So how do we stand out?

Gary Vee uses an analogy (among the many, many gems he drops) about social media engagement and our elder generations.

He compares how we build relationships nowadays with our customers versus how our grandparents would nurture a friendship or relationship.

The personal touch of visiting a friend, checking in, sending a birthday card and so on.

His analogy means to say that if we applied that same thoughtful approach to marketing our businesses, we can strengthen our connections with our customers and gain more success.

If Granny and Grandad CEO could truly grasp social media and apply their human touch they would probably get better results than many of us.

It’s an interesting notion and one that holds a lot of weight.

In a digital landscape saturated with businesses vying for attention, many fall prey to “trends” — which inevitably means they all end up doing the same thing.

Sure, trends grow in popularity because at their core they do work or achieve a goal but as with all fads, these are fleeting moments that come to pass and in a sea of the same, it pays to be different.

Well, kinda the same but different. That’s how you stand out.

In 2021, social media user-ship and its engagement is colossal and here are a few stats to tell us just how big it is:

1. As of April 2021, 4.33 billion people worldwide use social media. That’s over 50% of the planet’s population.
2. 99% of social media users access it through a mobile app.
3. Almost 99% of global internet users aged 16-64 use social media or messaging each month.
4. The average UK user spends 110 minutes on social media per day.
5. 45% of internet users aged 16-64 use social media for brand research.
6. Social media penetration in the UK is at 66%.
7. Internet penetration is 94.9% in the UK.
8. Out of 45 million social media users in the UK, 43 million are on Facebook.
9. 28.1% of global users between 16-64 say Facebook is their favourite platform.
10. Small businesses, B2C marketers and self-employed people all say Facebook is their preferred way to market their business.

*stats provided by SmartBlogger and CyberCrew

Basically, everyone is using one social media app or another at some point every day.

Armed with this knowledge it can become intimidating when we’re planning strategies for content and how to engage our customer base.

But like our grandparents will vouch, the old ways work.

Part of an effective digital strategy is honing in on your people. Focus on a group of customers that best represent your brand and tailor your brand’s message to that demographic.

Get to know them.

Where they hang out, and how they spend their time. Sounds a bit creepy when I type it loud but you get the point; there’s a greater chance of success if we’re only speaking to people who share common ground rather than trying to capture the attention of everybody.

Having a solid (or at least a loose idea) content strategy will help make life a lot easier and bears some exciting results!

Check out these recent stats published by Hubspot:

• Content marketing brings in 3x as many leads as traditional marketing and costs 62% less.
• Small Businesses that use content marketing get 126% more leads than those that don’t.
• 61% of online purchases are a direct result of a customer reading a blog.

Pretty strong data there.

Social media does wield great power when leveraged properly but in order to do that, you need to have a plan.

With some of the highest ROIs in the market, content marketing is a great way to go for growing your brand, improving conversions and getting your message where it needs to be.

And when you need help crafting those messages, well, you know where to come.

Thanks for reading and if I’ve managed to impart any value please Like, Share and Comment your thoughts!

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