Social media has evolved into one of the most important tools for business owners and marketers today. To put it simply, if you’re not using social media for your digital marketing campaign, you’re getting left behind by the competition.
The benefits are too great to ignore. You can use these channels to create your own community by building one solid relationship at a time. You can use them to introduce more people to your brand and start gaining their trust. You can even establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry.
There are so many things you can achieve with the help of social media. And if your goal is to generate leads, you can use these networking platforms to support your outreach efforts.
However, as beneficial as they can be, you can only bring out their full potential by using the right strategies. For starters, you need to choose the right platform so that your message can reach the right people.
Executing a successful outreach campaign can be tricky, but that’s what we’re here to talk about. We will be discussing some of the best social networking platforms, namely Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and email.
We will talk about how you can use them to reach your target audience, and also list some of the best outreach tools to use with these platforms so you could get the best results.
What is the Best Way to Do Outreach to Grow Your Business?
Most of your social outreach campaign will involve convincing potential customers to visit your social profile, and hopefully get them to check out your website. That is easier said than done.
The first thing you need to do is identify which platform to focus your energy on, so you don’t waste time aimlessly campaigning in a site that is completely wrong for you. Once you’ve done that, you can optimize your social profile and impress all of your prospects.
Your social networking profile is going to act as your “store window”. If people like what they see, they will come in and even make a purchase. Optimizing your social media profile will help you convert a lot more leads. This is applicable to all the platforms we will be discussing below, except for email, which does not involve having a “profile”.
Whatever platform you choose, make sure your branding is on point and that your message is clear. Use this store window to display your wares and turn prospects into loyal customers.
It’s worth investing some time and money into making your profile as eye-catching and memorable as possible. That includes hiring a photographer for your profile picture, having a graphic designer create a custom banner image, etc.
Once you’ve optimized your profile, it’s time to provide high quality content. Content marketing is very effective because you can share some of your knowledge to your target audience while putting your brand in a positive light.
Experiment with different types of content, but always make sure that your tone is always consistent with your brand. Write articles or create videos about topics that are relevant to your audience’s interests. When visitors land on your profile, you want to impress them with the value you can provide—without even selling to them.
Now that you have some great content and a remarkable profile, you have already laid the foundations for your outreach campaign. You are ready to reach out to your prospects and wow them with your brand. When they go to visit your profile, they will see you as a professional and someone who is worthy of their trust.
Of course, none of this will work out if you don’t choose the right platform for your message.
First You Need to Understand Your Audience
We’ve given some general guidelines on how to improve your outreach campaign no matter what platform you are using. But now you need to find the right channel for your message.
The first thing you need to do is understand your audience. Find out where they are hanging out online and how much time they are spending on each site. We have listed some data from Pew Research Center as well as a few other sources that can give you an idea of which demographics use which social networking platforms.
User demographic statistics are an essential piece of data for any marketing strategy. This will help you make the right business decisions and focus your energy on the right channels.
Here are the top platforms for your outreach campaign, the demographics that spend most of their time there, and some of the tools you need to get the best results.
Even after 15 years, Facebook is still one of the biggest social networking platforms in the world. In fact, it has over 2.7 billion monthly active users globally. If there’s one social media platform that could boost your outreach efforts, it’s Facebook.
Brands and marketers alike are now using Facebook to reach their target audience. It’s a platform where you can freely post anything you want: status updates, pictures, videos, links, etc.
This flexibility allows Facebook to appeal to a large number of people who want to socialize online while sharing any type of content they want. It is one of the reasons why Facebook is popular among all demographic groups.
Adults are most likely to use Facebook over every other social media. In the US, the majority of Americans in different age groups use Facebook. It is worth noting that teenagers are gradually dropping Facebook in favor of YouTube, Snapchat, and Instagram. However, the site remains popular among every other age group.
Facebook has an edge over other social networking platforms because 74 percent of its users visit the site at least once a day. This means it has more active users in terms of daily usage compared to sites like Instagram.
It’s clear that you can find a wide array of people on this platform. And with the flexibility of content that you can use here, it is definitely a great choice for content marketing. If you want to use Facebook for your outreach campaign, here are two of our most recommended tools:
Buffer is a social media management platform that is very popular among marketers and business owners. This is because the tool lets you schedule your social media posts ahead of time.
It has an intuitive interface that’s very simple and easy to use. It even has a browser extension which integrates with WordPress, Chrome, and other content creation tools.
On top of that, Buffer even gives you handy insights and analytics for each of your posts’ reach, likes, etc.
Facebook Ads Manager
If you are running ads on Facebook, this tool will help you manage them. Now that you’ve found your target audience on Facebook, you can use Facebook Ads Manager to reach them with your ads. You can also use it to control your ad spending by setting your budget.
Twitter is a social networking site that lets you send “tweets”—text-based content that is similar to Facebook status updates. Because tweets are limited to 280 characters, users have to get creative with the way they express themselves online. Twitter members use the platform to share opinions, reviews, jokes, and thoughts on just about any topic.
If there is a topic you want to talk about, you will surely find people talking about it on Twitter. This also makes it much easier to find leads—you can just search for keywords using the Twitter search feature and you can find all the people tweeting about it. This makes it the ideal platform for timely topics and content.
Over 330 million people use Twitter every month. A lot of users treat it like an online diary or a microblogging platform. There’s no denying that it has great marketing potential.
If users are interested in a brand or company, they will follow them and oftentimes engage with them. Some even use it as a way to bring up service-related concerns. That is why Twitter is an effective channel for openly communicating with your clients.
Adult Twitter users in the US are fewer compared to other networks, according to the Pew Research Center. Twitter is most popular among younger users, particularly those between 18 and 24 years old (44 percent). 31 percent of 25 to 30 year olds use Twitter.
Twitter is not very popular among people who are above 65 years old, with only 7 percent of them using the platform.
Twitter has more male users compared to female users, but the difference is not that significant. Among US adults, 24 percent of men use Twitter, while 21 percent of women use the platform. On an international level, the breakdown of users is 66 percent men and 34 percent women.
Most Twitter users are outside of the US. In fact, of the 330 million monthly users around the world, 262 million are outside the US.
The best tools for your Twitter outreach are:
Hootsuite is not just a tool for Twitter—it is a complete social media tool that can help you accomplish a wide array of tasks on any platform. Hootsuite can help you find prospects, schedule your tweets, and even handle customer complaints. You can also use it to filter Twitter conversations based on keyword, location, and hashtag.
Trending topics are an important part of Twitter. This is why Twitter is often used for international breaking news. Oftentimes, Twitter users will be talking about a particular topic before it even reaches the news. As a marketer, you can use trending topics to your advantage by using relevant hashtags to promote your brand.
iTrended is a tool that helps you analyze Twitter trends: where they originated and how they progressed onto other locations. You can use this data to understand how to use trending topics for your outreach campaign.
Social media users love visual content. They love taking pictures and looking at pictures. Instagram gives people the platform to share their love for beautiful photographs: whether it’s art, fashion, nature, etc. And if you are a marketer, this is a place to find people who are interested in your niche.
While sites like Facebook also let you post pictures, users have different expectations when it comes to Instagram posts. Instagram pictures are significantly more artistic or visually-appealing, while photos on Facebook are typically more casual.
This makes Instagram the ideal platform for establishing your brand—using color patterns to show off your brand’s vibe and give people a better idea of who you are. Instagram is perfect for self-expression, because you can use photos to give your audience a visual representation of your identity.
The things you post about, the colors you use, and even the filters you choose all paint a picture of your brand. Marketers can use this to attract the right audience.
Instagram has over 1 billion monthly active users, meaning it is among the most popular social networks in the world. It is particularly popular in the US, India, and Brazil where it has 140, 120, and 95 million users, respectively.
Just like Facebook and Twitter, Instagram’s popularity is also steadily rising. In terms of daily logins, Instagram is second only to Facebook. Around 63 percent of Instagram users login at least once a day. These two numbers have been relatively unchanged since 2018.
Instagram is very popularamong teenagers, with 35 percent of US teens saying it is their favorite social network. It is most popular among 18 to 24 year olds, with 75 percent of this demographic using Instagram.
57 percent of 25 to 30 year olds use it; 47 percent of 30 to 49 year olds use Instagram; and only 23 percent of 50 to 64 year olds use the platform.
In terms of gender, more women are using Instagram than men. 43 percent of women in the US use Instagram while only 31 percent of men use it.
Instagram is appealing to marketers because of its international reach, not to mention its potential for brand building. If your target audience is on Instagram, here are some of the best tools to boost your outreach efforts:
Later is a social media scheduling platform that lets you plan out your campaigns more strategically. It gives you a diverse set of features, including the ability to explore hashtags and share content. Later gives you a handy content calendar where you can organize your posts. It even gives you a preview of what your Instagram feed will look like before publishing.
Similar to Later, Sked is also a scheduling platform. It offers a wide variety of features that will help you run your campaigns more smoothly.
But in addition to the scheduling features, Sked also has an extensive photo-editing feature, which is definitely helpful for a platform like Instagram that is all about pictures. With Sked, you can fine tune your photos before uploading. You can schedule batches of photos at once and save lots of time.
LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional networking platform, with over 760 million users around the world as of 2020. And just like the other social networking platforms above, LinkedIn is still growing. More and more people are realizing the potential of LinkedIn when it comes to lead generation.
Because of LinkedIn’s professional focus, the site produces high quality leads. LinkedIn members are people who are ready to do business and work towards their career goals. The site is full of professionals, decision-makers, and executives.
In a way, LinkedIn is like a massive networking event that is being attended by people from all over the globe. Users can set up their profiles, showcase their achievements and skills, and expand their network.
The LinkedIn demographic is more “niche” compared to other social networks. But this particular focus on people with professional careers is what makes it ideal for outreach campaigns.
Daily usage is less frequent compared to Facebook and Instagram, with only 9 percent of US users visiting LinkedIn more than once a day. This reflects the busy schedules of LinkedIn’s active user base. 12 percent visit LinkedIn at least once per day, while 23 percent visit several times a week.
When it comes to gender demographics, the percentage of men and women on LinkedIn is relatively similar. In the US, 29 percent of men are on LinkedIn, while 24 percent of women are using it.
Unlike Instagram and Twitter, which appeal to younger users, LinkedIn has a slightly older user base—specifically those who are part of the workforce.
Reflecting this trend, only 17 percent of people between 18 and 24 years old use LinkedIn. On the other hand, 44 percent of 25 to 30 year olds use LinkedIn. 37 percent of 30 to 49 year olds are using the platform. From the 50 to 64 age group, 24 percent are using LinkedIn—which is still higher than the number of teens on the platform.
The US has the most LinkedIn users in the world, with over 160 million users. India has the second highest number of LinkedIn users, with 61 million.
One interesting statistic to look at is the education demographics of LinkedIn: 51 percent of those with more than college education use LinkedIn, while 26 percent of those with some college education are using the platform.
If you want to use LinkedIn for your business outreach campaign, here are the best tools to use:
As a LinkedIn automation tool, Kennected is by far the best outreach tool for LinkedIn. It helps you complete tasks on LinkedIn that would otherwise take up a lot of your time. Kennected uses LinkedIn’s data-rich filters to find your target audience. You can then use Kennected to send automated messages and follow-ups to your ideal clients.
Kennected can simplify your lead generation efforts and bring you a steady stream of connections, meetings, and sales.
Kennected also works with LinkedIn Sales Navigator to make your lead generation simple and automated. Kennected helps make your lead generation campaigns profitable.
LinkedIn Sales Navigator
Launched by LinkedIn itself, this handy tool aims to connect buyers and sellers. Using it, you can target the right customers and engage with them. It has features like sales insights, advanced algorithms for connecting with prospects, and relationship building tools that can help you close sales easily.
Use LinkedIn Sales Navigator with Kennected to connect with your ideal clients at scale.
While email has a social aspect to it, it is not technically considered social media. But this tool is universal, and you can expect that everyone online has an email address. For this reason, a lot of marketers use email to connect with their target audience.
Here are five highly recommended email tools that can help you with your outreach campaign:
This follow-up automation tool is similar to Kennected, but for your email campaigns. Woodpecker will help you automate your email outreach. Business owners and marketers love automation tools because they save so much time by completing repetitive and mundane tasks.
Woodpecker helps you with email sequencing by giving you features like: agency dashboards, A/B split testing, detailed reports, open and click rate tracking, reply detection, and more.
Reply.io is a sales platform that allows you to send personalized emails at scale. Personalization is very important because you don’t want people to think you are spamming them. That is why certain tools like Reply and Kennected let you personalize your messages.
Reply is an email sequence software that lets you send automated messages and follow-ups to multiple targets at once.
Another email sequence software that helps you target prospects through cold email. Prospecti.io also automates your follow-ups, allowing you to save time on your email outreach. It has other features such as auto-reply, mail merge, bounce detection, open and click tracking, email validation, and team reports.
This email sequence software has integrations with the Salesforce, HubSpot, and Pipedrive CRMs. Mailshake helps you find and connect with leads more easily.
Mailshake’s features include default email signatures, A/B testing, open and click rate tracking, reply detection, mail merge, auto-reply, bounce detection, email threads, and more.
Another choice for your email sequencing needs is Outreach. It is a tool that helps you automate your email outreach through sales sequences, workflow governance, and targeted reporting. Outreach has integrations with Salesforce CRM, Microsoft Dynamics365, and even LinkedIn Sales Navigator.
There’s no shortage of email sequencing tools that can help you with your outreach campaigns.
Use these various social networking platforms and tools to build strong connections, increase your engagement, and get more eyes on your content online. Although outreach campaigns can be stressful and challenging sometimes, they do become easier when you use the right strategies and the right channels for your message.