February 15, 2024

Social Media Tips & Tricks for 2024

If you’re a business owner, you likely already use social media to reach out to your customers and potential customers. Every day, countless decisions, like what to buy, what business to call, and what restaurant to walk to, are made via social media. If you’re not using social media to have a seat at the table during these decisions, you’re missing out. Innovative brands understand this and have been using social media for years to remedy this.

However, social media is an ever-evolving discipline; what once worked well might need to be revised. Your audience and industry are evolving. Your social media game needs to, as well. Read on to help you plan out your 2024 social media strategy!

Use Video

The days of written posts are long gone. Short Form video is dominating social media platforms, and brands that don’t utilize video will have a more challenging time keeping the attention of their viewers. Typically, videos between 15 seconds and 2 minutes perform best on social media.

Make It Interactive

People don’t go on social media to learn about your brand. That may be painful to hear, but it’s true. Now, your customers and potential customers get on social media to have fun, and if you can make learning about your brand fun, then you’re in a good place. Making social media posts interactive is a great way to do that.

We recommend utilizing polls, pictures of your staff events, shoutouts for employee birthdays and anniversaries, and other interactive elements to keep this fun and exciting atmosphere. Remember, you’re not using social media merely to educate your clients, although that is a benefit. You’re also there to beta-test new product ideas, hear feedback, and deal with customer service questions. Create an interactive atmosphere on your social media profiles to keep that two-street between you and your customers alive.

Plan It Out

You don’t necessarily need to plan out every element of your social media marketing a year in advance, but you need to think it through. Having time to plan out in advance allows you to create written or visual content well in advance so that you can be prepared. We recommend planning at least a quarter. In our experience, this is far enough to get content ready but close enough that you have more visibility into your social media profile’s current performance and trends.

Research, Research, Research

It can be easy to think of social media as only the process of writing posts and developing content. However, research can often be neglected in the social media process. Understanding what your audience cares about, what others in the social media space are doing, and your industry is crucial to developing great content for your audience.

Tailor Your Approach By Platform

Many social media managers fall into the trap of “cutting once” when working on their social media calendar. If they have an interactive and well-researched post planned for Facebook, then it seems scalable to take this post and copy it over to LinkedIn. This might be easier, but it’s not always the right approach.

There are massive differences between LinkedIn and Facebook audiences, value propositions, and content. Social media managers must be aware of this when planning their social calendars, or they risk falling flat on one platform versus another. What might be educational on LinkedIn might be dull on Facebook.

It’s also worth remembering that not all platforms need to be equal for your marketing strategy. TikTok and Instagram will likely be your focus if you’re a jewelry reseller focused on reaching women under 30.

If you’re a law firm focused on reaching business HR departments, you must spend most of your time on LinkedIn. You can, of course, still use a variety of platforms. Our fictional law firm should still be on Facebook and Instagram, and our jewelry reseller should have a LinkedIn presence. However, both should ensure they’re spending the most time and resources on only the most relevant platforms.

Decide Whether TikTok is for You

TikTok is not for everyone, and we recommend that every business consider if this channel is the right fit for their marketing needs. However, TikTok is a dominant social media channel, and the app’s market share and audience share do not look to fall off at all in 2024. With over 1 billion users, TikTok is a massive piece of the social media pie. If you’ve traditionally only used Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, it might be time to consider branching out to TikTok. This is especially true if your target audience is younger or your brand uses an e-commerce store.

Contact JSL Marketing & Web Design

Social media marketing can be challenging, but planning your marketing strategy doesn’t need to be. Contact JSL Marketing & Web Design for a custom social media evaluation and strategy session and take your social media presence to the next level in 2024!

December 28, 2023

Intro to Threads Marketing

It can take time to keep up with all digital marketing changes. Regulations change, apps update, best practices evolve, and your company’s style guide shifts. This is all normal and a part of digital marketing. However, brand-new platforms do not happen daily and can be a significant hurdle for marketers looking to broaden their skills. Learning a new feature of an existing platform is likely much easier than learning a new one.

So, we’re not surprised to hear that some marketers struggle to work Threads into your social media strategy. The Meta-owned text-based social media platform has started many conversations and created a lot of buzz in the marketing world. However, many social media teams still struggle to understand how best to use it.

Well, you’re in luck. The social media team at JSL Marketing & Web Design has some thoughts on how to make the introduction to Threads marketing!

Threads Basics

Threads premiered in July of 2023 and is already one of the fastest-growing apps ever. The app currently boasts 100 million monthly active users. The premise is simple. This text-based social media platform allows users to join public conversations and share their thoughts via text, image, and video. (GIF, Video, photo, and poll-sharing are all compatible.) It’s important to note that while media is a part of Threads, text is the primary way users communicate.

As Meta states, “Instagram is where billions of people worldwide connect over photos and videos. Our vision with Threads is to take what Instagram does best and expand that to text, creating a positive and creative space to express your ideas. Like on Instagram, with Threads, you can follow and connect with friends and creators who share your interests – including those you follow on Instagram and beyond. And you can use our existing suite of safety and user controls.”

Threads Marketing Tip 1: Be Agile

It’s important to note that standard operating procedures and best practices for Threads marketing are still evolving, and as the platform grows, marketers will need to develop with Threads. This is a helpful point to remember when learning any brand-new tech. We don’t know where Threads will go as a social media platform, but we do see potential growth areas. At the moment, Threads Advertising is not a capability of the platform. As Threads adds users and the possible reach of any campaign grows, we expect to see Meta strongly consider unveiling an advertising model on Threads in line with Google Ads, Reddit Ads, or X Ads. Regardless, it’s important to remember that Threads will likely change as the platform grows, and you and your brand should expect to change your social media strategy with it. That’s a good recommendation for digital marketing, but it’s especially pertinent for a brand-new app.

Threads Marketing Tip 2: Be Conversational

The primary use case of Threads will be targeted conversations around a specific topic. This is reflected in the very name of the platform, after all. The platform’s text and conversation focus can be helpful for various brands. However, while the platform is valid for many brands, we expect Threads to become an excellent tactic for brands with solid community followings. Threads will be great for brands looking to facilitate discussions around their product and services, and a vibrant community will always be an excellent prerequisite for those conversations.

Still, even if you don’t have a passionate following, Threads can be a great way to build that community. Polls, questions, and discussion forums around your brand are a great way to make that community and get more people talking about your brand.

Threads Marketing Tip 3: Build Off of Your Social Media Strategy

Threads will likely fall under your social media team’s purview since it is a social-based app. Much of what social media teams use daily will be relevant for Threads, and your social media strategy elements can be plugged into Threads. Asking engaging questions, sharing relevant content about your brand, and asking for consumer feedback are all tactics from other social media platforms that will serve your brand well on Threads.

Teams should remember, however, that Threads will be slightly different from other social media platforms, which is reflected even in how Meta has the app set up. Currently, Threads and Instagram are not integrated, so it’s worth viewing Threads as its own app, not merely an extension of Facebook and Instagram. Remember, engaging conversations around a set topic is why people visit Threads over Instagram or TikTok. Focus your efforts on this goal for best results on Threads.

Threads Marketing Tip 4: Be Careful

Threads lacks a few components that you might expect a social media app to have. For instance, Threads doesn’t let you edit posts after they’ve been posted, and you cannot delete your Threads account without deleting your Instagram, which is surprising considering the two are not integrated. We caution brands to be wary as they plan out their Threads marketing. Moving too hastily could have significant repercussions for your brand, and Threads is likely not a good pick for a company that cannot fully commit to being active on Threads.

Partner With JSL

Are you looking for a custom recommendation on your social media strategy? Contact JSL Marketing & Web Design for a free social media audit today!

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July 27, 2023

How to Interpret the TikTok Drama as a Marketer

If you’re following media and marketing in the news, then you know just how controversial a topic TikTok is! This behemoth video platform has rocketed in importance in the media landscape, but it has also drawn the ire of many lawmakers and policy experts at the state and local levels. Now, some are even going so far as to propose bans on TikTok. What will the impact of these measures be on marketers?

We might not have a crystal ball, but we can make some recommendations about how marketers should prepare for any potential or probable TikTok drama.

Read on to Learn More!

The Context of the TikTok Drama

TikTok has exploded onto the social media scene in the last few years. By some estimates, TikTok has over a billion users, and 150 million are located in the U.S. This has also led to TikTok’s viability as a marketing platform increasing as well. With that type of reach, TikTok has been a great destination for advertisers, and the platform pulled in a cool 10 billion in 2022.

However, TikTok has not gained this type of fame without making some enemies along the way. Allegations of improper data storage and collaboration with the Chinese government have made TikTok a target of criticism within defense circles. Cries for banning the app have finally come to fruition, with Montana becoming the first state in the country to ban TikTok. The efficacy of this legislation and the constitutionality of the ban are still in limbo, but it is worth considering what marketers need to think through when following the public discussion on TikTok.

3 Takeaways from the TikTok Drama

TikTok Bans Would Impact Certain Industries

Any potential TikTok ban would certainly have ramifications for a myriad of different industries, but those consequences would not be equally distributed. Large brands that use video content on TikTok in the form of paid advertising would likely merely pivot to another advertising platform. Other industries would be upended by TikTok-prohibiting legislation. Many online influencers or performers currently use their own TikTok content as a quick way of reaching additional eyes, and any ban would have drastic consequences for smaller individuals, brands, or movements.

Other Social Channels Would See a Rise

If advertisers divested from TikTok, either as a consequence of legislation or due to increased public scrutiny, we’re fairly confident who would be the big winners: TikTok’s rivals. Most advertisers who are using TikTok use it for brand awareness and conversion-based advertising campaigns. Divestment from TikTok would almost certainly result in a transition to other brand and conversion-based marketing plays. This would theoretically float all boats, but we would expect to see the biggest increase in ad revenue at Facebook and Google.

All advertising platforms at these two multimedia conglomerates would benefit, but YouTube and Instagram advertising are the two we would really expect to see fill the void left by TikTok. These mediums are visual-focused, great for short-form video content, and are also super targeted. We’re keeping our eyes on the news for more information about any potential TikTok bans, but know that these social media platforms are useful alternatives in the meantime if you don’t feel like TikTok is a good investment at the moment.

Data Security Is a Top Concern

Regardless of where you fall in the TikTok debate, one thing is clear. Data security is a huge concern at the moment and one that is likely to stay top of mind throughout 2023. This is actually a bigger macroeconomic trend. TikTok is just the latest flashpoint in the story of consumer data and how to protect it. Cambridge Analytica, numerous Facebook data leaks, high-profile cases of doxxing via social media, and the deprecation of cookies by Google have all been in the news over the last few years. TikTok is the most controversial topic within the data security space at the moment, but we assure you that it will not be the last. Savvy marketers would do wise to think about how they are securing data and assuring users that their data policies are sufficient. This has always been a good practice in the digital age, and it’s now becoming a necessity.

Expect the Market to Adapt

It’s always difficult to say where proposed regulations will take the industry. It is, however, likely that these regulations will lead to massive changes in the industry and probably in unexpected ways. Maybe regulation will open the door for other US-based video apps. Maybe large corporations will prioritize other video channels or use lobbying to advocate for less regulation of Tik Tok. Maybe user consumption of viral video content will change. Regardless of the impact, it is almost certain these regulations WILL have some sort of massive impact on the marketing industry and likely in unforeseen ways.

Reach out to JSL Marketing & Web Design for a custom consultation on how to use your marketing for the best results! Whether it’s SEO, video marketing, or social media, we’re waiting in the wings to help you achieve the results you need!

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July 13, 2023

An Intro to LinkedIn Marketing

LinkedIn is an amazing professional tool. The world’s largest business community offers so much in terms of useful information, relevant business discussions, and opportunities to network. This access to an amazing group of business professionals also makes LinkedIn a great destination for marketing. After all, there are as many as 202 LinkedIn profiles within the U.S. If done correctly, marketers can use LinkedIn to their advantage to reach new audiences, educate on new products and learn about their target audience.

Linked has some unique benefits for marketers.

It’s the largest collection of business professionals in the world, which makes it a great media tactic for advertisers trying to reach specific titles or job functions.
Since LinkedIn is also a great place for those looking for a job, it’s also a great destination for those looking to recruit.
As a website for professionals, advertisers can rest assured that the website will be brand safe.
LinkedIn offers various ad formats for those looking to run paid social campaigns.
LinkedIn offers small businesses a venue to promote technical content about their industry.

If done right, LinkedIn marketing is a great way to grow your business. However, this is all easier said than done. LinkedIn is a great tool, but there are some best practices to ensure that you are using your LinkedIn marketing successfully. The experts at JSL Marketing & Web Design put together some thought starters on how to use LinkedIn marketing to take your business to new heights!

Is LinkedIn the Right Choice for Your Business?

The answer is that, yes, LinkedIn is useful for any business. Bar none. We’ve been in the marketing world for some time and can confidently say that every business ought to have a LinkedIn profile. However, not all businesses should put the same amount of time and effort into LinkedIn.

For instance, a jewelry website is probably better served using TikTok and Instagram as mediums to reach their perfect audience. A lawyer specializing in mergers and acquisitions, inversely, should probably spend most of their marketing efforts on LinkedIn since their ideal customer is likely a business professional. While it’s not an ironclad rule, businesses that sell to other businesses, or B2B businesses, should consider LinkedIn their most important social media platform. B2C businesses, or those that sell to the consumer, should still have a LinkedIn profile, but LinkedIn likely won’t be their bread-and-butter for social media. There might be use cases where this isn’t true, but it works well as a rule of thumb.

Know Your Audience

The most foundational element of LinkedIn marketing is to know your audience, much like any other marketing effort. The best LinkedIn campaigns in the world will not drive results if they are addressed to the wrong audience. Specific research is always recommended to truly understand who that audience is and how to influence them. You might have an idea of who you consider to be your ideal customer profile, but market research is the only way to truly corroborate your assumptions. Trust us; if you want to see the best results with your LinkedIn marketing, you need to understand your target audience.

Align Copy and CTAs

Now that you have your audience thoroughly defined, researched, and vetted, it’s time to ensure that your creative copy and calls to action are aligned with this audience. Many small businesses, as they move towards LinkedIn, look to their past social media efforts to help inform their LinkedIn marketing. This can be helpful, but be sure that you don’t merely just copy and paste from what you’ve done on Facebook and Twitter. The short quips and memes that resonated with your Twitter audience might not fare well on LinkedIn.

Think About Your Goal

LinkedIn marketing is a great tactic for marketers, but you do need to remember what your end goal is when looking at utilizing LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a great medium for paid advertising, lead generation, audience education, brand awareness, and promoting new content, but advertisers can still struggle to align LinkedIn to their business goals.

For example, let’s say that you’re a niche accounting firm looking for leads from a particular type of business. You have a very select ideal customer profile and need to reach very specific people. You decide to regularly post content on your LinkedIn through organic LinkedIn engagement and run paid LinkedIn advertising to any business looking for accounts. Both of these tactics might make sense for another business, but for an accounting firm that needs specific types of leads from very select businesses, this strategy won’t produce great results.

The issue in the above use case isn’t LinkedIn; it’s how the business in question used LinkedIn. For instance, if our fictional business’s goal was to educate current customers about new service offerings via content promotion on their LinkedIn feed and create brand awareness among businesses looking for accountants via paid advertising, then the above media mix would have made a lot of sense! Ultimately, we see too many small businesses thinking of LinkedIn as a one-size fits all approach when nothing could be further from the truth.

Partner with JSL

It can be challenging for small businesses to get started with LinkedIn marketing, but you don’t need to do it alone. Turn to JSL Marketing & Web Design for a free LinkedIn consultation! We’re an award-winning digital marketing agency based in DFW, and we’d love to talk shop.

Our process is simple. We work to ensure that we understand your specific use case, from your competitors and value propositions to your short-term and long-term goals. Once we understand this, we’re able to make an amazing LinkedIn marketing campaign that aligns with your vision and needs.

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June 15, 2023

How To Build Your Business Social Media Following

Social media is an amazing way to keep your customers aware of what is happening with your brand! Social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram let you share content about your brand directly with your customers, which is a huge benefit for your business. If done right, you can use social media to keep your customers aware of your offerings, educate them about your brand, and collect customer feedback. And it’s typically a fairly low-cost medium! That’s not a bad deal.

However, you will need social media followers to maximize your social media presence. Going viral just isn’t a long-term strategy. You will need an established and engaged social media following to maximize your use of the medium. That can be difficult for some brands, especially if you’re new to business social media.

Read Onto Learn More About Social Media Following

Follow Others

If you want to increase your social media following, be prepared to follow. Following other business pages in your local market is a great way to do this. First off, there is an intrinsic urge to reciprocate that will help you increase your following. However, this also is just a great way to be plugged into your local area and up to date with the goings on with your compatriots. Now, we do recommend that you use some discretion when following other social media profiles. Following every social media profile, you possibly can will likely not help. Following social media profiles that are local and interesting is a better practice.

Paid Social

Paid social ad campaigns on Facebook or Instagram do cost an ad spend, but the results are clear. Most of your organic social media followers likely know your business or know about your business. If you’re looking to grow your business profile, you thus need to expand beyond reaching current customers and need to reach net new followers. While paid social ads aren’t for every brand, they are the best way to get your messaging in front of new eyeballs and increase the number of followers.

Ask Your Customers

Sometimes, all you have to do is ask. Your current customers are one possible avenue to growing your social media profile following. After all, they know your brand and likely are thrilled! If you ask enough of your best customers for follows, you will slowly but surely begin to expand your social media following. If you get most of your business from a brick-and-mortar store, we recommend training your front door staff to ask delighted customers to follow you on Facebook and Instagram as a part of their process.

Now, it is important to ensure that you make a value proposition when you’re asking current customers. Let’s say you’re a smoothie shop, and you’re instructing your front-end staff on how to ask a customer for a follow on Facebook. We might recommend ensuring that your staff highlights the fact that you share information about monthly specials, coupons, and limited-time offers on your social media profiles. This increases the odds that you’ll get a few followers! The more they understand what’s in it for them, the higher the odds that you’ll be growing your following in no time.

Promote Digitally

If you do most of your business over the internet, gaining new social media followers can be a little different than if you’re a brick-and-mortar store. We recommend including a quick blurb asking for a follow at the bottom of your website and in email marketing correspondence for best results. You also can cross-promote other social media platforms if needed. Let’s say that your Facebook has plenty of followers, but LinkedIn doesn’t. There’s nothing that says you can’t begin linking to your LinkedIn profile to help get a little more traffic on that platform.

Collaborate

Planning a guest blog with another business is one tactic to consider when trying to grow your social media following. The idea looks something like this.

Find a relevant business to your industry.
Offer to write a guest piece of content on their website in exchange for you doing the same.
Once published, the business in question shares the guest piece of content on their social media platforms and tags your profile.

This strategy is a proven way to build relationships in your industry and also to get a little more traffic to your social media profile! This tactic is a little more time-intensive, so we don’t necessarily recommend it for everyone, but if you know a local business that you have a great rapport with, it might be worth considering.

Produce Great Content

It’s much harder than merely stating it, but producing great and interesting content is the best way to grow your social media presence. No one goes on social media merely to go on social media. They’re on social media for entertainment, and if they learn a little something about your brand in the process, that’s ok too. Per that, it’s imperative that you have great content to keep the following you have engaged.

If you need help planning a comprehensive social media strategy, turn to JSL Marketing & Web Design. We’re an award-winning social media agency proudly based in Dallas, TX.

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October 06, 2022

5 Creative Ways to Use Social Media

Social media is a must-have marketing tool in today’s digital world. With 71% of consumers preferring to purchase from brands they’ve interacted with on social media, businesses with no online presence are missing out on potential clients and conversions. Small businesses can use social media to educate customers about their products or services and stay current on industry trends. Social media is central to your business’s marketing strategy, with the number of users rising yearly.

The good news is that more businesses have prioritized social media in recent years, making brand and product information more accessible than ever. The bad news is that there’s a lot more competition in every industry — simply having social media accounts isn’t enough. Instead, you’ll need to craft strategic, creative ways to keep your current customers engaged and new ones interested.

The social media experts at JSL Marketing & Web Design assembled their thoughts on using your business profiles for your benefit. Read on to learn how to wow your followers on social media and grow your business!

Creative Ways To Use Social Media

Show Social Proof

Consumers are constantly bombarded by digital marketing. When every brand posts content claiming to be the best, it’s hard to know whether or not they’re trustworthy. To minimize online-consumer skepticism of your business, it’s important to highlight real people’s experiences with your products or services.

Connecting your brand’s online presence to real people is called social proof. Showing potential clients that your past or current customers are willing to testify to the efficacy of your product or service legitimizes your business in the eyes of a social media user. We recommend sharing occasional customer testimonial videos that show what you did for them and what you can do for new customers. Keep the videos quick and visually appealing to grab your audience’s attention when they’re scrolling through their feed. For more tips on videography, visit our Services page to learn more!

Create Your Brand

Your brand isn’t just a name — it’s a specific and unique set of feelings, emotions, and experiences your customers associate your company with. Branding is an integral part of any marketing strategy, but it’s often neglected by businesses, who prefer to focus on marketing activities that immediately generate revenue. This can be a huge mistake. Research indicates that almost half of customers will first buy from brands they recognize, meaning that you’re likely missing opportunities if you don’t properly brand your business. There are many ways to create a distinct brand experience, but social media has some unique qualities.

For one, your social media followers already engage with you on your social media profiles. Social media’s format makes it easy to share fun and unique content; content that lets you convey more than just words or a logo. We recommend focusing on short pieces of content that show that your brand is more than just a mission statement.

Some types of content you can use to build your brand’s “story” on social media are

Company News
Staff Engagement
Client Testimonials
Product Release Updates

Learn About Your Customer Base

Your followers aren’t on Facebook and Twitter just to consume your content — they’re also there to share their thoughts and opinions. This is integral to social media, but many small businesses don’t take advantage of this opportunity. If done correctly, you can gather useful market research from your social media followers.

We recommend

Social Media Polls
Online Suggestion Boxes
A/B Testing Social Media Ad Sets Per Product Or Audience
Maintaining A Facebook Group or Twitter Hashtag for Audience Insight

Integrate User-Generated Content

If you want to increase your social media reach, we recommend hosting a user-generated content contest. This gives your social media followers the opportunity to post their own content and tag your company’s profiles, putting content and information about your business in front of more social media users.

Common examples of social media user-generated content include

Photo Contests
Videos of Customers Using The Product
Tag A Friend Challenges

Demonstrate Your Status as an Industry Leader

Developing and sharing content that shows your industry expertise is a great way to educate your customer base, build connections in your industry, and grow revenue. However, too many small businesses don’t use this as often as they should. They might share industry news now and again, but don’t have a webinar or blog series highlighting their industry knowledge.

We recommend creating a long-running series of some sort that will pique interest in your brand. Answering common industry questions is a good starting point.

Revitalize Your Social Media With JSL Marketing & Web Design

Social media can do a lot for your business, but to achieve the best results, you must have a well-rounded strategy. That’s where the social media experts at JSL Marketing & Web Design come in!

Our social media marketing services include

Paid Social Media Ads
Social Media Management
Establishing Social Media Profiles
Social Media Strategy
Branding & Videography
Content Promotion
& More!

JSL Marketing & Web Design is a proud Forbes agency council member and boasts a perfect 5 star rating on Google! While we’re proud of all of those achievements, we think our customers say it better than we ever could!

“They’ve been wonderful to work with. They’re always on top of any task or correction.” – Melissa W.

If it’s time to up your social media game, turn to the experts at JSL Marketing & Web Design.

Need help with a different marketing tactic? We’re always up to discuss how our other services can grow your business! Our other services include

Email Marketing
Google Ads
Web Design
SEO
Content Development
Videography
Brand Development & Research

Get in touch with our team by filling out the form below! We’ll get back to you ASAP.

June 17, 2021

How to Market On Tik Tok

“How do I market on Tik Tok?”

It’s a question more and more businesses are asking themselves. Just a couple of years ago, hardly anyone knew what Tik Tok was, let alone how to market on the platform. Now, Tik Tok is one of the fastest-growing social media platforms in the world, with over 1 BILLION installs. That’s a reason to pay attention to Tik Tok!

If you’re a business owner interested in video marketing, Tik Tok is a great choice to reach your audience, particularly if that audience is younger! However, that can be easier said than done. Tik Tok is a new platform, which comes with its own challenges. You’re probably not as familiar with Tik Tok as Facebook or traditional email marketing either.

So, how do you effectively use this platform?

If you’re interested in learning how to market on Tik Tok, you’re in the right place! Our team of social media and video marketing professionals has assembled their best recommendations to help you become a Tik Tok marketing wizard!

What is Tik Tok?

Tik Tok, like its earlier predecessor Vine, relies on short-form, user-generated content. If you remember Vine, then Tik Tok will look relatively familiar. Tik Toks can be up a minute long or longer and are typically quick little videos of the user’s surroundings. (We’ll talk about that later!)

Who Uses Tik Tok?

Tik Tok’s audience skews female with most being under the age of 35. However, the app is relatively new and if past social media app adoption is any indication, other genders and age groups will become more prevalent on Tik Tok in the next few years. (Remember when Facebook was mostly college kids? Oh, how times have changed.)

The actual content on Tik Tok is varied. Remember, it’s user-generated content, so you can find all types of videos on Tik Tok. Common themes include dancing, lip-syncing, art production, and cute animals. The visual and dynamic nature of Tik Tok’s short-form videos lends itself well to product or creative brands. Think of a gym demonstrating a Workout of the Day or an artist showcasing a painting via Tik Tok.

However, don’t think that Tik Tok is only for makeup, artists, and fitness-related product brands! Other industries and service-based businesses can still utilize Tik Tok. They’ll just need to find the right way to showcase that service. It will be a little less intuitive than incorporating a product into Tik Toks, but it can still happen!

How Do I Make a Tik Tok Video?

You don’t need to be a world-class videographer to make great Tik Toks. The platform is known for its user-generated content, so slick and overly produced videos can come across as inauthentic to users. The right camera phone and good lighting should suffice.

Just be mindful of the length of your videos. While the theoretical limit is 60 seconds or even longer for videos recorded outside of Tik Tok and then uploaded, don’t feel the need to record content that long. Plenty of Tik Toks are 15 seconds or shorter and plenty of research suggests that grabbing a user’s attention in the first few seconds of a Tik Tok is crucial.

After all, why take 30 seconds to say what you could in 10? Keep your Tik Toks short and punchy for best results!

What Should I Record on Tik Tok?

Anything! That’s the beauty of the platform. It’s entirely up to you. While that freedom is great, keep in mind what others are recording on Tik Tok. They’re probably a good way to brainstorm what else you could record.

Two great places to begin are Tik Tok Challenges and hashtags. Challenges are viral Tik Tok videos, usually around a dance or interpersonal dynamic. This will be entirely dependent on the business and industry, but challenges are a great way to plug into what is currently happening on Tik Tok. Hashtags are another useful way to tag your content or find related videos.

Be careful with hashtags; they’re like sugars in coffee. 1 or 2 is great; 10 is probably too many. (No offense to those who like it sweet!) Add a few well-placed hashtags, but keep it manageable.

Should I Market on Tik Tok?

Now that you understand the basics of Tik Tok, you’re probably wondering, “Should I market on Tik Tok?” That’s a valid question!

Since Tik Tok is such a new medium, most advertisers aren’t as familiar with it as they are with social media or email marketing. They are understandably unsure about how to proceed.

First, we would recommend evaluating if Tik Tok is truly the right marketing channel for your business. There are myriad ways to reach your perfect audience via digital and internet marketing. Tik Tok might not be the best one for your unique business needs!

We’d suggest evaluating the following before you launch into the wide world of Tik Tok Marketing.

Age: Who are your perfect customers? If your business gets most of its revenue from people over 50, then Tik Tok, with most of its monthly users under the age of 35, might not be the best tactic. Now, if you’ve learned that your brand awareness is low among 20-somethings, then Tik Tok is a great option. Still, evaluate this facet before your start recording.
Industry: Some brands just aren’t built for Tik Tok. Law firms, certain types of doctors, and tax professionals are three great examples of businesses that might suffer a reputation hit if they use Tik Tok. It’s not a hard stop rule. These types of businesses could manage a business Tik Tok if desired, but they shouldn’t be putting too much effort or expenditure into Tik Tok.

How Do I Market on Tik Tok?

Now that you understand the basics of the platform, you’re probably wondering HOW to actually use Tik Tok. There are basically three options.

A Tik Tok Business Account: This is the easiest way to enter the Tik Tok Marketing World. Regularly posting business-related content on your Tik Tok is an engaging, low-cost, and effective way of engaging with your followers. For example, an interior designer could record and post videos of complete projects to showcase the Before and After.
Tik Tok Influencer Marketing: Paying an influencer on Tik Tok to incorporate your product into their Tik Toks is one option. It’s a great way to get a large number of eyes on your product in an environment they’re more likely to remember than a generic ad. This route can be cost-prohibitive to smaller brands, less relevant to certain industries, or not immediately impactful, depending on the influencer. It’s a great option for some, but don’t feel like hiring an influencer is the ONLY way to utilize Tik Tok in your marketing strategy.
Tik Tok Ads: Consider Tik Tok Ads a compromise between the control of a Tik Tok business account and the wide reach of a Tik Tok influencer. This tactic lets you target the perfect content and audience for your brand while still scaling. If you’re familiar with the audience capabilities of Facebook targeting, then Tik Tok should be familiar. Again, this will require ad spend. Currently, a $500 campaign budget minimum is required.

Call JSL Marketing For Tik Tok Marketing

Tik Tok marketing, like other social media marketing, can be a dynamic and confusing tactic. If you need a dedicated team of social media marketing experts to help guide you through the marketing world, call JSL Marketing & Web Design at 855.869.4764!

Our team can help you with…

Audience Identification

Video Production

Campaign Set-Up

Brand Development

Budget Recommendations

Creative A/B Testing

And More!

Call JSL to begin amazing Tik Tok campaigns today!

June 03, 2021

6 Social Media Marketing Mistakes (& How To Avoid Them)

Social media marketing mistakes can sink a small business in a heartbeat. And that’s because social media marketing is a must for brands these days, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t risks associated with this tactic.

Many brands aren’t properly utilizing all the tools at their disposal to reach their perfect audience on social media. Many businesses are also entering social media marketing without a solidified game plan and rules of engagement. At best, both types of businesses are missing out on potential revenue; at worst, they’re risking serious public relations disasters.

To help you navigate the twists and turns of the digital marketing landscape, our social media marketing experts compiled a list of common social media marketing mistakes for your enjoyment. Read on to learn the common social media pitfalls small businesses make in their marketing and what you can do to avoid these mistakes!

Common Social Media Marketing Mistakes

#1 – Cookie Cutter Messaging

If you’ve read about marketing in the past, you know that marketing is essentially putting the right messaging in front of the right audience. That sounds good on paper but can be a little harder to implement in practice. Social media is no different.

There are a couple of different areas to remember this. The most obvious is the messaging you use on different social media platforms. Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram all cater to different audiences and your messaging should reflect this.

Depending on your industry, it’s completely ok to prioritize one platform over another. If you sell a physical product geared towards a younger audience, you should spend more time crafting your Instagram strategy than on Twitter. That might not be true if your ideal demographic skews older, in which case Facebook will be more valuable.

The next area to evaluate for cookie-cutter messaging is within one social media platform. The best way to do this is through paid social media advertising.

Paid advertising lets you target specific audiences and tailor your messaging to those audiences, capabilities that non-paid or organic social media lacks.

If you need to reach a particular audience with a unique message of ad ASAP, paid social media is the best way to do it. While this does cost a bit more, the ability to select the audiences you want to reach pays dividends. Trust us; well-targeted ad campaigns are worth the investment if you want to put your messaging in front of the right audience.

#2 – Chasing Vanity Metrics

A lot of business owners understand that the brand awareness social media marketing can offer them is a valuable thing. Since many of us use social media in our private lives, we understand the metrics. Shares, likes, comments, and retweets are typically more accessible to the average person than other marketing metrics and it’s easy to feel a sense of satisfaction when one of your posts receives a high number of likes.

However, don’t make the mistake of only chasing these metrics at the expense of other goals. A good example of this would be examining a Facebook ad campaign and walking away satisfied with the results if the ads received a lot of likes. But if the goal of the campaign was to drive sales, then driving great engagement in the forms of likes and comments isn’t a substitute for clicks and sales.

Obviously, an ad set that is receiving a lot of likes and comments is still valuable! You’re putting your message out there and making an impact with your audience. But, don’t think that likes in and of themselves are the end goal for every social media marketing strategy.

That’s why it’s so important to set a social media marketing Key Performance Indicator or KPI at the beginning of any social media marketing campaign so that you know what the benchmark is and are constantly striving towards it.

Don’t get distracted by what looks like progress. Use beautiful images and videos, clear calls to action, and well-written copy to advance towards that well-defined end goal and drive the right results for your business!

Call Us At 855.944.1201 To Learn More

#3 – Not Developing A Comprehensive Style Guide

Social media reflects society at large. After all, it’s in the very name “social!” This means that any and every type of content can be found throughout social media, from the humorous to the more controversial. Many businesses don’t codify their social media rules before launching social media marketing campaigns and this can cause confusion.

Should your brand engage with any content that involves politics?
How about egalitarian causes that are politically-slanted, but are not inherently about political parties?
What types of humor are in bounds?

If you don’t set a style guide for your entire team to operate from, you’re likely to end up with embarrassing situations.

Sit down with your team, develop a comprehensive social media style guide, ideally as part of a brand style guide, and clarify the rules of the road.

#4 – Making it all about You

There is nothing wrong with a little self-promotion. Feel free to share your content, advertise new products, and update your customers on new business updates for your brands!

However, there is a balancing act here. People log onto social media to have fun and relax. They might be interested in updates with your business, but you will need to entertain as well.

A nice mix of industry content, personal posts about your staff, promotional updates, and branded photography and videography is a good start.

Again, don’t think that you can’t talk shop on social media, but if you’re constantly making an elevator pitch for your brand on Facebook, you’re probably losing followers.

#5 – Missing the Mark on Humor

Humorous posts are a balancing act. On the one hand, no one wants to follow a stiff and robotic social media account. People get on social media, after all, to have fun and methodical and forgettable posts about your product aren’t exactly a good time. Sprinkling in humor and keeping a light and upbeat tone is a great idea.

However, the pendulum can swing too much the other way. Attempts at humor can fall flat and damage your brand and leave you looking at best hapless, at worst heartless. We’d recommend reading this article on social media marketing whiffs for some examples.

We’re not saying to abandon any post that isn’t about your product. Humor is a valuable aspect of a social media marketing strategy, so it’s imperative you make your audience chuckle from time to time. To help that goal, we’d recommend you follow these quick pointers for auditing a joking post.

Always Review. The more eyes weigh in on a post, the better. If multiple members of your team consider the post brand-safe, non-offensive, AND genuinely funny, you’re most likely in the clear and can go ahead and post it.
Keep it G. There are use cases where a brand might operate in an industry where risqué or adult humor could be pertinent to your audience. However, you likely do not fall into this camp. To avoid any potential slip-ups or PR nightmares, ask yourself if you’d be comfortable showing the post in question to your priest, rabbi, or imam. That’s a good rule-of-thumb for if the post is within bounds.
Stay Positive. Dark or deprecating humor has a place, but it likely isn’t on your brand’s social media accounts. Again, refer to the priest/rabbi/imam rule-of-thumb and if in doubt, ask another member of your team to weigh in.

#6 – Mishandling Negative Feedback

Negative feedback is a part of life when you sell a product or service. It’s just life. However, too many brands take umbrage at any criticism in their comments sections and can become combative with the reviewer. Don’t do this.

Be sure to respond to the review or comments professionally, empathetically, and promptly. In the best-case scenario, you might convince the reviewer to revise or delete their comments. However, even if this doesn’t happen, you’re demonstrating to other customers that you care about your customers and are willing to professionally handle bad feedback.

And that’s way more effective than arguing with or ignoring poor reviews.

Your Social Media Marketing Experts

The JSL Marketing & Web Design team has been crafting amazing digital marketing campaigns for years and has over thirty 5-star reviews on Google!

Our social media experts are standing by to discuss your social media marketing questions and goals. Contact us to answer any of the following questions!

What’s the best way to grow my social media following without paid social media?
Why aren’t my social media ads performing well?
How do I make viral content?
And More!

Your social media marketing dream team is standing by! Call us at 855.944.1201 to discuss your marketing goals.

February 04, 2021

Capitalize Your Social Media Marketing Plans in 2021 with JSL Marketing

Few inventions have been as consequential for small businesses as the rise of social media. The advent of platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter lets small businesses communicate with their customers, reach more people, promote new products, and inform their followers without breaking the bank.

You probably know that your brand should be on social media at this point in 2021. After all, nearly three quarters of Americans have (at least) one social media profile! By avoiding social media marketing and social media advertising, you’re missing a huge opportunity to connect with your potential customers!

However, the decision to advertise and market on social media platforms comes with its own questions.

Which platform should your business operate on?
How different are user bases between social media platforms?
Should you be using paid ads or will organic social media work?

The JSL Marketing & Web Design team is here to talk through these questions and more with our discussion of social media marketing!

Contact us Today to Learn More!

Social Media Marketing Terms 101

Before we jump into some bigger topics around social media marketing, it’s helpful to define some terms that are common in the digital marketing space.

PPC: Pay-Per-Click advertising. A payment model where advertisers pay platforms for every click received on their ads on sites like Facebook and Instagram.
CTR: click-through-rate. A metric that measures the amount of clicks an ad receives. To find CTR, take the amount of impressions and divide by the number of clicks received.
Engagement Rate: a measure of the amount of engagement a post or piece of content receives from your audience, in shares, likes, clicks, and other forms of engagement.
KPI: Key Performance Indicator. The main goal of a social media campaign, be it to be seen by 10,000 people, gain 1,000 new sales, or get 2,000 people to complete a video.
Organic: non-paid content, created by individual profiles and then shared on that profile. Essentially, any content shared on a social media platform that isn’t a paid ad! We’ll discuss the differences between organic and paid media shortly!
Viral: a term used to describe a shareable piece of content that is shared from profile to profile, almost like a contagious disease.

Social Media Marketing on Different Social Media Platforms

When you’re beginning social media marketing, it’s important to choose the correct platform to reach your audience. Every social media platform has a different audience that uses their services and different businesses will find different advantages in using certain platforms.

We’ve put together a brief run through of the different social media companies.

Facebook: The dominant social media platform, Facebook has over 2.5 billion monthly users! This platform has users across all demographics and classes, but this platform is probably best for advertisers or marketers looking to reach adults over the age of 40. Facebook is a diverse platform content wise and we’d recommend sharing a combination of videos, photos, and written content with your followers.
Twitter: This platform is best for quick, sudden “tweets” of written words. The real-time use of hashtags and ongoing conversations make Twitter a great platform for those working in news, politics, and current events.
Instagram: Instagram, at 1 billion monthly users, is smaller than Facebook. However, this platform’s emphasis on visual content makes it the perfect platform for promoting products or for reaching adults under the age of 30. We’d recommend well-shot product photography and videography to drive the best results on Instagram.
TikTok: With 800 million monthly users, TikTok is a small, but fast-growing platform. Tik Tok relies on user-recorded videos for social sharing. We’d recommend this social media platform for brands trying to reach teens and young adults, particularly women. (60% of U.S TikTok users are female!)

Follow this link to learn more about social media marketing!

Organic Social Media Marketing Vs Paid Social Media Advertising

As you’re familiarizing yourself with the different types of social media platforms and terms, take the time to think through if your business should use paid media. Paid social media advertising and organic social media marketing are both methods of using social media to promote your brand, but they offer unique advantages that are better suited for certain types of businesses. (Ideally, your brand will use both paid and organic social media to reach your customers for best results.)

Organic Social Media Marketing

Organic Social Media is Lower Cost: When you post content directly to your business Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, you’re doing so free-of-charge. That’s a huge benefit for young brands!
Organic Social Media Allows You to Engage Current Customers: You can, of course, use paid social media to reach current customers, but it’s not always the most cost-effective way of doing so. For small businesses especially, this can be cost-prohibitive. Sharing content on your business’s Facebook and Twitter profiles directly to your followers, however, is a great way to have a great, two-way conversation with existing customers without breaking the bank.
Organic Social Media is Authentic: Organic social media is genuine and no matter how great your Instagram ads copy is, it can be difficult to make a lasting impression on a customer with a paid ad. After all, the average American typically sees over 2,000 ads in a day! Customers follow organic social media profiles, on the other hand, because these profiles are sharing relevant information and are interesting to follow! That authenticity and genuine brand loyalty is hard to get through paid ads.

Paid Social Media Advertising

Paid Social Media Lets You Grow Quicker: If you’re trying to grow quickly, you need to invest in paid social media ads. It is possible to grow your social media presence via organic social media, but it does take some time to really start seeing results and it can be an arduous process. Paid ads, on the other hand, allow you to reach multitudes of people ASAP and often for a fraction of the cost of television ads or print media.
Paid Social Media is Targeted: If you’re a vegan ice cream supplier, you have a specific niche audience you’re trying to reach. Organic social media might be a great way to let your followers know about new flavors or company news, but it’s not a great way to bring new customers in. After all, who follows a company they’ve never purchased from? Social media advertising lets businesses select the demographics and geographic areas they’d like to target. So, our vegan ice cream supplier can decide that “Vegans 18-40 in Austin, Portland & Seattle” are the perfect people to show Facebooks and Instagram ads to!
Paid Social Media Helps You Drive Sales: It’s hard to get a current follower to purchase from your brand via an organic social media post. Social media users don’t follow pages on Facebook or Instagram to see non-stop promotional posts; they follow these profiles because they share fun and relevant content. Because of that, we’d avoid the “sales” social media bit on organic social media. You should still alert your organic followers of new products and promotions, but leave the 100% sales-focus for paid media. Use social media ads to drive sales and organic social media to tell stories.

Contact us Today to Learn More!

Social Media Marketing With Real Results

While all of this is good context for social media marketing, it’s no replacement for a social media marketing strategy. We’ve seen far too many businesses leap headlong into social media marketing with a great sense of the tactics they’d like to use, but no clue about the strategy behind what they’re using their social media presence to achieve.

Remember, social media is a tool, not an end goal.

Let’s return to our vegan ice cream supplier example. By using paid ads to reach new and specific audiences, this brand can grow their customer base. However, this needs to be done strategically.

For example, this brand could drive traffic from their paid ads to a landing page that includes an option to follow the company on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Ideally, this brand is now driving new customers to their info with paid social media but is also using those ads to promote their organic social media as well.

By thinking strategically beyond short term sales, our brand is simultaneously growing the number of new customers and returning customers.

Contact JSL Marketing & Web Design for Your Social Media Marketing Plan in 2021!

Growing a business is difficult. Let JSL Marketing & Web Design help your social media presence grow.

Our team has years of experience in social media marketing and over thirty 5-star Google reviews! We would love to give your business that same level of customer support!

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Call us today at 855.562.5208 to start your next project!

August 27, 2020

Social Media Marketing for 2020

Having a social media presence – through social media marketing – is critical for online success and is a vital component in telling your brand’s unique story. Quite often social media is the first time an individual will come into contact with your brand, and you can’t afford not to make a good impression!

So, whether you are new to the whole social media world, need a little help setting up and integrating your online social platforms, or are interested in developing a social media strategy, we can help through our cornerstone service – social media marketing and management.

Why Does Social Media Matter?

63% of local searches on social media are more likely to use a business with info on a social media site
91% of local searchers say they use Facebook to find local businesses online
71% of social media users say they are more likely to buy from a brand they follow online
Social networks and blogs now account for nearly a quarter of all time Americans spend online

Social Media Copywriting:

After you get all of your social accounts set up and connected to your website, you’re going to need to write your posts. That’s where social media copywriting comes in. Working within your brand’s unique and quirky voice, you will need to craft compelling, shareable, retweetable, likable, and actionable posts.

Social Media Advertising:

Social Media advertising is the future of paid media and ads. Advertising started out as flyers, then radio advertisement, then television, and then banners online, but the new ads are on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and more. And the new advertisers aren’t just stars and actors, they’re influencers.

Social Media Strategies:

Creating engaging social media posts is super important, but developing a social media marketing strategy is almost equally as important to your success. Besides fitting into your overall content marketing strategy, social media marketing can also include things like:

Facebook Ads
Twitter Ads
LinkedIn Ads

All of these will help to drive highly targeted potential customers back to your social media page or website, which generates more leads and increased engagement for you. Social media is a powerful storytelling tool. And when you use it correctly within your business, it can really take your brand to the next level.

Social Media Videos:

If you want to go beyond mere photos on your social media profiles, then understand that video is the future, and that future is fast approaching!

We are a full-service company, which means there is little within the digital arena that we cannot do. If you need a video to spice up your social media feed, or if you want to make a splash on YouTube, then consider video as the perfect next step in your social media strategy. Whether you want a short, 15-second animated video or a 60-second live-action review or promo video, we can help plan, produce, and polish your social media videos.

Check out our additional video production services here.

Ready To Get Started with Your Social Media Plan in 2020?

At JSL Marketing & Web Design, we offer full social media marketing and management packages to help bring your business up to speed and really stand out in the sea of social media accounts.

Ready to start building your brand’s social presence through social media marketing and management? Contact us and we’ll get back to you ASAP!