Josh Delane, Director of The Wood Works, looks at the changes in how retailers approach social media marketing in 2024, and how to best use each of the different platforms to promote your business in the right way. Giving advice.
In the ever-changing social media marketing landscape, there are currently only a few platforms that matter. In all of this, it's important to tailor your message and content (be it photos or videos) to the specific platform. But as we head into 2024, we can't all be on every channel all the time. So where should you focus your energy?
This ultimately depends on who you do business with. Primarily if he is a B2B supplier, most of his efforts should be focused on his LinkedIn. However, if you want to sell directly to the public, Instagram and TikTok are the best.
Right off the bat, Twitter (or X) can be excluded as a KBB platform. What we do is visual art, and it would be very difficult to describe an attractive kitchen in 290 characters or less.
For B2B companies, there's no better platform than LinkedIn. This is where your prospects hang out most of the time and is where they are most likely to see your content.
When LinkedIn moved to a content-based platform, it meant we were more content consumers than producers, and that's still the case today. This means that every post has a high chance of going viral and reaching the masses.
Video content is currently favored by LinkedIn over media such as text and still images. If you worked with specific developers or suppliers on your project, tag them in your post. In this case, individuals work better than companies. For example, if I post a photo of my kitchen with a Quooker tap and tag him Dr. Stephen Johnson, not only will my entire network see that post, but if he engages with it, his post will too. You will see it.
We also recommend that you always post from your personal account. People often see posts from companies and ignore them. He sets his personal profile to “Creator Account” and chooses five hashtags for what he's going to talk about. Adding these 5 hashtags every time you post will increase your reach by 10-15%.
Once a simple photo-sharing platform, Instagram is now pushing short-form video content to compete with TikTok.
These days, posting a photo with a hashtag is highly unlikely to reach much more people than your existing followers. While you can use still image posts as a polished showcase for your work, we recommend focusing your time and effort on Instagram Reels.
Reels are short-form videos that encourage creators to create more video content for a large audience. Attention spans have become shorter. You'll want to create crisp, short-form videos. Try changing frames every 3 seconds to keep your clips from getting stale. Also, if you're uploading a Reel, just before posting, scroll down and click on “Topics.”
Choose three topics that best describe your video. This helps the algorithm find the right audience for your video and helps increase the number of people who watch your video.
tick tock
Last but not least is the baby of the group. TikTok is a leading short-form video company with an interest in the core of its algorithms. See more videos that interest you and learn how to navigate the app. This isn't like old-school Instagram, which worked by showing images of your friends and their large network.
This is changing the entire social media landscape and is why a single TikTok video can get millions of views overnight. You can only post short videos on TikTok. Similar to Instagram Reels, you need to create short, crisp videos that grab people's attention and keep them watching until the end.
Go to the search bar and search for topics like “kitchen design”. Filter and sort answers by likes and last 3 months. You'll see the top-performing videos for that search term and get ideas for your own content.
Retailers, get your existing marketers to try short-form videos. You learn by doing, so try to post at least a few videos a week. Use analytics to see what works and what doesn't, and tweak from there.
Alternatively, you can hire a creator to do this for you. You can either keep it in-house or work with a marketing agency that does this kind of thing all day long.
