Okay, you’ve done the mid-year social media check for your business, right? Now you’re probably looking for innovative ways to get your brand and ideas in front of target audiences, provide more efficient customer service, and make an impression.

Right?

You’re in luck. We’ve put together a quick look at four social media features to help you take full advantage of each platform and the powerful things they can do for your business.

VIDEO AND LIVE STREAMING

Pictures get attention. But pictures with movement and sound grab attention by the throat.

In-the-moment video is becoming the go-to method for reach and engagement. In addition, basic streaming is easy to produce and highly effective. Eighty percent of audiences prefer to view a video versus read a post, and people tend to watch live videos three times longer than pre-recorded ones.

Seems absurd to not take a whack at this, doesn’t it? Going live may be an approach worth exploring. Consider broadcasting via Facebook Live, YouTube Live, or Instagram Live to:

• Conduct a panel discussion and take live questions from your online audience
• Give viewers an exclusive peek into your business with an office tour or introductions to your behind-the-scenes team
• Describe and demonstrate the unveiling of a new product or service

CHATBOTS

Computer programs designed to simulate human interaction via sound or text are being used more and more to collect information or respond to general customer service concerns. Chatbots allow businesses to provide almost instant feedback to client correspondence 24 hours a day. Additionally, these applications can identify the needs of buyers and immediately connect them to what they want with a call-to-action button.

Chatbots also get smarter the more they’re used. With increased interaction and data collection, the bots actually “learn” to better tailor which content they present to customers. This might sound a little creepy but think about the convenience.

By reducing some operational expenses, chatbots could save businesses almost $8 million in the next two-to-three years, according to analysis firm Juniper Research.

Want to give it a try? Build your own chatbot and test its limits to see whether this social media feature can work for you.

FACEBOOK GROUPS

People want to feel included, so create a Facebook Group to inspire that sense of belonging while supporting stronger relationships among your followers. These exclusive forums can be public, secret, or closed. They are meant to promote engagement, so cash in on that concept by encouraging members to discuss issues, ask questions, and contribute relevant content.

Groups are slightly different from pages in that they’re more focused on community. Also, unlike pages, all members of a group can post within it. That shared information then stays in the group feed, allowing members to see it and interact. With pages, any posts from followers usually are buried behind a tab and therefore not always easily accessible.

Updates to Facebook algorithms in 2018 also gave group postings more priority over business page postings. This increases the chances that members will see your group material in their newsfeeds.

STORIES

About five years after SnapChat capitalized on the feature, platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube started to embrace the idea of the social media story. Now stories are all the rage. TechCrunch reported that in the two years from 2016 to 2018, the use of social media stories grew 842 percent. A graphic from Statista also showed that from 2017 to 2019, the number of daily active users of Instagram Stories worldwide soared from 150 million to 500 million.

Stories are snippets of authentic content used to bring customers into someone else’s experience – your experience – and help them build a connection to a brand – your brand. Use the format to give daily updates that entertain, offer solutions, make people laugh, or show something unique. The best content is unpolished and spontaneous. Furthermore, stories disappear after 24 hours, which is more incentive to create and share engaging content that leaves a lasting impression.

Not every feature is right for every business, but we hope you now at least have a starting point. Try some things to see what works for your brand, and have fun doing it. If you have questions about the many feature options available in the social media marketing universe, contact Prime. We’ll work with you to determine the best uses of social media features to help grow your business.