For most businesses, brand development through social media marketing has turned into one of the biggest growth strategies today. This is no surprise considering that 2 in every 3 people in the world use social media every month.
With endless hours worth of posts, reels, stories and video shorts, social media is the everyday consumer’s easiest getaway pastime – and therefore, the most ideal “location” where brands can reach out and connect with them in the digital space.
A quick online search will pull up hundreds of websites and resource guides on social media marketing hacks, tips and tricks. However, a blind copy-paste application might not work seamlessly for Guyanese businesses. Guyana’s burgeoning digital landscape offers both great potential as well as competition, among which your brand needs to not just stand out, but be recognized as a voice of authenticity and value.
Brand development requires market knowledge and strategic steps that work in alignment across all marketing and advertising channels involved. Partnering with a full-service marketing agency that has an in-depth understanding of the Guyanese market and the local audiences will not only help your brand gain visibility but will also help it build unshakable credibility.
Why is social media key to brand development?
Stories and posts by other users, entertainers, influencers and organizations have become one of the primary sources of information for consumers worldwide. Naturally, this complex, user-led and ever-changing field offers many benefits as well as challenges to brands seeking to cut through the noise and reach the right demographic for their business.
Traditionally, concepts such as the 4Ps of Marketing included a P for ‘Place’, indicating that brands need to have a presence in the physical places where their ideal consumers frequent. Meeting consumers where they spend their time is crucial in marketing and advertising. Today, this concept of ‘place’ has extended to omni-channel marketing and social media.
Consumers discover and engage with brands and products on social channels like Facebook and Instagram, where they already spend hours scrolling through their favourite content. Brands and businesses in Guyana need to pay attention to this shift and capitalize on it.
Five social media strategies to boost brand growth and reach
Having a great social media strategy isn’t about gaming the system or pulling secretive strings in the background to draw in audiences. It involves clear and above board marketing strategies rooted in research, quality content and a robust social media plan.
If you are new to the world of brand development through social media marketing, here are five effective strategies your brand needs to adopt.
1. Forging strategic partnerships to boost reach
Is your brand a multi-national or statewide franchise looking to improve public standing and sentiment? Having a macro-influencer or celebrity promote your content on social media can help you gain that push into the limelight of the masses.
On the other hand, if you are more interested in penetrating local market segments and niche groups, partner with a micro-influencer or a group of key, active users who will organically promote your brand, increase user engagement with your posts and products and lend authenticity to your business, strengthening brand image.
Read more on leveraging micro-influencers in Guyana for a cost-effective social media strategy.
2. Investing in employee support and community building to create credibility
Including employees and focusing on community building in social media helps create strong brand credibility by humanizing the organization. Rather than selling products or services to consumers, your social media strategy should focus on building a community around your brand. Share humanistic stories, show behind-the-scenes (BTS) footage, create ‘making of’ videos, respond to reviews and ratings (good and bad both!) and share your knowledge and expertise to bring real value to audiences.
When employees share their experiences, behind-the-scenes moments and personal insights, audiences see real people rather than a faceless brand. Through such transparency, brands can gain trust of the audiences and maintain authenticity, crucial to brand credibility. Involving your employees in sharing brand stories also demonstrates your expertise transparently and engagingly.
Brands must invest in community building through interactive content techniques like responding to comments, rewarding user-generated content and showcasing customer stories. This level of user involvement creates a sense of belonging where audiences feel heard and valued. In the world of social media, marketing and advertising strategies need to pull the focus away from direct sales and invest in creating real engagement and community interactions. Directing social media marketing efforts toward building trust and turning customers into brand advocates are essential for establishing long-term credibility in a competitive digital world.
3. Use of conversational queries and captions to improve search results
Use of conversational language in social media is a simple yet effective way of aligning content with how users naturally communicate. While keywords are still important, social media essentially is user-driven and run by intentional collective of real people. Conversational phrasing helps platforms better match your content with user intent. Writing captions in question-and-answer style, sharing authentic experiences and using everyday language mirror how real people communicate in their everyday life. Having these elements in social media content strategy will make it more discoverable and relatable to the intended audiences
Combine the creative nature of social media posts with long-tail question-based phrases in the captions to clearly convey intent and message. Hashtags and captions that reflect spoken language increase relevance in semantic search as well, helping algorithms connect content with related topics. Additionally, conversational captions encourage users to engage with your brand through comments, shares and replies, indicating relevance and value to search algorithms.
Relevance and visibility work together to generate brand awareness and portray your business as a credible and reliable establishment.
Here’s how to boost brand growth in emerging markets with digital marketing.
4. Incorporating short-form videos in social media content strategy
At 45% popularity, video is still the best-performing type of marketing content format in social media. Your social media strategy needs to revolve around curating and creating relevant and engaging videos that seamlessly integrate with the existing body of work present on social platforms. Short videos of 15 to 30 seconds duration are a great way to showcase your brand message and image in a way that remains etched in viewers’ memories and stands out in a crowded space.
With adults displaying increasingly poor attention span, short videos also serve the function of grabbing views before users lose interest and swipe away. The key behind these videos is to tell a story, amplify an emotion and lock into public sentiment. By using concise, creative videos, brands can strengthen audience connection, increase awareness and build a memorable presence across social media platforms.
5. Continuous research and analytics to gain an edge in the increasingly competitive social media space
Everything comes down to your base knowledge and information on target audiences and consumers. Without knowing them, their hangouts, their likes and dislikes, the current obsessions and trends that have their social media feeds in a bind, you will not be able to design an effective marketing campaign that appeals to your audiences.
This is where forecast analysis and trend reports come into play. You need to pull data from several reporting sources and analytics tools and track the behaviours and patterns that interest your targeted audiences. And once you have this data, you need to apply robust analysis and reporting to it to gain actionable insights. Equip your marketing and advertising team with tools that give them access to research data, analytics and AI-powered forecasting software.
Conclusion
Brand development is not a one-stop measure. It’s a continuous activity where you build your brand’s voice and credibility piece by piece. You need to have a strong brand identity and messaging in place that will guide the overall direction of the stories you tell and the engagement you generate on social media platforms and apps.
Read more on top branding mistakes to avoid for Guyanese businesses.
If you are not sure where to start or would like to augment your marketing strategies with professional real-time consumer insights and social media trend forecasting, get in touch with our 360-degree marketing team and learn how multi-modal, cross-platform marketing strategies can drive your business ahead of the competition.
