Even if you are not currently using social media, you are likely to know several people who already are. Social media has the power to attract people’s attention fast, allow you to share news and form an opinion quickly. Social media encourages you to actively engage with news, videos and images and share this with everyone you know. This I think is effective from a business point of view as it helps you to build up connections and relationships with new and existing customers. New social media updates and channels are being launched very quickly, but which social media sites should you be using?
How does Tumblr share the news?
Tumblr itself is a social media platform hosting thousands of blogs that people can read and share daily. You can follow the blogs you are interested in and find out the latest news about them as soon as it comes in. Social media platforms like Tumblr are expanding all the time.
Will their new video adverts grab people’s attention?
What is Tumblr’s most recent announcement? How will this affect current users of Tumblr and new business advertisers? Tumblr has just launched their own video adverts that play automatically when shown within people’s news feeds. This roll out began on 28th October and will be launched fully for all advertisers in mid-November. Tumblr sees this as a strategic step to understand customer interests more deeply. These new video adverts will work alongside Tumblr’s new video player that was launched last week. Learn more about Tumblr’s new update here.
One of the benefits of these new video adverts is to make it easier for people to watch videos they are interested in and watch them for a second, third or fourth time. These videos are interactive and play automatically on silent until someone turns the volume on. To maximise the amount of times the videos can be seen the videos can also be watched whilst people are reading and searching through other Tumblr posts. I think this is a step in the right direction for Tumblr to offer more video sharing for both people and businesses. This will help businesses who are already on Tumblr and companies joining Tumblr to really share their products and services.
How can this help me attract new customers?
Videos can grab people’s attention very quickly and they are memorable, just the same as you remembering your favourite TV adverts, the ones that always stick in your mind, If you are spreading your advertising through the internet and social media channels there are potentially thousands of new customers who could be looking for products like the ones you are selling. Social media will help them to see your products. However when using social media it is also important to use the latest attention grabbing tools. If you are using more than one social media platform you are maximising the people who can find out about you.
If you haven’t used social media before but are looking at starting this, I would suggest starting with Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and Vimeo. Share your news and images through Facebook and Twitter and with Youtube and Vimeo share your videos. Linkedin is great for building up your business connections and Instagram is the site to go to, to share your images. With social media your images can be fun, you can test different techniques to see which images your customers engage with the most. Which images are people sharing and commenting on. Google+ is now being used more frequently by people themselves and businesses. This allows your website to be found in search engines like Google much more frequently and higher than your competitors.
What can you take from this to make social media effective for your business? Share your news and industry news with your customers. You should provide them with useful information they will want to read. However it is not only news you should be sharing, share videos, images and opinions with your customers. You are giving them a reason to keep following your business. This will help you to encourage them to become customers for your business.
Here is a useful tip to finish with, if you are struggling with social media, or you are not sure why you are not getting more customers reading and looking at your content, here are 4 social media tips that may be harming your business
Article by Laura Morris-Richardson
