How to Generate Demand With Social Media Marketing

It likely comes as no surprise to you that 90% of US businesses use social media for marketing purposes.

So, yes, you've got competition online — but you've also got fantastic opportunities for exposure and generating demand for your product or service. Social media platforms are mostly free, and they provide leverage that nearly nothing else can compare to. 

How can you use social media marketing to get your business on the map? How can you generate demand on platforms like LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook, and more?

Here, we provide data-driven insight into what works (and what doesn't) with some of the top social media platforms out there. If you're a B2B marketing leader in your industry, it's time to pay attention.

First, What Is Demand Generation?

Understanding what demand generation is will help you leverage your social media marketing even better.

The goal of this marketing strategy is to build relationships with potential customers. You'd do this by getting them excited about what you have to offer — your product or service — and creating awareness around that specialty. This tactic is not to be confused with generating leads.

Demand generation works with a variety of programs so that you can communicate with new people throughout various touchpoints. There are fewer limitations and more opportunities. Your main goal is to create engaging, valuable, and relevant content that establishes your authority and drives interest.

So, now that you have a better understanding of this industry term, let's identify how you can generate demand on the following social media platforms. 

How to Use LinkedIn

What's the best way to market your business on LinkedIn? Well, you don't have to guess — LinkedIn itself provides excellent guidelines for marketing on their platform.

Some crucial tips they offer are as follows:

• Focus on your LinkedIn profile. Is it relevant, new, refined, and updated? Make this first impression count and complete, striving for 100% completeness
• Make your page effective by providing precise methods of communication and ways to learn more about your business
• Create brand awareness based on what you want to bring exposure to. Utilize target marketing based on your goals
• Optimize your page through keywords, links, and producing high-quality content
• What does your audience want to read? Answer that question and post content around it
• Encourage visitors to follow your page
• Use extras like images, which garner six times more engagement than plain text

Use these strategies to get your business noticed on this platform that reaches hundreds of thousands!

How to Leverage Twitter

How can you learn more about Twitter to leverage your exposure there?

Twitter offers some insight into how to use its platform to study your data. Knowing the metrics can allow you to change your marketing campaign or double-down on it.

Check out these Twitter analytics for more information:

• Look at your tweet impressions. Are they higher or lower than the month before? Why or why not? What was done differently?
• You can also see your engagement rate. If tweets have low engagement, consider improving them by adding photos or videos, which, like LinkedIn, generates more attention
• Every month, look at your "top tweets" and see what they all have in common
• Did you gain more followers on a particular day, and if so, can you sift out why?
• Look at your profile visits and mentions for insight into who's interacting with your account

If nothing else, studying these areas allows you to see what's working and what's not on your Twitter page.

How to Generate Demand on YouTube

What's one thing that all YouTubers have in common?

They produce a lot of volume, meaning they are consistently putting content online for their audience to interact with. This cadence gets viewers excited and also scared to miss out — so they'll check your page weekly, daily, and maybe even hourly. If producing so much content is difficult for your team, you can always consider outsourcing this part of your social media marketing campaign.

Some other YouTube marketing strategies to consider are as follows:

• Make your content valuable and knowledgable by doing extensive research (a point that's true for all your content and platforms!)
• What are the goals of your campaign? To educate or entertain? Or both? What other "buckets" would you like to fill? Determine these and build content around it
• Be consistent, not only with the number of videos, but with the tone, branding, expectations, and more
• Collaborate with others in your industry, especially if they have high engagement 
• Consider adding subtitles to your videos so your audience can follow along regardless of their surroundings

Using these strategies, you should be well on your way to creating more demand.

How to Win at Facebook

As we discuss Facebook, you'll understand there's quite a theme with social media marketing. People want consistency, a strong brand presence, and someone who's knowledgable and provides value.

Keeping this in mind, let's see how you can generate demand on Facebook, too:

• Understand your ad objective, whether that's wanting people to visit a website, offer, or mobile app
• Cater to a specific audience 
• Integrate your Facebook posts with Instagram, and vise versa
• Be creative 
• Use calls-to-action
• Make your page navigable, meaning that every ad someone clicks brings them right to the landing page you want
• Utilize paid ads

And of course, the same as with every other platform, study your metrics. Measure the results of your strategies to understand what's working, what's not, and, most importantly, why. 

Social Media Marketing: A Simple Yet Effective Tool for Advertising Your Business

It doesn't have to be rocket science. In fact, with these platforms, generating demand and getting exposure can be reasonably straightforward and simple, provided you follow these guidelines.

If you need more help with your social media marketing campaign, that's where we come in.

At ProSales Connection, we provide the professional sales and marketing solutions that businesses like yours seek. Contact us today to see how we can help your business thrive in any environment.