your Pin

Hashtag examples to spark your next big idea

Now that you know how to use hashtags across platforms, here’s our round up of the best ways brands and creators use them.

1. Reference an internet trend

When Casper heard about #GoblinMode—the latest internet trend that celebrates lazing around—they quickly got in on the fun. As a brand known for selling state of the art mattresses, rest and relaxation is part of their ethos.

If you see a new trend that aligns with your brand, use it to inspire your next Tweet. Don’t forget to use the trending hashtag.

2. Use a hashtag for your Q&A

Orgain hosted a live Q&A event and posted their responses to Twitter using #OrganicSummer. The hashtag made it easier for their audience to follow along and engage with their content. It was general enough that it reached a lot of people, but specific enough to attract the right audience.

Are you hosting or participating in an event soon? Be sure to use that event’s hashtag in your promotional content. If there isn’t a hashtag yet, create one.

3. Combine branded and general hashtags

Jenna Kutcher, host of the Goal Digger podcast, is known for her online marketing savvy. In her LinkedIn posts, she uses hashtags that are specific to her brand (example: #GoalDiggerPodcast) and general hashtags her audience might use (example: #Entrepreneurship).

If you’re looking for inspiration for your branded hashtag, consider using the name of an existing campaign, tagline or content series your brand currently uses. The keywords are already associated with your brand, so they’ll be a natural fit.

4. Tag your location

Myles Apparel knows their customers are just as nature-obsessed as they are. Which is why tagging their Instagram images with #Donner makes sense. Donner Summit, California, is a highly-Instagrammable location made for outdoor enthusiasts.

If you’re at a location that’s significant to your audience, add it to your post or Story as a hashtag.

Start using hashtags in your content strategy

The hashtag isn’t dead. In fact, it’s more vital to the success of your content’s performance than ever. By delivering content with the right hashtags, you can forge relationships with your community, build brand awareness and reach your goals on social—and beyond.

Need help determining which hashtags are right for your brand? Use our worksheet to uncover the hashtags that have the greatest impact on your content.

The post Hashtags: What they are and how to use them effectively appeared first on Sprout Social.

For example, maybe you’re completely loyal to the airline whose customer service rep magically found you the perfect flight. Even in the face of price increases and flight cancellations, you’ll never book with another airline again.

On the other hand, you might still be furious at the furniture company that delivered the wrong items to your home and refused to refund you. Even after five years, nothing can persuade you to end your boycott of the brand.

Many of us know firsthand that poor social customer service has consequences, and the data agrees. According to The Sprout Social Index™, when brands take too long to respond, 36% of consumers share their negative experience with friends and family, 31% won’t complete their purchase and 30% buy from a competitor instead.

Only the brands that go above and beyond for their customers receive enviable brand loyalty. In this article, we’re breaking down the essential social media customer service metrics you need to track to ensure you provide exceptional service and care on social. As customer service inquiries continue to increase on the channel, up-leveling your efforts will help you future-proof your business and stand out from your competition.

What are social media customer service metrics?

Social media customer service metrics are data points that help you tell the story of how well your customer care efforts are satisfying your customers. These metrics uncover what your social customer care team is doing well, where there are opportunities to improve and what tools are needed to fill those gaps. Social customer service metrics can be grouped into three categories: speed and efficiency, volume and team productivity, and sentiment.

Social customer support data also reveals how your support strategy on social fits into the omnichannel customer experience your brand provides. Using data empowers you to answer questions like:

• Where are our customers most likely to make service inquiries?
• How satisfied are our customers with the support we provide on social? How does it compare to other channels?
• What are our customers’ most common questions?
• Where in the funnel are our customers most likely to get stuck?

How to use customer service metrics to level-up your org-wide performance

Tapping into customer service metrics will help evolve your approach to customer care. With these findings, you will be on track to cultivate an emotional connection with your audience, build brand loyalty and foster customer retention and advocacy.

But the use of these metrics goes beyond improving the customer experience. Social media customer service metrics have the power to transform the way you do business—from refining product development to building your company-wide strategy. For example, the team at Grammarly uses incoming customer support messages to surface valuable user stories for their product and user experience teams, as well as company leadership.

And they’re not alone. In a Gartner online survey of 283 customer service and support leaders from August–October 2022, 84% of customer service and service support leaders cited customer data and analytics as “very or extremely important” for achieving their organizational goals in 2023.

Customer insights gleaned from service interactions on social are your “secret sauce” for building cross-functional collaboration at your company. Let’s get into the 10 specific metrics you need to monitor, and how you can track them with Sprout Social.

Speed and efficiency customer service metrics

How quickly your brand responds on social media contributes to your reputation for providing good customer service. According to Index data, while more than three-quarters of consumers expect a response in the first 24 hours of reaching out to a brand on social, 57% actually expect a response within the first hour.

Measuring your team’s response rate efficiency is imperative. Look to the following metrics to help benchmark and improve your performance.

1. Average first reply time

Average first reply time refers to the time it takes for your team to send out the first reply to an inbound customer message within business hours.

2. Average reply wait time

Measuring the time to your first response is just the beginning. Average reply time reveals how long customers wait in between responses until their issues are resolved, which is equally important.

For example, if it took five minutes for you to reply to their first message, and 10 minutes to reply to their second, the average reply wait time would be seven minutes.

How to track these in Sprout Social

In Sprout Social, the Smart Inbox unifies all your incoming messages into a single stream, enabling you to monitor incoming messages, foster conversations and respond to your audience quickly. The Inbox also creates multiple reports that visualize and contextualize your team’s customer service performance.

The Inbox Team Report enables you to evaluate your brand’s reply times at a team level and distill the metrics down by team member. The report also demonstrates median first reply times, slowest reply times, unique messages replied to and total replies listed by team members.

Use these insights to evaluate agent response performance more accurately, identify bottlenecks within your team’s workflows and closely monitor each agent’s activity for quality assurance or training purposes.

By using features like this in Sprout, MeUndies reduced their average response time to less than 20 minutes.

Volume and team productivity customer service metrics

High-quality customer service isn’t just about response times. You must also demonstrate that you’re resolving all customers’ problems, questions and inquiries that require comprehensive support solutions. To do this, compare your productivity data to your overall volume and social media customer service stats in your industry.

3. Total received messages

The number of total received messages indicates how many total customer messages landed in your inbox.

4. Total replies or response volume

This figure represents the total number of responses your team sends to customers.

5. Reply or response rate

Response rate is the rate that brands respond to messages or comments that they receive on a daily basis. Not every single comment or message will need a response, and the amount you need to respond depends on the needs of your customers.

Social media response rates vary by industry, with an average overall response rate of 34%. The consumer products, health, wellness and fitness, retail and food and beverage industries are leading response rates by responding to over half of all incoming customer messages.

6. Resolution rate

Resolution rate—the percentage of customer inquiries that are fully resolved—reveals how equipped your entire company is to address customer inquiries. This data illustrates how well your internal teams collaborate to find solutions for customers in a timely manner. It’s calculated by dividing the number of total actioned messages by the total number of messages.

How to track these in Sprout Social

The Inbox Activity Report provides a holistic view of your team’s social care efforts by presenting trends of incoming message volume and identifying the rate and speed of actions taken on messages by your teams. This report answers how much your team is accomplishing in the Smart Inbox.

You can also use the Task Performance Report to measure your team’s productivity and efficiency based on task management. The report compares the number of assigned tasks with the total completed tasks.

Sentiment customer service metrics

With so much valuable performance data, it might be tempting to zero-in on ways you can optimize your social customer care strategy. But don’t forget about the big picture. The insights you gain from your customer interactions are integral to your entire company’s strategy. Maximize the impact of your direct access to the customer by sharing sentiment analysis data companywide.

7. Most used quick replies

If you use a chatbot to optimize customer interactions on social, most used quick replies refer to the most commonly selected options. Use this data point to identify customer support trends, and optimize your customer service process to address these common requests quickly.

8. Most received topics and subtopics

The keywords or themes that pop up in your inbox often are your most received topics and subtopics. Tracking these topics and subtopics is challenging without the use of a tagging system or machine learning capabilities—however, tuning into them is essential for learning about your audience.

9. Positive and negative sentiment

Sentiment trends tell you a lot about what your customers think about your brand, products and services. Overall, sentiment can be described as generally positive or negative. Although that doesn’t encompass the full context of a customer’s experience, it does help you track and maintain a healthy ratio of positive sentiment, and be on the lookout for changes over time.

10. Voice of the customer data

Social media could be described as the world’s largest focus group. It unlocks an unprecedented amount of voice of the customer data, which helps you get to know your customers’ behavior, pain points, preferences and needs on a deeper level. This customer service metric is less quantifiable, but nonetheless rich in value.

How to track these in Sprout Social

When you receive incoming messages in Sprout’s Smart Inbox, you are able to add tags that indicate the content of the messages. For example, you can tag for audience type or service issue. Tagging your messages will enable you to visualize trends and report findings.

You can also use Sprout’s artificial intelligence-powered listening tools to uncover sentiment trends from the Inbox. Listening tools make it easy to track changes in sentiment, which empower you to share reports in a timely manner—and act on negative sentiment before it’s too late.

Provide your customers with an unforgettable social customer service experience

Whether you’re part of a social media team handling social support, part of a dedicated support team or somewhere in between, ground yourself in your goals for customer service. Then, as you measure performance and social media customer care metrics, you can adjust and better cater to your customers.

Try Sprout Social free for 30 days to start gathering these insights and get to know your customers on a deeper level.

The post The social media customer service metrics that experts measure appeared first on Sprout Social.

Don’t panic—no robot can replace a diligent customer service professional. They can, however, quickly handle the frequently asked questions that eat at your team’s bandwidth and leave less time for more pressing support needs.

The consequences of long wait times for high-touch issues can quickly reach your business’s bottom line. According to The Sprout Social Index™ 2022, 36% of consumers say they’ll share a negative support experience with friends and family. A comparable 31% won’t complete their purchase, while 30% will buy from a competitor instead.

Humans and bots can work together to keep customers happy, even as expectations climb. In this article, we’ll cover everything you need to know about customer service chatbots, including tips on implementing a bot strategy that sounds anything but artificial.

• What are customer service chatbots?
• Using chatbots for customer service: The pros and cons
• 3 Examples of companies using customer service chatbots
• How to set up customer service chatbots in Sprout
• 3 Tips on customer service chatbot copywriting

What are customer service chatbots?

A customer service chatbot is a conversational commerce tool that provides customer assistance via text chat, voice command or both. Brands implement these chatbots on their websites and social messaging platforms like Facebook and Twitter DMs.

Self-service options like chatbots empower customers to problem solve on-demand so that reps can focus on more complex support needs.

There are two different types of customer service chatbots:

• Machine-learning AI chatbots
• Rules-based chatbots

What are AI chatbots?

Machine-learning AI chatbots are programmed to self-learn as they’re introduced to new words, questions, sources of information and dialogue. These bots learn over time—the accuracy of their service improves as the volume of messages they engage with increases.

Amazon Alexa is one of the most famous examples of this bot type. If you have one in your home and think it’s becoming more attuned to your habits and preferences, it’s because she is.

These kinds of bots drive the dialogue and use context clues, embedded skills and conversation history to improve user experiences over time.

What are rule-based chatbots?

Then, there are rule-based chatbots, which follow a series of rules like a flowchart to drive a conversation. Rule-based customer service chatbots are often used for straightforward tasks such as providing basic information, answering frequently asked questions or performing simple transactions.

Rule-based bots give you more control over how your chatbots operate at every stage of the interaction.

Using chatbots for customer service: The pros and cons

The benefits of chatbots in customer service are enormous, but that doesn’t mean they are without limitations. Here are the pros and cons you need to know.

Con: Bots can only deal with limited scenarios

Rule-based chatbots can’t address questions or concerns outside of their defined rules. That’s why they’re best suited for straightforward support needs.

If customers need help outside of the chatbot’s scope, how your team responds and picks up where the bot left off becomes critical. There’s nothing more frustrating—and churn-inducing—than getting passed from bot to bot before receiving a higher tier of support.

Pro: Bots deliver instant responses

Customer service chatbots can increase overall customer satisfaction by boosting your team’s speed and efficiency.

According to the 2022 Salesforce State of the Connected Customer Report, 83% of consumers expect to interact with someone immediately when they contact a company. Once they hit send, you’re on the clock.

Self-service support options like chatbots help your business reach the new gold standard of care. These tools solve common support requests before they make it to your team’s ticket queue, satisfying customers and streamlining your work.

Con: Bots can make customer service experiences repetitive and circular

Earlier, I mentioned rule-based chatbots operate similarly to a flowchart. Have you ever seen a flow chart with way too many options? The path to your final result probably felt endless.

An over-complicated bot strategy can evoke this same feeling for your customers. When self-service support stops being intuitive and starts feeling like a job, customer satisfaction is sure to take a hit. Prevent this by routinely auditing your scripts and rules so the experience stays fresh and up-to-date.

Pro: Bots can provide service outside of business hours

Unlike chatbots, people have lives that need to be lived! If you’re one of the many social media managers or customer service reps who loses sleep over missed messages, chatbots can help you rest easy.

Our team isn’t necessarily monitoring social media 24/7. If people need to reach out to us overnight, chatbots allow us to provide customers with an immediate response.

Carollyn Montales
Online Community Management Senior Specialist at Southern California Edison

Read the Case Study

If your business prefers to have mostly human-to-human interactions with your audience, using chatbots for customer service can help you fill the gaps during off hours. A simple, automated message letting customers know when they can expect a response is often enough to make them feel seen and heard until someone’s back on the clock.

Con: Bots can only offer the basics

In a bot’s eyes, we’re all equal. That sounds nice, but it can be an affront to loyal or influential customers seeking a more human interaction.

At the end of the day, your reps are best-suited for providing tailored care experiences that exceeds expectations. Timely chatbot responses keep customers satisfied. Authentic customer care experiences drive loyalty and word-of-mouth praise.

Pro: Bots help scale your customer care team operations

Phone, email, app, chat, text, DM—there is a never-ending list of ways that customers can reach out to your team. If you’re going to work successfully across multiple channels and technologies while offering quality experiences, you need to embrace automation.

Chatbots quickly answer FAQs and repetitive messages, so your team can shift their focus toward more pressing, complex challenges. The results of that teamwork are quicker issue resolution and happier humans on both sides of the conversation.

3 Examples of companies using customer service chatbots

Chatbot support adoption spread quickly. It’s easy to forget that just a few decades ago, the practice would have sounded like something straight out of a science fiction novel. Now, leading brands are supplementing their care approach to scale their operations, providing customers with high quality support faster.

Let’s see what those bots look like in action. Here’s how businesses are getting the most out of customer service chatbots on their website, as well as on Facebook and Twitter.

1. Domino’s

Domino’s has been a customer experience innovator since the launch of Domino’s Pizza Tracker® back in 2008. Their dedication to proactively addressing customer concerns—even simple ones like “I wonder when my pizza will get here?”—keeps their approach a cut above the rest.

The brand’s approach to bot support further enriches their approach by supporting the end-to-end customer experience. It helps visitors place and track their orders without requiring app downloads or sign-ups, creating a frictionless experience that makes it easy to order again and again.

2. Caesars Sportsbook

Who says a chatbot can’t make you feel like royalty? If you don’t believe it, check out Caesars Sportsbook’s Twitter customer service strategy. Their DM bot builds transparency between their support teams and their customers, all while offering the emperor treatment.

When you message Caesars Sportsbook, the bot immediately prompts you to provide all the relevant details needed for quality support. The instructions request just enough information to prevent time-consuming back-and-forth between customers and support agents without putting too much work on either party.

3. Corelle

Corelle dishware is known for being as beautiful as it is strong. You could say the same thing about their Facebook customer service chatbot.

The bot creates transparency by clearly identifying itself as a bot while setting expectations on when and how one can reach human support. If customers proceed with the chatbot, they can choose from four other unique prompts to push the conversation along. Those prompts include “order support”, “product support”, “shopping help” and “feedback”.

These conversation paths drive quick, convenient solutions for simple problems 24/7, so agents can focus their working hours on the complex issues only they can solve.

How to set up customer service chatbots in Sprout

Sprout Social users can use our Bot Builder to create, preview and deploy chatbots on Twitter and Facebook in a matter of minutes.

In the Bot Builder, you can create a chatbot from scratch or use a template to help you get started.

Whether you’re starting with a blank canvas or using a template, the first steps are the same. Select which profile you want your chatbot to monitor. Then, give your bot a name, an avatar and a description.

Once you click save, you’ll be brought to the screen where you’ll configure the chatbot. If you select a template, a decision tree with predetermined rules and script options will automatically populate in the configuration stage. You can run with it as is or add additional rules and completely customize the copy so the bot sounds and feels more on-brand. If you’re starting from scratch, you’ll need to build out your own script and decision tree based on “Bot Says” this and “User Clicks” that logic.

Each chatbot interaction starts with a welcome message that greets users when they send a direct message to your brand. In addition to text, you can add photos, GIFs and up to three call-to-action buttons in your welcome message.

From there, you can edit or add quick replies and menu options that users click to prompt an auto-response and reach the next step in the bot-driven conversation. Once you’ve added all the necessary layers and considerations, click the eye icon along the right rail to preview and interact with your chatbot before activating it.

For more guidance on how to set up chatbots and streamline customer care in Sprout, check out this learning portal lesson available to all Sprout customers and users in trial.

Customer-to-chatbot interactions will stream directly into the Smart Inbox, supporting seamless handoff between bot and human support. If you’re using Sprout’s integration with Salesforce, you can gain a 360-degree understanding of specific customer experiences in just a few clicks. Combined, these two tools pave a clear path for high-quality customer engagement.

Turn to the Chatbot Report for more real-time bot strategy enhancements. This report features key metrics like Interaction Volume, Most Used Quick Replies and Bot Messages Sent. Combined, they help you get a more accurate picture of how people are actually interacting with your bot and where there are opportunities for improvement.

3 Tips on customer service chatbot copywriting

Chatbots can’t provide that human touch, but that doesn’t mean they have to sound entirely mechanical either. Your scripts can turn a bot interaction into a memorable, on-brand experience. It’s not about pretending bots are human, but writing their scripts so customers have a positive experience interacting with them.

1. Introduce your chatbot

Some people still have their reservations about chatbot support. Their skepticism is valid—a poor chatbot experience can quickly go from “helpful” to “hassle”.

Getting your customers to embrace bot support starts with transparency. Use an introductory message to set expectations on what your chatbot can help with from the get-go. That way, customers can opt-out of the chatbot experience and wait for a human source if they want to.

2. Give your chatbot  a personality

A lot of brands worry that chatbots sound, well, too robotic. But with tools like Sprout’s Bot Builder, you can dictate what your bot sounds like, so why not give it a personality?

Remember SmarterChild, the snarky yet informative AOL instant messenger chatbot? By today’s standards, it’s a rudimentary chatbot, but it had a sarcastic personality that at its peak entertained 250,000 people per day.

Personality is more than just how your chatbot ‘speaks.’ Sometimes brands will humanize their chatbot by giving it a name so the conversation feels more personable.

3. Keep your chatbot simple

Remember chatbots aren’t meant to replace humans, but to complement them. Even if you inject personality into your chatbot, keep your copy simple.

The ultimate goal is for chatbots to be helpful and provide solutions. Overly flowery language, metaphors and $10 words will just complicate things for your customers. As you’re writing chatbot copy, lean into instinct and talk like a human would.

Get started with customer service chatbots

Using chatbots for customer service creates a win-win-win situation. Customers get speedy, efficient support for their most common issues, agents get to focus on the complex work only they can handle and businesses reap the benefits of increased satisfaction on both ends.

With help from Sprout’s Bot Builder, you can smash previous reply rate records on critical social customer service channels like Facebook and Twitter. Find out how it can complement your customer care strategy by starting a free, 30-day trial today.

The post Customer service chatbots: How to create and use them for social media appeared first on Sprout Social.

That said, writing great blog posts consistently can be a bit of a challenge, especially if you’re new to it. In this guide, we give you 17 essential blogging tips to jumpstart your brand’s blog.

Let’s jump right in.

1. Choose the right niche for your blog

When you’re just starting out, it’s important to focus your efforts on one specific niche. This will help you establish a presence in said niche and build your initial readership.

Start with a broad topic that’s relevant to your business. Then break this up into more specific sub-topics so you can narrow down a niche that’s perfect for you.

For example, if your company creates various marketing tools, marketing would be a broad topic relevant to your business. But instead of writing about general marketing topics, you can focus on subtopics related to the tools you provide. This may include email marketing, social media marketing and search engine marketing.

2. Research your audience

You may be writing content that’s relevant to your business, but who are you really writing for? One of the first tips blogging tips we can share is to ensure that you know exactly who your target audience is. This will set the precedent for how the rest of your blogging strategy should look.

When you establish who your audience is, it becomes easier to understand their needs, interests and pain points. You’ll then be able to create a blogging strategy that resonates with them.

3. Draw inspiration from competitor blogs

An important blogging tip for beginners is to look at what your competitors are doing. What topics are they writing about? How are they discussing key topics? This should give you some inspiration on what to write about and which topics are performing well.

Tools like Ahrefs’ Site Explorer and BuzzSumo give you a detailed analysis of your competitors’ content. With these tools, you’ll be able to search specific URLs and see which pages are doing well based on the number of social shares.

4. Blog about topics your audience is searching for

While competitor blogs are a great source of inspiration, don’t rely on those alone. Your competitors could be missing out on a number of topics that your audience really wants to learn about. So make sure to do some research to specifically see what your audience is searching for.

Answer the Public and Google Keyword Planner are some of the leading tools that will let you conduct keyword research for free. SEMrush is an even more robust option that offers a dedicated topic research tool. This blogging tip helps you discover topics that resonate with your audience and get actionable tips on which keywords to use.

Before creating content based on these topics, make sure you try to understand search intent. This would involve understanding the “why” behind the search.

Look up the most popular blog posts for the search term and see what others are creating. See which formats and angles seem to be dominating the search results. This can give you a sense of how you can create a blog post that satisfies the search intent for that query.

5. Create a publishing calendar for your blog

Consistency is the key to achieving blogging success. You want to produce high-quality content regularly so your readers know they can depend on you. One of the best blogging tips to ensure publishing consistency is creating an editorial calendar.

Your publishing calendar provides an outline of all the topics you plan to tackle over the next few weeks. This ensures that you never run out of ideas and that you always have something to write about. It even lays out a publishing timeline so you can stay on track with your blogging efforts.

6. Leverage data to plan your blog

Data is the perfect tool to enhance your blogging strategy. For starters, it provides valuable insights on what to write about and how often you should publish. This would involve looking at data on which topics and blog types are performing well with your audience.

Moreover, you can plan your publishing frequency by testing different variations to see what works best. For example, you might notice that maintaining a weekly posting schedule is ideal to engage your readers.

On top of this, data helps you back up your claims and create more persuasive content. This blogging tip is an effective way to boost the credibility of blog posts and gain a loyal readership.

7. Vary your blog types

Writing about the same old topics in the same old way can get boring after a while. Keep your readers engaged and intrigued by diversifying your content types.

Start by playing around with different blog formats. Here are a few ideas you can use:

• Listicles
• How-to’s
• Comparison posts
• Guides
• Mistakes to avoid
• Thought leadership pieces
• Interviews
• FAQs
• Infographics

For example, the Canva blog uses a wide variety of blog formats–from listicles to informative guides to how-to posts.

8. Take advantage of repurposed content

While we’re on the topic, it’s a good idea to make the most of content repurposing. Consider repurposing other content types for your blog. For example, you could turn your Facebook Live interview session into a blog post.

Alternatively, you can repurpose your blog posts into short videos and infographics. This will make it easier to promote the post via other platforms.

9. Create compelling headlines

The content of your blog post may be the part that provides your readers with actual value. But it’s the headline that’ll get them to read it in the first place. So writing compelling, attention-grabbing headlines is a can’t-miss blogger tip.

You can try out different formulas to find the perfect mix. In general, this would involve an adjective, a keyword and a promise. Then use the free Headline Analyzer from MonsterInsights to test the strength of your headlines. This tool scores your headline and provides suggestions on how to improve it.

10. Include visuals

No one likes to read huge blocks of text (at least not on the internet). When your blog posts only have text content, it’s easy for readers to lose interest in the middle. Try retaining their engagement with visuals to break up your text.

Data visualization is one of the best ways to include visuals in your blog posts. You can even include visual examples and screenshots to get your message across more effectively.

11. Incorporate a linking strategy

A strong linking strategy is essential to improve your blog’s authority and ranking in Google’s search engine result pages. You need to consider three main types of links for your strategy:

• Backlinks – These are links coming to your site from other websites. The best way to collect them is by writing high-quality blog posts that others would want to link back to.
• Internal links – These are links in your blog posts that connect to other pages or articles within your own website. They help to enhance the user experience by allowing them to easily explore other relevant content on your site.
• External links – These are links to third-party websites. They help to add credibility to your claims by connecting them to the original source.

12. Invest in your blog’s design

Besides the visuals in your blog posts, the overall design of your blog matters when you’re trying to engage your audience. Your blog should be easy to navigate and should be appealing to the eyes. Make the most of thumbnails, blog categories and white space to achieve this. For example, the Slack blog uses plenty of white space and attractive thumbnails.

13. Create content worth sharing

Your readers can be a powerful resource for promoting your blog content. But to make the most of this resource, you need to create content that’s worth sharing.

This would involve creating content that addresses your readers’ needs and common pain points. Back it up with actionable information and up-to-date data so readers will feel inclined to share the post with their network.

14. Write for readers but with SEO in mind

One of the most important blogging tips is to remember that you’re writing for readers first. So it’s crucial to keep readability in mind when writing your blog posts.

The easiest way to do this is by writing like you talk. Use a conversational tone so that when people read the post, they’ll feel like you’re talking to them. Additionally, use short paragraphs and break up long sentences to ensure that the post is easy to read.

At the same time, you should still keep SEO in mind when writing your posts. Follow essential SEO tips such as using subheadings and links where appropriate.

15. Promote your content

A creative content promotion strategy will contribute to your blog’s success. Promote your latest blog posts to attract more readers and drive engagement.

Email newsletters are an effective way to promote your blog content. In addition, leverage social media marketing to share your posts with a bigger audience. According to a SEMrush survey, 73% of respondents use social media to promote their content.

However, with videos and images being the most engaging types of social media content, your link posts may not get too many clicks. Consider sharing key takeaways and facts from the post through short videos and original graphics. This will help to drive more readers to your blog.

On top of this, make sure you’re posting at the right time to drive more engagements. Sprout Social’s publishing tools will help you discover the best time to post. You can even schedule your posts to automatically go out at optimal times, so you don’t miss out on key opportunities.

16. Consider updating older content

Google loves fresh content. So if you have tons of blog posts with outdated information, it’s going to look bad for your SEO.

You need to update your older content regularly to keep things fresh. This may involve replacing older data with newer ones. Plus, you should update your tips and instructions based on the current landscape and the latest industry changes.

17. Use analytics to track performance

Finally, keep a close eye on how your blog posts are performing. The data from these efforts will inform how to improve your blogging strategy.

For instance, you’ll be able to see which blog formats your readers love the most. You can then update your editorial calendar to include more of these formats in the future.

Start putting these blogging tips into action

The blogging tips we’ve shared above can give you the jumpstart you need to grow your brand. Make the most of them to build a new blogging strategy from scratch or fine-tune an existing one. Additionally, get help from Sprout’s publishing tools to support your blog promotion efforts.

The post 17 blogging tips to jumpstart your brand’s blog appeared first on Sprout Social.

As content marketing has grown over the years, it has incorporated many different types of content across platforms. This means brands need a diverse strategy to incorporate everything from SEO (search engine optimization) to social media management.

In this comprehensive piece, you’ll learn how to create a content marketing strategy and where it fits within each stage of the marketing funnel. You will also find examples of brands creating dynamic content to execute innovative content strategies.

• What is content marketing?
• Who is involved in content marketing & what do they do?
• Crafting a successful content marketing strategy
• Where does content marketing fit into the marketing pipeline?
• 3 Content marketing examples to inspire you

What is content marketing?

Content marketing is the process of creating and distributing valuable content to attract new leads and convert them into customers.

Content helps you answer relevant questions from your customers or talk about topics of interest using social media, blogs, videos or emails. This creates trust and inspires your customers to look to you for advice.

When you distribute this curated content to your customers, they know exactly what to expect from you. And during the purchasing phase, they’ll recall your brand above your competitors.

Overall, content marketing is a long-term strategy that helps you become more competitive. Some of its key business benefits are:

• Increases your online visibility when you post relevant content with frequency
• Boosts loyalty as you become a trusted source of information
• Generates more leads as you target specific customer stages
• Builds relationships with customers when your product or service solves their problems
• Creates awareness around your brand mission and values

Who is involved in content marketing & what do they do?

Content marketing is a process that involves multiple steps, from content ideation and creation to optimization and distribution. This is why you need a well-structured content marketing team that can adapt to new formats and your audience’s preferences.

There are many different ways to staff a content team, but here are the most common roles and responsibilities tied to each one.

Content strategist

A content strategist manages the content marketing strategy for a business, ensuring every piece of content supports an overall goal. They also plan, design, create, edit and publish content that aligns with their audience’s needs.

Professionals in this role handle all elements of a content marketing strategy and are supported by a team of content creators and experts. Here are some of the responsibilities that fall within the content strategist role:

• Researches and analyzes customer trends to get in-depth knowledge about industry topics.
• Develops content strategies that move qualified leads through the marketing funnel.
• Collaborates with the content team to implement the content marketing strategy.
• Measures and reports the performance of the content marketing strategy efforts with analytics tools.

SEO strategist

The SEO strategist identifies opportunities to optimize content for search engines. Their goal is to drive more organic traffic to your website. This is why they’re in charge of implementing the SEO factor into your content marketing strategy.

Here are some of the responsibilities of an SEO strategist:

• Performs competitive keyword research to identify relevant searches that target all stages of the marketing funnel.
• Creates content briefs that guide writers on the organic requirements of a content piece.
• Follows on-page, off-page and technical SEO best practices for website pages.
• Monitors metrics that summarize your organic search performance to inform opportunities for optimization.

Content creators

Content creators generate the content that fuels your content marketing strategy. They follow your instructions to create high-quality content pieces that meet your needs.

Some content creator roles and their responsibilities include:

• Writers: Create long and short-form content with proper spelling, grammar and follow on-page SEO best practices. They develop written content that combines storytelling and brand guidelines to educate, persuade or engage with your audience. Some types of content they write are ad copy, website copy, ebooks or whitepapers.
• Graphic designers: Crafts striking visuals that capture the interest of your audience. They create a variety of content (charts, logos, graphics, etc.) that line up with your brand’s visual identity to synthesize content in a shareable format that goes beyond text.
• Video editors: Edits raw video content by cutting footage and improving audio. They use storyboarding and scripts to create videos for social and other platforms.

Editors

Editors review every piece of content made by the content marketing team to ensure it’s error-free and meets a high standard of quality. They also make sure content aligns with brand guidelines to create a cohesive brand identity and experience. They’re often the key to scaling content production through freelancers, as they can maintain quality while increasing quantity.

These are some of the responsibilities of an editor:

• Checks word choice, style, tone and brand voice on every piece of content.
• Manages the editorial calendar so scheduled content is published on time.
• Collaborates with content creators to deliver high-quality content pieces.
• Edits/writes existing and new content.

Social media manager

A social media manager promotes your content marketing assets on social media channels to build an audience and direct them back to your website. They have extensive knowledge of social media marketing strategies to improve the chances of your audience engaging with your brand.

Here are some responsibilities that fall within the social media manager role:

• Monitors and reports the performance of your social media marketing efforts.
• Grows your brand’s social media community by actively posting and engaging with your audience.
• Repurposes content for social media platforms in which your brand is present.
• Studies trends and audience behavior to drive new social media content strategies.

Crafting a successful content marketing strategy

It’s important to note that before crafting a strategy, you should come up with a content marketing plan. This helps you define what success means so you can achieve specific goals.

Here are some principles to follow when creating a content marketing strategy:

• Define your brand offering and positioning: Understand what makes you different from your competition so you can structure and define your brand’s messaging. This helps you clearly communicate your value proposition, which is necessary to make your brand distinguishable.
• Identify your audience: After forming your brand personality, it is important to know who you’re going to communicate with. Knowing your audience allows you to create content tailored to their needs and interests.
• Research your competitors: When you release your content, it’s not only you and your audience out there. You have competition. Researching them helps you identify the strategies or content they’re using, so you can come up with something better.
• Measure your results and polish your strategy: Your content marketing strategy won’t always be the same. It will evolve. That’s why you have to measure your results, identify what works and what doesn’t to polish your strategy as needed.
• Create valuable and relevant content: Ultimately, delivering content that helps or educates your audience about topics of relevance to them is a vital part of a content marketing strategy. So make sure your content resonates.

Aside from these principles, here are channels and formats that will often support your content marketing strategy:

• Social media profiles: Your social media profile puts your brand out there so you can reach out to a broader audience. Initially, social media was a place for connection by igniting conversations, but it has grown to be much more. Now, social media platforms act as distribution channels for content, ideas and movements or even as a way for small businesses to promote their products against larger organizations.
• Blog: A blog provides information to your audience and builds a stronger relationship between them and your brand. Blogs are a great way to boost your brand awareness and repurpose content to use on your social media. It also helps companies stay relevant to industry topics their audience is interested in.
• Email: This is a direct line of communication between you and your audience to share valuable and personalized content. Your subscribers can get news or promotions from you in just seconds, which makes it an affordable and fast way of communication. Also, emails can be automated and scheduled to be sent at optimal times based on different time zones.
• Videos: Videos tell the viewer a story that’s often educational, entertaining and digestible. This is why it helps companies reach their audience across platforms while inviting them to engage. Video has also become an accessible format thanks to video-sharing platforms and mobile devices.
• Paid advertising: This is the fastest way to make potential customers aware of your brand and the services you provide. Paid advertising allows brands to target very specific audiences. When you use sponsored posts on social media platforms you can choose the age, gender, location or interests of your audience to make sure your content reaches potential customers.

Where does content marketing fit into the marketing pipeline?

Content marketing can fit into every part of the marketing funnel. When you approach content marketing as a strategy, you’ll want to note where each type of content fits in.

This section will cover the type of content that fits in the awareness, consideration, conversion/decision, loyalty and advocacy stages.

Awareness stage

In the awareness stage, your audience has a need, but might not know that there’s a solution for it. That’s why in this stage, you address their pain points, challenges and questions.

The best type of content you can provide in the awareness stage is informational and educative, which includes:

• How-to guides
• “What is” blog posts
• Webinars to answer common questions
• Industry reports
• Informative infographics
• Educational videos
• User-generated content (UGC)

For example, for a payment software, this content might look like an article explaining how to do your taxes or a short video with tax hacks to post on social. In this stage, content is informational and educative to appeal to a larger audience and build new connections.

Consideration stage

In the consideration stage, your audience is aware of the need and is considering different solutions. They want to make sure they’re getting a high-quality product at a good price along with great customer service. This is why you have to gain their trust.

The best type of content you can provide in the consideration stage is detailed information on how your product features can solve your customers’ needs. This type of content might look like:

• Problem/solution whitepapers
• Webinars to showcase your product

Using the payment software again as an example, you might host a webinar about using your payment software to ensure safe checkouts for customers. Also, you can record the webinar and post key moments on your social with a recap of key takeaways and a link back to the recording on your website for further visibility.

Conversion/Decision stage

In the conversion/decision stage, your leads are about to pick a product or service. In this stage, you want to make sure to convince them that you’re the best option.

The best type of content you can provide for the conversion/decision stage is social proof. This type of content looks like:

• Testimonials from happy customers
• Case studies

As an example, it can be a testimonial of your payment software from a recognized business to generate more trust.

Loyalty stage

Once you’ve made your sale, you need to keep nurturing your customers to create a stronger relationship. If you abandon your new customers, chances are they will turn to your competition.

The best type of content you can provide for the loyalty stage is instructional guides or videos so they can make the best use of your product. This type of content includes:

• Video tutorials
• Buyer’s guide
• How-to blog posts featuring your product
• Interactive content on social (like quizzes, videos or GIFs)

Going back to the payment software example, you can create an article about how to set up automatic payments with your software.

Advocacy stage

In the advocacy stage, you want your loyal customers to become advocates of your brand. A great brand experience can inspire them to recommend you to their friends. And according to The Sprout Social Index™, 39% of consumers like to see customer testimonials as they consider these trustworthy.

The best type of content for the advocacy stage keeps your customers engaged, but also rewards for spreading the word about your product. This type of content looks like:

• Exclusive content (like insider how-to guides)
• Special offers
• Contests and giveaways
• Referral programs

In the payment software example, you can incentivize your customers to recommend your software to friends by offering a month free for every friend that starts using your software.

3 content marketing examples to inspire you

Remember, content marketing is a combination of the right content, the right distribution and the right strategy. Let’s take a look at how three brands use content marketing to hit all these marks.

Rare Beauty by Selena Gomez

Rare Beauty is a makeup brand that wants you to feel good about using makeup without hiding what makes you unique. This brand leverages email and social media to increase reach and build trust among their audience with the following strategies:

• Rare Beauty uses TikTok to share beauty hacks featuring their products. This helps them reach a wider audience by introducing their brand through trending topics and interests.

  @rarebeauty

  @cynth_pop wears Liquid Touch Weightless Foundation in 320W. #foundationhack #makeuphacks #beautyhacks #rarebeauty

  ♬ original sound – Rare Beauty

• Once visitors land on their website, they can sign up for their email list and text messages with the promise of a discount. Subscribers receive promotions and cart reminders that persuade them to buy. This tactic helps Rare Beauty achieve more sales while staying relevant to their audience.
• Rare Beauty collects user-generated content (UGC) to promote their products and create trust with their audience. They invite audiences to post photos on Instagram about Rare Beauty makeup with the #RareRoutine tag for a chance to be featured on their channel. This generates tons of social proof, which they use and caption with the specific makeup products used.

Growth Hackers

Growth Hackers is a software development company that offers growth management software to collect and analyze data to scale their experimentation process. They use B2B content marketing to reach a more professional audience with LinkedIn, email and webinars while building a community of experts. Here is how they use content to excute this:

• Growth Hackers promotes events, webinars and workshops on their LinkedIn profile to meet their audience where they’re at while educating them about growth experimentation. This increases their reach and brings new members to their Growth Hackers community.
• Once potential customers join their community, they get weekly newsletters with the best content from the Growth Hackers community. Also, they can join discussions about industry topics and keep up with events where they showcase how their product and thought leadership support customers’ needs. This helps Growth Hackers build relationships of trust with their customers, as they’re part of a community. It’s also a way of nurturing customers to the decision stage and turn them into loyal customers or advocates of the brand.

Function of Beauty

Function of Beauty is a hair care brand that provides customized hair formulas based on your hair type and goals. This brand uses social media and interactive content to reach its audience while customizing their experience. Here’s how they do it:

• Function of Beauty uses Instagram and TikTok to share hair tips, news and use cases of their products. This increases their reach and positions them as an authority for hair advice. Also, they make the buyer’s journey as frictionless as possible by including “shoppable” content on their Instagram account. This increases the chances of customers going from inspired to buyer in a shorter amount of time.

• They go a step further by providing a quiz to find the perfect formula for your hair type and goals. The quiz provides a customized experience and makes customers more willing to buy a formula that was specially crafted for them.

Amplify the reach of your content with a social media strategy

Now that you understand how content marketing fits within the current marketing landscape, the next step is to execute an effective content marketing strategy.

Content marketing affects nearly every aspect of your marketing strategy, including your social media. Without compelling content to repurpose and distribute on your social channels, your audience likely won’t notice you or be encouraged to engage with you.

You need a strong content engine that produces content for social and beyond. But how do you keep it fresh? Use our free checklist to identify where your content is stalling out and jumpstart your strategy.

The post What is content marketing? An ultimate guide (plus examples) appeared first on Sprout Social.

In a world of information overload, corporate communications is your way to expand your reach and build your brand. You need to be able to convey your message clearly and consistently across a variety of stakeholders.

It can be difficult to correlate corporate communication efforts to business impact. This article will help you position the importance of this multifaceted discipline to others. We also included examples from brands to inspire your strategy.

What is corporate communications?

Corporate communications refers to the strategies businesses and organizations use to communicate with various audiences both internally and externally. These audiences commonly include customers, prospects, employees and investors.

An effective communications strategy helps brands deliver on a compelling narrative that captures and deepens customer loyalty.

What is the function of corporate communication?

The functions of corporate communication vary according to the different audiences being targeted and the goals you need to achieve.

In most cases, companies hire specialists for each corporate communication function, such as internal communications, public relations and executive communications. However, there is often an overlap of functions across different teams. For instance, the content creation team may also handle internal communication initiatives.

In this section, we’ll look at the different corporate communication functions based on their goal and include creative examples from real brands.

Internal communications

Internal communication consists of the measures an organization takes to communicate with its workforce to maintain employee relations and streamline their work.

As companies switch to hybrid work models, effective internal communication is essential now more than ever.

There are two main aspects of internal communication: employee engagement and internal marketing. The former is to enrich employee relations, increase their productivity and retain them, while the latter is to build more awareness about the company’s offerings among employees.

Internal marketing is a strategy to help employees make an emotional connection to the products or services the company sells. Techniques such as regular email updates, company-wide newsletters and bulletin boards can be effective.

Some companies, like QAD Inc., host annual sales kickoff events to bring together employees, share best practices, product updates and get everyone re-aligned with company goals. They also give out awards to the top-performing employees and partners.

External communications or public relations

To manage and regulate the public perception of your brand, companies need to execute external communications strategies, also known as public relations (PR).

The main functions of PR are:

• Manage a company’s identity in terms of vision and mission.
• Generate awareness on new products and company milestones.
• Communicate the company’s corporate social responsibility efforts.

PR needs have undergone a massive shift in the past few years, thanks to emerging technologies and changing media landscape. Today’s public relations professionals are fusing traditional skills to work with modern tools and channels to create consistent narratives that reach varied audiences.

Here’s an example of an innovative PR campaign that went viral—Rocketlane announced their Series A funding round with a custom rap song.

Executive communication

Both internal and external channels need to be leveraged for executive communication. Internally, the leadership team engages in direct communication with other teams, while externally, executives’ strong social media presence can serve as a thought leadership platform.

Executive members of an organization typically communicate externally through social media, media appearances and talks at conferences. This aims to promote brand awareness and increase sales. In fact, 32% of consumers say CEO transparency on social would inspire them to purchase from that brand.

Melanie Perkins, CEO of Canva, actively engages with her audience on Twitter by sharing company milestones and also helpful Canva tips.

In many companies, there’s a communication gap between the C-suite or leadership team and other employees. A study by Gallup found that only 13% of employees strongly agree that their leadership communicates effectively with the organization. Breaking down silos with communication from leadership can help earn the trust of employees, provide stability in the workplace and a better understanding of the company’s goals.

Brand and marketing communications

Any interaction with customers and target audiences falls under the umbrella of brand and marketing communication.

There’s a wide range of channels to conduct branding and marketing activities including social media, traditional advertising media, emails and review websites. Unlike other functions of corporate communication, marketing and branding can be directly related to the company’s revenue.

Here are the main goals that marketing communications can help you achieve, especially through social media:

• Increase brand awareness: Create content that emphasizes your brand image and values.
• Gain leads and sales: Drive traffic to your website from social media and leverage social commerce to help you get more customers.
• Community building: Nurture long-term growth by engaging with your audience directly.

Delta used brand and marketing communication to launch Faces of Travel, a free 100-image library that represented diverse travelers around the world. The goal of the campaign was to inspire creators to present a more inclusive picture of global travel, supporting increased brand awareness while building community.

Creating expensive ads is not the only way to market your brand. Leverage mediums that reach your target audiences, like social media where you can reach larger audiences, interact with them and measure the impact of your activities.

Allbirds, a vegan footwear brand, attracts conscious shoppers by spreading awareness on how harmful regular sneakers are for the planet via social media:

Crisis communications

With the prevalence of social media, all businesses are susceptible to controversies that were once reserved for big brands.

Crisis communication is how you respond to an event that potentially hurts your brand’s reputation or ability to do business. This includes product failures, criticisms, employee errors, site outages, broken links and responses to global events.

It’s essential to have a strategy in place so that you can take quick action and bring the crisis under control.

Monitoring social media frequently for a potential crisis can be a tedious task. And there’s a risk that once your team notices the issue, it might have already snowballed. A social media engagement tool like Sprout Social can identify early warning signs of a potential crisis through social listening. You can then quickly take steps to resolve the problem.

Skills required for corporate communications professionals

Corporate communications has evolved over the years, requiring more diverse skill sets to execute sophisticated omnichannel campaigns. Professionals need to have a deep understanding of the company’s business goals, culture, target audience, industry and the context in which it operates.

Here are some of the skills required:

• Hard skills: Proficiency in creating and editing written content, understanding company values and drafting guidelines, ability to analyze key performance indicators (KPIs), managing digital communication channels, familiarity with crisis communication strategies and protocols.
• Soft skills: Relationship-building skills, leading multiple teams, problem-solving and critical thinking, strong verbal communication skills and the ability to work on multiple projects simultaneously.

Develop a communications strategy and roadmap

A strong communication strategy should help you deliver a cohesive brand presence, expand reach across channels and gather audience insights.

This will help you streamline your goals and activities, minimize gaps in communication and bring everyone on the same page.

Your communication strategy should outline four major things:

• Audience: who you’re communicating to
• Distribution channels: how you will reach them
• Timeline
• KPIs

A detailed communication plan will act as a course of action and also help you get buy-in from executives.

Make sure that your communications plan is continually optimized. It should be as dynamic as the discipline itself—use data and feedback to make decisions and align your strategy with compelling narratives.

Corporate communications: the megaphone for a company’s voice in this crowded world

An effective corporate communications plan can do more than just build a positive public image—it’s an essential part of business success.

It can be a challenge to manage your brand reputation across multiple channels. With Sprout Social’s sentiment analysis and social listening features, you can keep tabs on brand health and sentiment, as well as get deep audience insights. Giving your team more time to focus on making data-driven decisions and optimizations that will impact business goals.

Ready to level up your corporate communications strategy? We’ve created a customizable corporate communication template to help you develop an actionable plan. This template can help you create a roadmap that positions your brand as an industry leader to the audiences that matter most.

Download your free corporate communications template now to maximize the effectiveness of your internal and external communications.

The post Decoding corporate communications: Functions, goals and skills appeared first on Sprout Social.

There’s a new pressure on social media teams to not only make more videos, but to also star in them. Some social practitioners are all about it. But it’s not for everyone.

If you can feel your leadership team about to pop “the question,” don’t worry—you can remain behind the lens while still featuring human beings on your channels. The trick? Recruiting others to step in front of the camera for you.

In this article, we’re going to dive into how you can get others involved in social video, and why it matters.

Ring lights, camera (or, phone), action.

But first: Why you should get others involved in social video

Content formats are ever-changing. In Sprout’s 2023 Content Benchmarks report, over half of marketers cite this as a challenge when planning and scheduling posts.

But while formats may shift, video is here to stay. As Sprout’s Senior Social Media Strategist Olivia Jepson tells us, “If YouTube has shown us anything over the last 10+ years, it’s that video isn’t going anywhere—no matter the format. Video is 100% worth continuing to invest your time in.”

…video isn’t going anywhere—no matter the format. Video is 100% worth continuing to invest your time in.

Olivia Jepson
Senior Social Media Strategist at Sprout Social

With more video content creation on your plate, diversifying your talent—both on screen and behind the camera—is your lifeline.

Let’s get into some of the core benefits of involving others in social videos.

Lightens the workload

It may come as no surprise that bandwidth is the number one struggle for social media teams, according to the Sprout Social Index™.

Lean on your team for content creation. You can film them yourself, outsource the whole filming process to them or do a mix of both (like we do at Sprout).

One person making 10 videos solo is hard. 10 people each making or starring in one video is much easier.

Humanizes your brand

There’s a reason why 42% of marketers hire creators for unboxing or reveal content.

Thanks to the rise of the creator economy and TikTok, having a “main character” for brand social channels is becoming a norm. This has its benefits—a familiar face humanizes your brand, and it can help appeal to younger viewers.

But besides putting added pressure on social teams, think about the gap left when the face of your brand leaves—a departure that’s even led to fan backlash.

Finally, it’s limiting. After all, your brand is composed of many unique individuals, expertise areas and stories. Involving others in your social video content—from employees to customers—brings more of these stories to life.

Videos have become easier to make

In our hybrid work world, you’re not always able to go up to someone’s desk and ask, “Want to be in a TikTok?”

Luckily, video production has become a much easier task. Which means asking others to create a video for you is more realistic.

According to Wyzowl, 41% of marketers who used video as a marketing tool for the first time in 2022 did so because creating video in-house has gotten easier.

As long as someone has a phone (and interest), they can film. Tap team members to do some remote video production at home.

Highlights different areas of expertise

You don’t need to be an expert in every area of your brand. Tap team members with different areas of expertise to answer FAQs, peek behind the scenes and educate your audience.

Auntie Anne’s brings the brand experience to life on TikTok with experimental recipes, close-ups on how the sausage (or, pretzel) gets made and more. And that takes collaboration with the pretzel-making pros.

As Bari Rosenstein, the social media manager for Auntie Anne’s and Jamba, tells us: “With the nature of our brand, having people make the pretzels is almost a need when it comes to shooting video, so we can show people’s hands making the product.”

Tapping internal experts can also get you access to new areas of your company. For example, when I managed social media at Shedd Aquarium, the animal caretakers could get much closer to certain animals than I could. So I leaned on them to send me content, like this video with over three million views.

Who to recruit for your social video program

So, you’re ready to ask more people to appear in your video content.

You may even have some content ideas in mind.

Let’s get into who you can feature in your social media videos, plus a few content ideas to get you started.

Your colleagues

Tapping colleagues both on and outside of your team is an easy way to feature internal experts.

This is especially helpful if your company has multiple locations and experiences to highlight. Think: a gym franchise with hundreds of locations, classes, trainers and members to feature, like Orangetheory Fitness.

As Orangetheory’s Associate Director of Social Media Anthony Yepez tells us, “We really like to feature stories that are relatable, and can truly connect with others in our community and outside of it.”

At Shedd Aquarium, I was not an animal health or care expert. But Shedd’s vets and caretakers are. So I leaned on them to host educational Facebook Lives.

Ideas to tap your teams for:

• Behind-the-scenes videos and tours
• How-tos and educational content
• Providing answers to common FAQs
• Employee spotlights

Your company leadership

Your executives are a powerful source for thought leadership. Plus, they can humanize your brand—70% of consumers feel more connected to brands whose CEOs are active on social.

Tap them to create videos for your brand channels, or their own. Or, reuse existing video from relevant speaking engagements and events.

It’s a win-win for you and your leaders: High value content for your channels, and a stronger personal brand for your executives.

The best part? Filming video content tends to be an easier ask for busy leaders.

Ideas to tap your leadership for:

• Thought leadership
• Career development tips
• Q&As
• Business updates
• Quarterly earnings recaps

Customers and brand advocates

People trust real people on social. According to the Sprout Social Index™, 39% of consumers say they like to see customer testimonials or demos posted by brands they follow.

Take Chewy, for example. Much of their content is creator-driven or user-generated, and features customers (pets and humans) with their products—or packaging.

Work with your marketing and sales teams to find happy customers and user-generated content. Just always ask for permission before reposting.

Ideas to tap your customers and brand advocates for:

• Unboxing content
• Reviews
• Demos or how-tos
• Unique ways of using your products (see: the Chewy box a customer turned into a game)
• Shopping hauls
• Visits to your storefront or location

Wildcard: a dedicated “social media personality”

You might not jump for joy about being the “face” of your brand’s social channels. But you can hire someone who would.

A “social media personality” job posting isn’t far-fetched. In fact, it’s already happening. Take Nerf’s official Chief TikTok Officer, for example.

Depending on how important having one creator is to your team, consider hiring someone specifically for this job.

How to set you and your talent roster up for success

You have the “why.” You have the “who.” Now let’s talk about how you can make this collaboration come to life.

You and your social team are probably comfortable creating video content. But your newly-recruited talent may not have that same level of comfort…or skill.

Here are six ways to set your talent, and your team, up for success.

1. Create video briefs

When you involve multiple people in video creation, maintaining a cohesive look, feel and quality is crucial. Especially when you’re handing the camera to a newbie.

This is where a creative brief comes in. Use this document to outline the following details of your video:

• Goals: What and who is this video for? What do you want to achieve with this piece of content? Is this part of a larger campaign? A trend? Educational?
• Content structure: How long should this video be? Should it be horizontal or vertical?
• Key talking points: What key messages should the talent cover?
• Deadlines: When do you need this content wrapped?
• References: What examples can you include to express how you want to bring your creative vision to life?

If you’re not doing a Q&A video, a script outline is helpful. Guiding your talent by telling them to include an introduction, hook, key takeaways and an outro is more helpful than simply saying, “Write a script.”

2. Educate your talent

A little extra work upfront goes a long way—create a resource with tips, tools or a training session for your talent. This way, you have one document, presentation or recording to share as you expand your talent pool.

As Olivia describes it, “We built out a deck to provide tips for how to hold your phone, how to set up your space and more. We also share sample prompting questions to get people in the filming zone, like asking them their name, pronouns and role. Then we’ll get into the topic.”

This is helpful for teams filming at home, like our content team does…

…or for Q&A-style videos, like this one featuring Emily, our Market Strategy Lead.

When it comes to actually capturing footage, more is more. As Olivia says, “We always share more questions than what we’ll use in the end video.”

Provide guidance to your team around these topics:

• How to film: Should your talent create selfie videos with a front-facing camera? Would you prefer they continuously film all of their takes or record several shorter segments?
• Audio: If your talent is creating a voice-over, what should be on screen? What background noise should they be wary of?
• Length: Your talent can over-film, but providing an ideal time limit will help them plan their video
• Logistics: How should they prop up their camera? If they prefer to hold it, how can they limit shakiness?
• Video settings: Setting an iPhone to its highest settings (4K or 1080p), and a newer iphone should be set at 30 fps and nothing higher
• Lighting: We’ve all seen videos ruined by bad lighting. Tell your talent how to light themselves. For example: face a window but avoid direct sunlight, avoid overhead interior lighting and avoid standing in front of a window so you’re not backlit.
• Framing: For example, centering yourself, leaving some headroom and framing yourself from the chest up are great guidelines to start with
• Set up a practice run: This is more applicable to live videos. It’s always helpful to have a practice session to identify any tech issues, answer questions and feel ready on the day-of.

3. Create an outreach process

Creating an outreach process is instrumental in sourcing talent, and clearly communicating with them.

Here are two steps to consider:

1: Outreach to gauge interest

This is how you’ll see who in your company is interested in getting involved with social videos.

Start testing the waters with your team—chime them in Slack, send out a survey or ask in a meeting. Then, expand this to other teams across your organization.

Pro tip: Inform team leaders ahead of time just so they know the ask is coming. They might also be able to provide you names of their team content aficionados.

2: A communication strategy to gather content

When it’s time to ask someone to create a video, consider your process. How will you reach out to kick off the project, and how will you share resources to empower your talent?

Anthony Yepez let us into his team’s outreach strategy: “We typically reach out via direct message. If they’re interested, we’ll go over the brief via email or phone. We either have them film with our direction provided or, if they’re local to our headquarters or near our remote team members, we film the content ourselves.”

4. Establish a team of “internal influencers”

As you start working with more talent, identify who you can go to to create quality, reliable content.

For example, at Shedd Aquarium I had a go-to list of “in-house influencers” I knew I could tap for quick, stellar content.

And know where you can go to regularly create content. Bari, of Auntie Anne’s and Jamba, has a unique method of getting reliable content: “A lot of our content is shot in our test kitchen during training days. Franchisees train at our headquarters where they pretend to be working at a store—a perfect time for me to film.”

Just always ensure people you’re filming know who you are, and that they’re on camera. As Bari says, “They usually get excited that they’ll be on TikTok. Or if I’m at the mall and I start to film at one of our stores, I introduce myself and mention that I’d like to take videos—since I don’t film faces and often focus on hands, they’re usually OK with it.”

5. Create a suggestion box

Elephant in the room: It might not always be possible to feature other faces on social media.

But you can still get others involved in video ideation.

Create an open forum for coworkers and even fans to submit video ideas. Internally, this might mean a weekly brainstorming chat, shared document or even a physical box for people to drop ideas into.

Externally, this could be as simple as asking your audience, “What do you want to see from us?”

6. When in doubt, you don’t need to show a face

Let’s face it (no pun intended): Not everyone will want to have their face on social media.

If someone is uncomfortable on camera, you can still showcase their expertise while maintaining anonymity. The same goes for the social media team.

As Bari puts it, “You don’t need a face. You can use filters to personify the subject without even showing your face like we do at Jamba. Having a face does help when hopping on audio trends, since a lot of them are based on lip syncing. But you can pair audio with footage of pretzels being pulled out of the oven and it works.”

Get ready to feature fresh faces in your video content

How much you choose to mix up the stars of your social content is up to you. You can take the lead in some videos, and feature coworkers or customers in others. You can stay off-camera forever and lean on your teams. There is no right or wrong way to go about it.

But getting others involved in social video—both starring in and producing them—is a sure-fire way to help fill your content calendar without filling your schedule.

If you’re ready to dive in, we’ve got your next step covered. Read our guide on how to create a culture of content to build a high-impact—but low-lift—video strategy. Happy filming.

The post How to recruit more talent for your social video content appeared first on Sprout Social.

However, if you already have a presence on Pinterest, your own Pinterest analytics can be even more important than platform statistics. According to Sprout Social’s Index, 60% of organizations are using their own social data on a daily basis to help make informed decisions.

Throughout this article we’ll cover Pinterest statistics from all categories: usage data, user statistics, demographics and more.

Table of contents

• Pinterest stats every marketer should know
• Pinterest user statistics
• Pinterest usage statistics
• Pinterest audience and demographics statistics
• Pinterest advertising and marketing statistics
• Pinterest traffic and engagement stats
• Pinterest stats for business

Pinterest stats every marketer should know

1. Pinterest is the 15th most-used social media platform

When it comes to users, Pinterest is the 15th most popular social media platform worldwide. The first four are, of course, Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp and Instagram.

While Pinterest may not be as giant as some of the other social media platforms, that doesn’t mean it’s not worthwhile. In fact, we have one compelling reason to have a presence on Pinterest as our next stat.

2. 45% of US users have an income of over $100k

Pinterest is a platform that’s perfectly poised for social commerce. Because nearly half of the platform’s users have an annual income of over $100,000, they’re ready to buy when they browse the platform for products.

3. Pinterest generated $877 million in revenue in Q4 of 2022

Pinterest’s Q4 is often its best quarter of each year, with it outperforming the first three quarters of the next year for the last three years in a row. The platform also generated $2.5 billion in revenue throughout the whole of 2021.

Pinterest is a profitable platform, which means it’s likely a stable platform. It’s a good idea to invest in a Pinterest marketing strategy so you can take advantage of this platform.

4. Pinterest has the highest ACSI score

ACSI is the American Customer Satisfaction Index. And from July 2021 to June 2022 Pinterest had the highest score with 76/100, tied only with YouTube. It’s good to hear that a platform you’re investing time (and potentially ad money) into has a highly satisfied user base.

Pinterest user statistics

5. Pinterest has 450 million monthly active users

Pinterest has nearly half a billion monthly active users. This is a small fraction of Facebook’s nearly 3 billion users, but Pinterest is steadily growing year after year (we have a stat for that, too).

6. Pinterest sees a 7.5% year-over-year growth

Pinterest has a healthy growth rate of 7.5% each year. It’s the third fastest-growing platform right now, behind Snapchat and LinkedIn. Facebook is still growing, but at a rate of 1.6% each year, and YouTube and Instagram are both losing users.

7. 84.6 million users are located in the U.S.

If you run a U.S.-based business, Pinterest might be a great option for you. The U.S. audience is by far Pinterest’s largest, with 84.6 million of its 450 million users located in the U.S. (18.8%).

The next four most popular countries for Pinterest are as follows:

• Brazil: 28.05 million users
• Mexico: 19.45 million users
• Germany: 15.88 million users
• France: 10.65 million users

Pinterest usage statistics

8. 80% of users say Pinterest makes them feel positive

The vast majority (8 in 10) of Pinterest users get a positive feeling from using the platform (no wonder it’s so high on the ACSI scale). 9 in 10 users also call Pinterest a social media oasis—whereas only 3 in 10 users say that about other social media platforms.

There are so many benefits of Pinterest, but the fact that its users are happy and at peace has to be a major one.

9. 85% of weekly users have made a purchase from Pinterest pins

Pinterest users are shopping on the platform—a whopping 85% of weekly Pinners have made a purchase based on a pin they saw from a brand. Creating boards that feature your products can help you get them in front of even more users, increasing the chances someone makes a purchase.

10. 85% of Pinners use the platform to start a new project

85% of users say they hit up the platform each time they’re going to start a new project. This might be for DIY inspiration, products to use or instructions on how to do something. But Pinterest is the place they go. Use this knowledge to your advantage when creating and sharing Pins.

Pinterest audience and demographics statistics

11. 76.2% of users are women

More than 3 in 4 users are women, with 17.2% of users men and 6.6% of users unspecified or another gender. If women are a big part of your target demographics, Pinterest is the perfect platform to find them.

12. Pinterest’s biggest audience segment is women aged 25-34

The largest portion of Pinterest’s audience is Millennial women aged 25-34, with that segment accounting for 28.5% of its global audience. The second largest segment was women aged 18-24, taking up over 18% of the user base.

13. Pinterest has 23 million Gen Z users

According to projections done in 2020, the platform should have around 23 million Gen Z users this year, accounting for around 5% of its entire user base. This is up from 16.4 million in 2020, so more and more Gen Z consumers are joining the platform.

Pinterest advertising and marketing statistics

14. Pinterest delivers a 32% better ROAS than other platforms

Pinterest ads have been shown to deliver a 32% higher ROAS (return on ad spend) than other digital platforms. This is especially the case with ads in the food or health and beauty industries. Get more bang for your buck by promoting Pins on Pinterest.

15. There are more than 5 billion monthly searches on Pinterest

Pinterest is essentially a visual search engine. And this is proven by the massive 5 billion monthly searches that occur on the platform. Pinterest SEO is a big part of success—using keywords in your pins, boards, profile and more. This can help make sure your pins show up better in search results.

16. Brands see 2.3x more efficient cost per conversion

Get a better ad performance than you do on other social media platforms. Pinterest ads generate a 2.3x more efficient cost per conversion than other social media sites.

Pinterest traffic and engagement stats

17. There are 945.3 million monthly visits to Pinterest

Pinterest received nearly 1 billion monthly website visits in May 2022, making it one of the more popular websites in the world. This means its users are visiting the site an average of 2+ times per month.

18. 44% of Pinterest’s web traffic comes from the U.S.

The U.S. is Pinterest’s most popular country, so it makes sense that nearly half of that traffic is coming from the United States. The next four countries that visit Pinterest.com most often in order are Brazil, India, Argentina and Colombia.

19. 97% of searches are unbranded

Nearly all searches on Pinterest are unbranded. This means people are searching for things like “brown sofa” or “floral wall art” rather than specific brands. This presents a great opportunity for your brand to be discovered. Pinners aren’t loyal to a single brand and instead are hoping to find new brands and products they can buy from.

20. Pinterest has one of the longest post lifespans

Most social media platforms have lifespans for their post that last only minutes to hours, depending on what time they are posted. However, Pinterest pins can have a lifespan of six months to a year. This means people can still see your pins months after you’ve shared it, creating a really stellar organic ROI.

Pinterest stats for business

21. Pinterest is the 5th most popular social commerce platform

The top five most popular social media platforms where online shoppers are most likely to make a purchase are:

• Facebook
• Instagram
• TikTok
• Messaging apps
• Pinterest

This means your brand should be taking advantage of social selling capabilities on Pinterest so you can increase the number of conversions you receive directly from the platform.

22. 80% of weekly users have discovered a new product or brand on Pinterest

Pinterest is the perfect platform for businesses to get discovered. 4 in 5 users have found a new product or brand on Pinterest, likely resulting in a purchase or a follow. Promote your products on Pinterest to increase the chances that you reach a new audience member or potential customer.

23. Shoppers on Pinterest spend twice as much as shoppers on other platforms

Pinterest users spend 2x as much when shopping on Pinterest than they do when shopping on other social media platforms. This makes Pinterest an ideal platform for products with a higher price point, like furniture and designer clothing or accessories.

Don’t be shy about putting your products out there when it comes to Pinterest. Demographic data shows that Pinterest users have a higher income and are spending more on their shopping sprees.

24. Brands using a Pinterest Catalog get 5x more impressions on their products

If you needed one more reason to convince yourself to take advantage of Pinterest’s social selling tools, let this be it. Brands that set up their Pinterest Catalogs receive five times more impressions on their product pins than brands that don’t.

Use these Pinterest stats to inform your strategy

If these stats tell you anything, let it be that it’s time to get your social selling strategy set up. Learn how to sell on Pinterest so you can start generating even more sales and conversions through your chosen social media platforms.

The post 24 must-know Pinterest stats for marketers in 2023 appeared first on Sprout Social.

That’s why it’s important to know what to post on each social media platform. So in this article, we’ll share the nine most valuable types of social media content according to marketers and how brands are using these formats to strike a chord with audiences.

The most engaging types of social media content in 2023

Keeping up with the latest in social media is a difficult task with all the different platforms, features and algorithms. That’s why we created The 2023 Content Benchmarks Report to help you identify the most valuable types of social media content.

In this report, we collected data from 729,000 public social profiles in 2022. Then, we analyzed trends to derive what types of social media content will inspire your audience and make them more likely to engage with your brand. Let’s take a look at which formats are most engaging.

1. Short-form video

Short-form videos are the most captivating type of social media content thanks to their capacity to break down and present information in less than one minute. Plus, the length makes it more shareable and ideal for social media.

You’re facing an audience that’s busier than ever. People are looking for immediate gratification with fast and entertaining content they can consume on the way. So a 15-minute video seems impractical when a one-minute video can do the job just as well.

Why short-form video works on social

About 66% of consumers find short-form videos the most engaging out of any other social media post types. And before you say it’s because bigger brands have the resources to produce high-end videos, the truth is successful videos don’t require unlimited time, resources or heavy editing.

According to our research, consumers find short-form videos 2.5x more engaging than long-form videos. So humor and relatability are enough to draw people to your brand. In fact, a survey shows that 34% of consumers like to see authentic, less-produced videos.

Additionally, short-form videos are perfect for different types of social media post ideas. From highlighting how to use your product or service to influencer collaborations and behind-the-scenes content.

Best social media platforms for short-form video

The popularity of TikTok videos, Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts is evidence of their effectiveness when it comes to short-form video.

Both TikTok and Instagram have a variety of tools that help create short-form videos for free. You can record a few shots, add a soundtrack, use a filter and follow popular social media trends. Additionally, you can promote your content with native ad campaigns.

Even though YouTube Shorts are a recent feature from YouTube, they have become increasingly popular with 15 billion global daily views.

4 use cases of short-form video from Last Crumb

Last Crumb is a small business born in LA that bakes luxury handmade cookies. This brand stands out for using sassy language and an almost seductive tone to reach its audience.

Last Crumb uses short-form videos on TikTok and Instagram to encourage their audience to crave their cookies with:

1. Content relating their cookies to popular holiday celebrations. Last Crumb uses their holiday-themed videos to hop on relevant trends and conversations, prompting their audience to share their content with friends and allowing the brand to reach a wider audience.

   @lastcrumb

   There’s no better way to “I love you” than with a box of decadent cookies. @Sugar Pusher ® #LastCrumb #LastCrumbTikTok #LastCrumbCookies #cookietok #cookie #foodie #lastcrumbvalentines

   ♬ It’s A Wrap – Sped Up – Mariah Carey

2. Influencer collaborations to taste-test their cookies. In these videos, influencers unbox the luxury package and eat the cookies. This tactic leverages influencers’ loyal followings to generate interest within an untapped audience with “reviews” people trust.

   @lastcrumb

   @Keith Lee is back and this time, he went Platinum. #LastCrumb #LastCrumbTikTok #LastCrumbCookies #cookietok #cookie #foodie #lastcrumbtastetest #lastcrumbunboxing

   ♬ original sound – Last Crumb

3. Last Crumb’s destruction collection, in which the brand destroys their extravagant cookies, merge “demos” with entertaining content to show the delicious texture of the cookies to keep people watching and drive engagement.

   @lastcrumb

   It’s what’s on the inside that counts ❤️ #LastCrumb #LastCrumbTikTok #LastCrumbCookies #cookietok #cookie #foodie #smashorpass #lastcrumbvalentines #valentinesday

   ♬ Pass or Smash – 💜The Simple Touches💜

4. Last Crumb’s sandwich collection shows how you can make different luxury ice cream sandwiches with their cookies. This helps them stay connected with their customers by sharing recipes they might want to try the next time they order cookies.

   @lastcrumb

   A simple solution for when you can’t decide which cookie you want. #LastCrumb #LastCrumbTikTok #LastCrumbCookies #cookietok #cookie #foodie

   ♬ f urself in vegas – SHIMA

2. Images

Images are the second most valuable type of content out of the nine popular social media content categories. They’re also one of the types of social media most frequently posted across social networks.

Static images are absorbed and appreciated in an instant. The colors, composition, text (or lack of it) and other details give social users an immediate impression of your brand.

Why images work on social

Amongst the types of social media content, 61% of consumers find images the most engaging type of in-feed social content. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather look at a picture than read a thousand words.

Since mobile devices are equipped with high-definition cameras, and there are many free editing tools, anyone can embrace their inner photographer and graphic designer. This means social media marketers can create images for their content strategy without enlisting a ton of resources.

Best social media platforms for images

Instagram and Pinterest are platforms that naturally lend themselves to images. These social media platforms have unique advantages to leverage your visuals like filters, effects and editing.

Instagram started as an image-sharing platform and even though it has evolved to be much more, its content is still made of 87% images.

When consumers go to Pinterest, they’re looking for inspiration and creativity. In fact, 97% of all searches on the platform are unbranded, creating the perfect environment for audiences to discover your brand and spark their interest in a future purchase.

As a bonus, both platforms have social commerce features that allow you to tag products, transforming images into “shoppable” content.

3 use cases for image posts from Williams Sonoma

Williams Sonoma is known for its kitchenware, home furnishing and gourmet foods. It maintains a strong following, clear reputable brand identity and “shoppable” feeds across social platforms. They achieve that with sumptuous, vibrant images in the following ways:

1. Williams Sonoma uses top Pinterest trends to create Pins and carousels with colorful dishes and recipes. These images catch the eye of their target audience, enticing clicks to learn more about how to make the dish, which drives engagement and traffic to their website.
2. They support the full shopping experience on Instagram using eye-candy imagery and product tags. Thanks to these, consumers can get the product they like with a few taps, reducing friction to the final purchase.
3. Across platforms, they leverage their organic presence by using captions to enhance their image content and CTAs to their blog or online store to continue the buying journey.

3. Live video

The ongoing digital transformation has left businesses thinking differently about how they can engage with customers in real time. In 2020, Live video came out as a winner during the pandemic with live video viewers reaching 152.5 million (20.4% more than in 2019).

Why live video works on social

37% of consumers find live video the most engaging type of social media content. It enables businesses and creators to broadcast conversations, webinars, Q&As or other virtual events. And unlike text or image posts, where you wait for an interaction, live videos give audiences a chance to react in real time.

Live and simultaneous viewing also gives people a sense of community and togetherness. What’s even better is you can repurpose your livestream video to get more value from the content. For example, you could create multiple shorts or text snippets from your livestream for posts on other networks.

Best social media platforms for live video

Many platforms have livestream capabilities, but the best ones are Facebook Live, Instagram Live, YouTube Live and LinkedIn Live.

YouTube, Facebook and LinkedIn Live experienced a boom during the pandemic. YouTube and Facebook Live acted as entertainment for people. While LinkedIn Live allowed brands to reach and communicate with a professional network. On average, LinkedIn live videos get 7x more reactions than native videos.

According to Statista, 43% of US social media users aged 18-34 watched Instagram Live in 2021. That’s in part because the platform is designed to better your chances of followers joining you. When you go live on Instagram, your Live content appears at the beginning of Instagram stories.

How BuzzFeed uses live video to spark interest

BuzzFeed is a news and entertainment company that talks about viral topics. One of its branches, BuzzFeed Video, produces original video content about their articles.

From trying viral TikTok products to, home decor andor easy meal preps, BuzzFeed Video attracts a wide audience around pop culture. They use Facebook Live to bring their blog content to life and be part of the conversation on social. Jumping on viral trends or speaking directly to their audience’s interests enables them to stay relevant in real time and be an entertaining source of information that makes you want to come back for more.

4. GIFs/memes

GIFS and memes are a particular type of social media content favored by younger generations. When words can’t describe the mix of gestures and feelings we all relate to at some point, memes can add meaning to these situations.

These types of social media content assure your audience gets the message and helps your brand relate to your audience through comedic takes on daily life.

Why GIFs and memes work on social

Besides the fact that they’re shareable and enjoyable, their relatability makes it almost personalized content. Something that 71% of consumers expect companies to deliver.

When people see personalized content, their immediate response may be to interact with it and share it with friends. That’s how memes become viral if they’re used with the right audience.

GIFs can have the same effect but are more dynamic due to their animated feature. This makes them an excellent way to start conversations with more than words and still leave an impression.

Best social media platforms for GIFs and memes

Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter are ideal to post memes. But for GIFs, we recommend Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. If you post a GIF on Instagram, it will be added as a short video.

Memes drive engagement, that’s why Instagram users share over one million memes daily. They also drive traffic, as proved by a study from Social Media Today. They posted memes on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn for a month, which increased their website traffic by 12%.

In the case of GIFs, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn have special features for sharing this type of content. Twitter and LinkedIn make it as easy as tapping on the “GIF” icon and selecting the GIF you want to share. And Facebook’s boomerang feature allows you to capture moments in a loop so you can create your own GIFs.

How ProWritingAid uses GIFs/memes to connect with their audience

ProWritingAid is an AI writing assistant software that corrects your grammar and style with automated suggestions. If you go to their Instagram profile, you’ll notice that their most engaging posts are memes from writers for writers.

They use memes to convey their audience’s common tasks, like finishing a book outline, the struggles that come with it and wholesome messages. This relatable content builds relationships with their audience by speaking to their pain points, while still providing comedic relief.

5. Text-based posts

It’s important for businesses to prioritize visual content, but they shouldn’t lose sight of the power of words. What’s more, 32% of consumers say text-based posts are still one of the most engaging types of social media content.

Written content needs the same attention, consistency and creative elements that you give other content formats. But developing a distinctive brand tone and voice that aligns with your visual identity will help your written content stand out from the crowded social chatter.

Why text-based posts work on social

According to our index, 34% of consumers follow their favorite brands on social to see the brand’s personality. And the most direct way to give that to your customers is with text posts.

Short-form video is reigning and an image is worth a thousand words. But that doesn’t mean text-based content is redundant. And that’s especially true for social media, where text-based content can be valuable for starting conversations that help you get to know your customers better.

Best social media platforms for text-based posts

Reddit, Twitter and LinkedIn are top-of-mind for text-based posts in the social media content categories.

Reddit is a great platform to engage in Q&As and get conversational with your fans. While LinkedIn is perfect to share thought leadership, articles and engage with your professional network.

Still, Twitter is by far the most popular platform for text-based posts. It’s perfect to share digestible bits of information, ideas and news. That’s why it’s always buzzing with conversations. And engaging in conversations that interest your audience can help you widen your reach and build a community.

4 use cases of text-based content from McDonald’s

McDonald’s is one of the most successful fast-food chains with millions of customers served each day. On Twitter, the brand uses text posts to communicate with fans in a relatable, casual and humorous voice that brings the brand down to earth. Specifically, they use these types of text posts to define their brand values and start conversations:

1. Asking their fans questions and encouraging them to engage in fun trends.

   what’s your drive thru hype song? there are no wrong answers

   — McDonald's (@McDonalds) February 7, 2021

2. Using Tweets to collect and act on the feedback shared directly from their community.

   about to present this to my boss do u guys have any feedback? https://t.co/yp3NreJaXy

   — McDonald's (@McDonalds) February 10, 2021

   Y’ALL WE DID IT. Hi-C Orange is coming back 💥 pic.twitter.com/wIaUa6vzPZ

   — McDonald's (@McDonalds) February 10, 2021

3. They don’t just post, wait for engagement and leave it at that. The brand addresses nearly every response they get.
4. McDonald’s cross-promotes their text tweets and repurposes them on other social platforms using graphic elements.
   if u can do this u can have my job

   Posted by McDonald's on Thursday, February 25, 2021

These examples show how McDonald’s uses text-based content as a way of building a community and engaging with them. Plus, this makes customers perceive the brand as approachable which builds trust.

6. User-generated content

User-generated content (UGC) is content created by fans, consumers or users that brands repurpose for their feed. When consumers create content showcasing your products, they’re essentially giving you social proof and testimonials.

UGC has opened the doors for brands to reach a wider audience as people enjoy being part of a community. Also, UGC shows real-life uses of your products or services, which makes your followers more willing to try them.

Why user-generated content works on social

Of all the types of social media content, UGC is the most trustworthy. Consumers want to see real customers showing their experiences with your brand.

According to our 2023 content benchmark report, around 39% of consumers like to see testimonials or customer demos from the brands they follow on social because that’s the type of content they consider authentic. This creates trust, which ultimately affects the decision of 58% of consumers to pick a brand over a competitor, according to our Index data.

Also, you can take advantage of UGC to maximize your budget while reaching more consumers. When a user tries your product and posts about it, their followers may want to try it and post about it as well. This creates a chain reaction in which you reach the followers of your followers. Yet, over 93% of marketers aren’t using the full power of UGC, so there’s a lot of opportunity with this type of content.

Best social media platforms for user-generated content

Instagram and TikTok are the go-to social media platforms to find user-generated content. This is because both are highly effective for visual content, especially short-form videos. And since video content is best for showcasing a product over text or static images, 79% of marketers are willing to invest more in video leveraging authentic content (UGC) in 2023 according to the SOUGC report.

How L’Oreal Paris USA leverages UGC content with TikTok

L’Oreal Paris is a cosmetic brand that empowers women through beauty. They launched a TikTok contest to win $25,000 in which TikTokers had to upload a 15-second video showcasing their new telescopic lift mascara.

This tactic generated tons of UGC videos that fueled their brand awareness. Also, their mascara went viral on TikTok, promoting more sales. And they got lots of product demos for future campaigns.

7. Long-form video

Long-form video is the type of social media content you look for when you want educational and informative videos. Even though short-form videos are the most popular type of content, they lack the depth you crave when you’re genuinely interested in a topic. While videos that last longer are packed with information that builds authority.

Why long-form video works on social

Long-form videos are great for developing relationships with your audience. What’s more, 24% of consumers report long-form video content as the most engaging type of social media content.

Also, long-form videos are one of the best types of social media content to share educational topics. In fact, 93% of viewers use YouTube for educational purposes, and as of March 2021, users spent an average of 29 minutes and 36 seconds per visit.

Best social media platforms for long-form video

YouTube and Facebook are the most popular platforms for long-form content.

When you think about long videos, your mind naturally drifts to the giant online video-sharing platform we know as YouTube. And with good reason, as YouTube is designed to share videos of all lengths and keep people watching.

It’s also important to note that 71% and 51% of consumers expect to use Facebook and YouTube (respectively) more in 2023, according to our Index data.

How TED uses long-form video to connect with its audience

TED Talks discuss specific topics that move the world. Speakers present “Ideas Worth Spreading” from innovative research in their fields hoping to ignite imagination and give space to possibility.

TED’s long-form video content has become a worldwide phenomenon because the ideas click with people, giving them a feeling of belonging and community. But how does TED keep people interested in a 10+ minute video?

Because of storytelling!

The script of every TED Talk is packed with knowledge and information, but also strategic rhetorical questions, pauses and a bit of humor. The talks are meant to be stories that draw the listener in. So it’s all about how you present this information. YouTube creates the perfect space for this as it enables TED Talks to appeal to their audience through education and entertainment.

8. Audio

Social audio is about using your voice rather than comments, emojis or reactions to communicate. You record yourself talking about hot topics or experiences you think will interest your audience.

And the single best format for this type of social media content is podcasts.

Why audio content works on social

Around 32% of people in the US put their headphones on and listened to podcasts while in the car in 2022. A smart way of learning something new and passing the time when you need your eyes on the road. And sometimes people want information without the commitment of being in front of a screen for an hour.

Even though podcasts have at least a basic outline to plan their episode, most of the talking, expressions or personalities are genuine. This allows listeners to connect with the host, but the quality of the content is also important to prompt your audience to hear the next episode.

Best social media platforms for audio

Podcasts are best found in libraries like Spotify and Apple Podcasts. But that doesn’t mean they can’t be repurposed to fit your social media networks.

TikTok and YouTube are great platforms for podcasts as they can play long audio recordings, just like they do with video. You just need to add an image or film the recording of your podcast.

2 use cases of audio content from HerFirst100k

HerFirst100k strives to give women financial education and create a supportive community that thrives. Their podcast, The Financial Feminist, aligns with their financial freedom and community goals. Here’s how they repurposed their podcast on their social to achieve more visibility:

1. TikTok teaser videos that increase their reach and promote their podcast to get more subscribers.

   @herfirst100k

   Whatever she’s doing is working because @nadyaokamoto has redirected the attention to important issues like period poverty. #financialfeminist

   ♬ original sound – Tori Dunlap — Money Expert 💸

2. YouTube gives HerFirst100k a chance to address questions important to their audience on a platform they frequent. Also, it expands its reach beyond podcasting platforms by increasing their visibility on one of the popular search engines.

9. URL/links to other content

Using links helps you bring more followers to your website or other content. As the links are in your social media posts, it gives your audience easy access to content of interest and extends their experience with your brand.

URLs allow your brand to share more details, or go beyond the limits of character count within a social media platform with a single click.

Why URL/links to other content work on social

If you put a link in your social media posts to respective content on your website, you’re creating more opportunity to drive traffic to your site.

What’s more, when you promote a new product or service on social media, a link to the checkout or pricing page can help drive sales. It also reduces friction to purchase by making it easy to go from one platform to the next.

Best social media platforms for URL/link to other content

The best social media platforms for URL/links to other content are LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter and Facebook. On these platforms, linking to other content is as easy as including the link in the character field and posting it.

Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter emphasize your links by showing a thumbnail image in your posts. For Pinterest, the process is similar, but you can customize the thumbnail image by uploading an image, titling your pin and adding a description.

3 use cases of URL content from Sprout Social

Sprout Social uses specific platforms to expand the reach of their website content. They meet people where they’re at in the format they want to consume it. Here are three types of URL content Sprout Social uses:

1. Updates of newly added functionalities and integrations to get the attention of potential customers in the decisions stage. This can lead to sales but also drive engagement among current customers that enjoy the new features.
   
2. Social media articles in Sprout Social’s Insights blog which drives traffic to their website and more visibility when it comes to industry topics.
   

Find the types of social media content that work for your audience

Thanks to all these types of social media content, there are multiple ways for you to express your brand voice and make meaningful connections. And while best practices are a good starting point, your audience and brand are unique, so you need to find what works best for both.

Discover what type of content your brand should use on social media by taking our social media content mix quiz to find the ideal fit.

The post 9 popular types of social media content to grow your brand appeared first on Sprout Social.

Why “now,” though?

For starters, YouTube is the second most-visited site on the web, and when we’re spending up to six hours per day consuming video, the writing is on the wall. If you want to stand out on YouTube, you need to take advantage of as many promotional tactics as possible.

We’ll go into detail on each of these tactics for how to grow your YouTube channel and maximize your viewership. Whether you’re just getting started or want to see your numbers tick further upward, these tips are all fair game.

• What counts as a view on YouTube?
• Why are views important on YouTube?
• How to get more views on YouTube: 17 tips and tricks
• 4 resources for growing your YouTube channel
• How do you promote your YouTube channel?

What counts as a view on YouTube?

Views refer to the total number of times your video or channel has been watched. Each time a viewer plays a video and watches it for at least 30 seconds, YouTube counts it as a view. If someone watches your video several times, each time is counted as a new view. This applies across all devices whether a person watches via smartphone or desktop. This also applies to embeds and videos shared on social media like Facebook.

When someone visits your channel page, you receive a view. If you use YouTube Analytics, you can go to the Overview tab to see how many views your YouTube channel received over the last 28 days.

Why are views important on YouTube?

Views are important because they influence the YouTube algorithm. If you get more views, the algorithm will push your video out to more people. Views are also part of how you can make money on YouTube, which we all want to see a return on investment and increased revenue.

Views are also vital on YouTube because it’s a way to boost awareness and build brand affinity. It may take some time to achieve your target viewership, but you’ll need to connect with top-of-funnel prospects to help reach your goals in the long run.

How to get more views on YouTube: 17 tips and tricks

1. Write engaging, must-see titles

YouTube marketing is all about presentation.

Titles are make-or-break when it comes to your video’s performance. Ask yourself: are you presenting your content as “must-see” or “meh?”

The key to crafting killer titles is grabbing your audience’s attention without resorting to clickbait headlines. People crave content that’s entertaining, and they likewise want to know what your video is about from the word “go.”

For example, you can take a page out of the playbooks of YouTube giants like BuzzFeed and WhatCulture. Such videos often rely on listicles, question-based titles or hyperbole (“insane,” “…of all time”) to rack up the views.

Athlean X’s fitness-based videos are another good example. The channel’s content manages to sneak in relevant keywords in its titles while also coming across as conversational.

“Best-of” lists and “how-to” titles are always a safe bet, too. Food channel Tasty uses click-worthy titles like this:

The takeaway here is that you should definitely spend time mulling over engaging titles rather than sticking with the first idea that pops into your head.

In terms of specifics, many have observed that the optimal YouTube video title length should be around 70 characters. Meanwhile, tools such as CoSchedule’s headline analyzer recommends 55 characters for an engaging headline. CoSchedule’s tool isn’t specifically meant for video titles but is awesome for brainstorming YouTube-friendly titles to help promote your YouTube channel.

Publish on YouTube with Sprout Social

The opportunities are virtually endless on YouTube, and you can now publish to YouTube directly from Sprout.

Host long-form video on your channel, extend reach through YouTube’s extensive search capabilities, and track how your performance stacks up to other social networks.

Start a free trial to give our YouTube publishing features a try.

2. Optimize your videos for visibility

Here’s some food for thought: YouTube videos show up in 70% of the top 100 Google search results.

Heck, see for yourself. Any given product or “how-to” query on Google will return something from YouTube.

In fact, YouTube results sometimes even pop up before traditional blog posts or websites. Listen: YouTube is the second-largest search engine in the world in and of itself. Just like people search for products and need problems solved via Google, the same rings true on YouTube.

Think of your YouTube videos like any other piece of content that needs to be optimized in terms of keywords, tags and so on.

In order to increase your chances of showing up, you’ll want to follow some of the best practices for YouTube SEO:

• Titles and description: Include target keywords in your titles and descriptions. You can use a tool like Keywordtool.io to help you find keyword ideas.
• Mention keywords in your video: According to Brian Dean of Backlinko, saying your target keywords in your video can help YouTube better understand what your video is about.
• Engagement: YouTube uses engagement (likes, comments, views) to help determine where videos rank in its search results.
• Categories: Use categories to help YouTube get a better understanding of who to show your videos to.
• Tags: In addition to categories, you can also add tags to your videos to give YouTube more context about your content. You can use quite a few tags, so add as many as you can think of.

Just like with SEO for your website, don’t keyword stuff. Use keywords when it makes sense, not just for the sake of having them.

3. Figure out what your audience wants

With any type of content you produce, you want to make sure it’s aligned with what your audience wants. Whether you’re writing a blog post or creating a video, start by getting to know your audience and what type of content they want to see from you.

If you’re just starting to promote your YouTube channel, take a look at your competitors or other video creators in your industry. Look at which of their videos get the most views and engagement. This will give you an idea of what topics your audience wants to learn about and what style of videos they prefer.

Another solution is to look at your YouTube Analytics if you’ve already uploaded videos. YouTube gives you detailed information on audience demographics, location, engagement and other helpful stats. You can also take your strategy a step further with YouTube reporting in Sprout Social and see how your content stacks up to other social videos you’ve produced.

Want to better understand your YouTube metrics? Download our video metrics cheat sheet to learn the most important metrics to track and get ideas for video content tailored to your marketing goals.

4. Engage with the YouTube community

Although you might not think of YouTube as a social network per se, the platform does represent a thriving community where users are engaging via content, profiles, “likes” and comments.

Sounds pretty “social” if you ask us.

As noted earlier, any sort of interaction with your viewers is seen as a positive signal to YouTube. If nothing else, engaging with your subscribers can help you foster a stronger connection with your audience. “Liking” comments only takes a few seconds, as does pinning a top comment as a sort of personal note to your subscribers.

For example, music channel Artists Of Morality regularly likes and responds to comments on its recent uploads. The channel’s creator regularly engages with subscribers to show appreciation and answer questions, too. She even posts a call to action or challenges in her pinned comments like in the one below:

Just as you’d respond to comments and engage with your followers on any other social network, YouTube is no different.

5. Customize your thumbnails

One of the simplest yet effective tactics to promote your YouTube channel is creating custom thumbnails. Think of your title and thumbnail as a sort of one-two punch to grab a viewer’s attention.

By default, YouTube snags a screenshot from any given video and uses it for the thumbnail. Unfortunately, sometimes the image it grabs will be a blurry shot of you adjusting the camera or a transition.

Not a good look, right?

Creating thumbnails yourself not only makes your videos look more appealing at a glance but also signals a certain sense of professionalism.

Thumbnails don’t have to be rocket science, either. You can even create a template with a particular font and style to make it more consistent and on-brand. This is made especially easy with the help of image creation tools such as Canva. Here’s a good example from Binging with Babish:

If you’re looking for simple social media templates to get started with Creator Studio, check out our free YouTube banners that you can download today!

6. Cross-promote your own videos on YouTube

Chances are you’re covering similar topics on YouTube that overlap with each other. To squeeze more out of your older content, make a point to cross-promote your videos when it makes sense.

For example, you can drop links in the description of a video and encourage viewers to check them out as a sort of call-to-action. Although some might be disappointed by the removal of YouTube’s annotation system, linking in your description encourages viewers to watch your videos all the way through without clicking away.

7. Target Google search results

As noted, YouTube is totally killing it when it comes to SEO.

And while you shouldn’t totally create content for search engines versus people, you should promote your YouTube channel with SEO in mind.

Specifically, product reviews, how-to’s and long-form (10+ minutes) videos covering keyword-specific topics tend to rank well in search engine results pages (SERPs). If you’re strapped for content ideas or want to capitalize on a trending buzzword in your industry, consider how you can do so through your YouTube channel marketing.

8. Run a contest or giveaway

If there’s one thing YouTube users love, it’s a giveaway. Host a YouTube contest or giveaway to encourage people to subscribe to your channel and engage.

To keep your contests simple, have people like your video, leave a comment and subscribe to your channel to enter.

Follow some of our best practices for running any social media contest:

• Make sure you’re following YouTube’s policies.
• Give away a gift that’s related to your brand: you want to attract more than just freebie-seekers.
• Get creative by incorporating user-generated content and other non-traditional entry requirements.

Be careful with hosting frequent YouTube contests, though. You want to make sure you’re getting results from your efforts: otherwise, you’ll end up wasting time, money and resources. After doing one contest, wait a while and look at your subscriber drop-off rate and engagement numbers. If you aren’t bringing in engaged subscribers, you could just be attracting people who want free prizes.

9. Encourage viewers to follow your series

A smart way to promote your YouTube channel is by creating a specific video series that covers a recurring theme or topic. For example, Sprout Social’s YouTube channel has a variety of different series that make up our YouTube presence, like our “Always On” videos.

Series are a win-win for creators and viewers alike. For creators, you hold yourself accountable for creating fresh YouTube content and don’t have to rack your brain for ideas. For your audience, they have something to look forward to and likewise a reason to keep returning to your channel.

10. Embed your YouTube videos

Some of the best places to promote your YouTube channel are beyond YouTube itself.

Case in point, video content is proven to improve conversion rates and lower bounce rate on-site. If you want visitors to stick around a product page or blog post longer, embed a video (like we did below).

Remember: any opportunity you have to funnel your on site (or social!) traffic to YouTube is a plus.

11. Create playlists to organize your YouTube content

The more videos you create, the more difficult it becomes for people to navigate through your channel.

That’s why playlists are so important. Not only do playlists allow you to group your videos into categories to organize your channel, but also appeal to your viewers’ desire to binge.

For example, Beardbrand’s grooming channel has amassed hundreds of videos covering tons of topics. The channel’s various playlists help guide subscribers to relevant content without having to dig for it.

12. Increase engagement with calls to action

Sometimes simply asking for engagement is the best way to get your videos noticed, especially when you consider the immediacy and connection that video content can create.

Not everyone who enjoys one of your videos is going to remember to drop a like or become your subscriber, so it’s common to put these reminders in the description or in the video itself.

Especially if you’re an up-and-coming channel, there’s no shame in asking for some love directly. In fact, asking visitors a question to answer in the comments suggestion or to check out another video are perfect ways to keep the engagement rolling. You can likewise link to other videos or drop an external link to your site to serve as a sort of CTA.

13. Give live streaming a try

Live video is one of the biggest social media trends and it isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. With apps like Facebook, Periscope and Instagram making it easier than ever to stream live video, more and more brands are getting on board.

YouTube has been offering live videos for years but has only recently started picking up steam. You can take a look at some popular YouTube Live videos to get a sense of how other brands are using the platform.

Some examples of how you can use YouTube Live are:

• Webinars
• Live tutorials
• Q&A sessions
• Product demonstrations

Don’t worry if your streams don’t go as smoothly as you’d like. Part of the fun (and risk) of live video is you never know what’s going to happen. The unpolished, organic nature of live video is exactly what makes it compelling. For more tips on how to get started with YouTube Live, check out Google’s introduction to live streaming.

14. Collaborate with other creators and brands

A tactic some of the biggest YouTube stars used to grow their following is collaborating with other users. Each collaboration gives you exposure to a new audience. And the best part is those new viewers are more likely to subscribe to your channel since you’re working with a content creator they already know, like and trust.

The key to a successful YouTube collaboration is finding the right partner. You want to collaborate with content creators that share similar passions with your brand so your video comes off as authentic. This now-classic collaboration between BuzzFeed and Purina is a prime example of a thoughtful collaboration that doesn’t feel overly promotional.

15. Run a paid YouTube ad campaign

With marketing in general becoming more pay-to-play, you always have the option to get more visibility through paid YouTube ads. YouTube offers a variety of ad formats to choose from:

• Display ads: These ads show up on the right-hand sidebar of videos, and are only available on desktop.
• Overlay ads: These are semi-transparent ads that are displayed on the bottom part of a video. They’re only available on desktop.
• Skippable and non-skippable video ads: These ads show up before, during or after a video. Skippable ads can be skipped after five seconds, but non-skippable ads have to be watched all the way through before the viewer can watch their video.
• Bumper ads: These are non-skippable ads that have to be watched before the viewer can watch their video. They can be a maximum of six seconds.
• Sponsored cards: These are cards that get displayed within relevant videos. You can use them to promote your products or other content.

For your ad creatives, you can either use an existing video or create something new for a specific campaign. The advantage of using an existing video is you can choose a clip you know has been effective in the past. If a video has already gotten a lot of views and engagement organically, running paid ads can amplify your results.

On the flip side, creating a new video for your ads will allow you to create a more targeted piece of content that you have more control over. For instance, you can create an ad with a specific call-to-action at the end to direct viewers to a landing page or another video. You can learn more about YouTube’s video ad formats here.

16. Regularly publish your YouTube content to social media

It’s no secret that video content crushes it on social media in terms of engagement and performance.

As a result, you should regularly promote your YouTube channel to your social followers to encourage them to become subscribers. As soon as a video goes live, make a point to let your followers on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn know about it. You can likewise create snippets or previews for each social platform that also link to your latest production.

With the help of Sprout Social, you can schedule your content and cross-promote it without having to jump from platform to platform. Features such as ViralPost® can also help ensure that your content goes live based on when your social audiences are engaged.

17. Incorporate pre-production best practices

Put your producer hat on and incorporate some pre-production best practices. There’s a lot that goes into creating video before the camera records, but using these methods will streamline your content production.

• Create a contingency plan. What will you do if there’s an issue with your shooting location? What if your talent becomes sick? Proactively plan so you’ll be prepared for the worst.
• Plan the video concept from start to finish. Use a storyboard to outline each part of the video. Use this outline to mark visual jokes, animations, call to actions, etc.
• Create a shot list. A shot list will help you consider important details like lighting, location and camera angles. Once your script and storyboard is complete, make a list of every scene and note the action and dialogue required for each. Mark the type of setup you want (e.g. wide angle vs. a close up).

Streamlining your content production means you’ll likely be able to produce more video because your process is a well-oiled machine versus one that is always in need of repair. Having a set process will also help ensure each video is striking the right cord because you’ve taken the time to think through important visual details and logistics that will add value to viewers. Since you’ll be able to create more relevant videos, you’ll get more views over time.

4 resources for growing your YouTube channel

In addition to the 17 tips above, make sure you’re up on all things YouTube. Maximize your efforts with these guides:

• How to create a YouTube channel for business – Simplify setting up and perfecting your business channel.
• 11 Tips for writing YouTube descriptions – Differentiate your videos and ensure they’re super findable with optimized descriptions.
• YouTube SEO: How to boost your videos’ rankings – YouTube has become one of the world’s biggest search engines. Follow these tips to make sure you’re meeting audience needs.
• YouTube hashtags: How to use hashtags to increase video views – Demystify how hashtags work on YouTube and get more eyes on your videos.

And with that, we wrap up our guide to how to get more views on YouTube!

How do you promote your YouTube channel?

Growing a YouTube audience doesn’t happen by accident. And yes, it can certainly feel like a grind if your space is crowded with competition.

That’s exactly why it pays to have a variety of promotional tactics in your back pocket. Although some of the tips above require more effort than others, each one can help you get more eyes on your channel and more subscribers as a result.

If you’re ready to ramp up your YouTube presence and start seeing real business results, Sprout Social’s YouTube integration has features to help you seamlessly schedule and publish content. Plus, with our integration, you can dive even deeper into analytics to improve your video strategy.

The post How to get more views on YouTube: 17 ways to promote your channel appeared first on Sprout Social.