10 Cheap Social Media Marketing Tactics That Work

Social media and business are inseparable.

That is the reality that we live in today.

To be accurate, it is social media marketing that is indispensable to businesses and their success both online and offline. There are now around 3.2 billion social media users all over the world. That number represents more than 42% of the global population! And get this—that figure will only get bigger.

Facebook is at the forefront of this “revolution,” being the most widely used social media platform.

Make no mistake, though, that other platforms like Twitter and Instagram have an impact on business as well. If you are a small business or a startup with a smaller budget, you want to make the most of your social media marketing tactic.

You want to make every single dollar count and work for you.

However, it’s vital for you to choose the right social media platforms to use. Note that, each one of these social media networks has a unique set of audience that you can market to.

For instance, if you’re targeting 40 years old and above professionals, Pinterest might not work out for you. On the other hand, you will not be able to reach Gen Z market if you are posting on LinkedIn. It just doesn’t work that way.

So without further ado, here are 10 cheap social media marketing tactic that actually works:

1. Start with Quality Content

You cannot go wrong if you choose to go this route. We know how important quality content is for any online marketing effort. The same is true for social media marketing tactics. Consider it one of the building blocks of a sound and effective online marketing campaign.

Make sure that you have great content on your blog and website on a consistent basis. You can share content from your blog and so forth onto your social media platforms! This helps you re-purpose your content to get more out of it. It also stretches the reach of how many people are seeing your content, making it more valuable and effective towards acquiring leads and sales!

Several options are available as far as your choice of content is concerned. Here are a few:

• Create tips in which you dispense expert opinion within your industry.
• Best practices and strategies can be added to the list of tips you come up with.
• Lists, particularly top 10 lists, are also a great choice when coming up with written content.

2. Use Videos

Another great addition to your cheap but effective social media marketing tactic is video content. It is a really good choice if you do choose to go with it. Tons of other businesses that are using videos have proven that it is effective and that people want this type of content.

In fact, three out of every four businesses that use video content said it helped them increase their sales. A number that high can only be considered conclusive. We’re able to include videos on our cheap social media marketing tactic list because your videos do not need to be a high-end production or commercial to be effective.

So what types of videos would be appropriate for this purpose?

We usually recommend videos that highlight your products or services. In that sense, instructional, educational or how-to videos can be perfect. Your audience will automatically be interested in them, and then they can learn from them too. Not a bad combination at all.

Teach them or tell them a story. The story should be about your brand, of course.

Tell the story of how your brand started out, the struggles, and the challenges that were needed to be overcome.

Videos outperform static images 9 times out of 10 on social media in terms of engagement, clicks and more. Definitely factor videos into your social media marketing tactic!

3. Use Email Marketing

You might be surprised with this one since this blog is about social media marketing tactic, but email marketing is still valid here! Indeed, valid enough to be included among your cheap social media marketing tactic that works.

Did you know that nearly 90% of digital marketers believe email marketing to be effective in closing leads or sales?

There are a couple of ways you can leverage email marketing in your social media marketing tactic. If you already have an existing email list, use it! Send out newsletters and let them know how and where to follow you on social media.

Vice versa, you can use content from your social media platforms to send out to your email marketing list. An example of this would be to highlight customer reposts from your social media in your emails. Use posts where your customers have tagged you in their photos, and encourage more users to do the same by giving them a shout-out in your email blasts!

This is particularly effective if you have a younger target audience.

If you’re conducting Facebook ads, you can also upload your customer email list into your Facebook Ads Manager to either retarget them or make a lookalike audience out of them! This usually helps you obtain sales or leads at a lower cost per result (getting you more bang for your buck!).

Another tip is that this strategy calls for patience. It will not look and feel good for you to send too many emails to customers right away.

The best course will be to build it up through time and earn people’s trust with useful content. When they are ready, then that is the time for them to become actual customers by buying your products or services.

4. Focus on Facebook

We cannot talk about social media marketing without talking about Facebook.

How can we not when Facebook is the biggest social media channel in the world, with more than 2 billion active monthly users. Nearly 60% of consumers are influenced by social media in their shopping decisions. Facebook represents 44% of that.

So why not take full advantage of it as one of the cheap social media marketing tactic at your disposal?

There are two options available to you if you want to use Facebook as one of your cheap social media marketing tactic: First is through organic or unpaid advertising.

Second is by going with a paid advertising method. If you are challenged budget-wise, then it makes sense for you to go with the organic advertising option.

However, you also need to note the fact that unpaid advertising will only afford you a limited reach. Now if you want a paid option that is still cost-effective in the long run, then you better run a Facebook ads campaign.

5. Send a Personalized Message

Everybody loves to get a personalized message. And if you are a business owner, then you need to take advantage of that. Customers today favor those whom they feel to be authentic and to keep things real. By sending personalized messages to them, you get an instant connection, which they love.

If your brand can make this connection, then it will set you apart from competitors who aren’t doing this with their customers. So you need to make a point to add this to your list of tactics.

To do this, start creating ads that are infused with personalized content. You can do this organically or through the use of different advertising options with social media.

Just a few of Facebook’s personalized targeting options include targeting people by birthdays, relationship status (hello business owners in the wedding industry!), age, gender and more. Using these options allows you to create very targeted and personalized messages since you’re able to target them on a detailed level like that.

6. Live Streaming

We have already talked about using video content. You might think that this is something similar, and it is. Live streaming is still video content after all. But beyond that similarity, it is a whole different animal.

So many options are open to you as far as social media platforms for live streaming is concerned. You can live stream on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and so many other channels. This is one of the best types of cheap social media marketing tactic because it has several advantages.

First of all, you are live, so your audience has an opportunity to interact with you in real time. You have a chance to tell them about your brand as they watch your presentation. Make it seem interesting for them right there and then.

On a more personal level, your audience will be able to see your personality. There is a great chance for you to connect and relate to them, setting you apart from competitors. This connection and relatability will bode well for your business.

The more they relate to you, the more they will trust you and your brand.

Therefore, if they are faced with a choice between you and a competitor, they are more likely to purchase from you. It can all lead to better business and increased sales and revenue.

7. Try Online Reviews

Try to include online reviews among your cheap social media marketing tactic. See if it works for you because many customers look to these reviews for help.

And why wouldn’t they?

Online reviews offer a fast, unbiased and reliable information before customers decide on purchasing a product or service. With the way people rely on them, you will be missing out if you choose not to use it. They trust these reviews so much that it can make or break brands.

There is one thing that you need to make sure of though. And that is to get good and positive reviews from your customers. The more positive reviews you get, the more popular you become in your industry. And the more popular you get, the more sales for your products.

Now, how to get those positive reviews?

A guaranteed way of getting them is to simply ask some of your top regular customers to write them for you. To add to that, you can start offering incentives to customers for them to give you the positive reviews that you want. A good example of the incentives you can give is a simple discount. It might be simple, but it will be attractive to customers.

8. Get Help from Influencers

In this day and age, influencers have become a pretty big deal. Once you do decide to use them, you can expect results. You can at least rely on them to spread the word about your brand and make people notice.

Influencer marketing has become one of the top marketing tools used by businesses, particularly within the ecommerce industry. Potential customers will not just take notice but really become interested.

Why? For the simple reason that influencers are usually well-known personalities who are followed by a lot of people on social media. Celebrities, social media stars, and famous bloggers are some of the usual top influencers. Each of them has a loyal following, which is why they are so influential in the first place.

If influencers are posting about your brand and product, sharing how much they love it, they are basically encouraging their followers to buy it too (and most of them do!).

9. Create Infographics

Good old facts and numbers might be great, but they can also be dull and uninteresting.

The solution? Use infographics as they are both eye-catching and informative. Your only real challenge will be about choosing whether to do it yourself or hire a designer to create it for you. By hiring a designer to create your infographics, you are getting the services of a professional.

Either way, infographics allow you to exercise your creativity. You will be able to create the kind of infographics that fits into what you want to show. They also help you save on costs in that you’re killing two birds with one stone: educating your target audience with the information you want on the graphic while attracting them to your brand with the visuals.

It’s a fairly effective as one of the cheap social media marketing tactic!

10. Reuse Your Old Posts

For quick, cheap social media content, you can use your old blog posts. This is an excellent addition to your cheap social media marketing tactic. Just think about this: not everyone got to see your old posts the first time. So if you reuse them, there is a great chance that a whole new audience will discover them.

Here is an idea: a collection of your old blog posts will make for a nice new e-book. That is an entirely new way for old content to be presented to your audience.

You can also turn some of your old video content into an all-new series of tutorials. There are plenty of possibilities for old posts and content that you can include in your social media marketing tactic.

Conclusion

You see, you do not need to prepare a fortune to have an effective social media marketing campaign. The key to carrying out a successful campaign is to know cheap alternatives that work just as well if not better than the more costly tactics.

A cheap social media marketing tactic is one of the best examples of this. Once you know what works, it is just a matter of time before you start seeing results.