Statistically, there is a good chance you are reading this article on a device, and a very good chance that you discovered this article via some form of Social Media. Social media, for better or for worse, has undoubtedly become the dominant form of delivering information to consumers. In parallel, social media has become one of the best platforms for marketing. With its targeting capabilities, analytical transparency, and the ability for advertisers to build their own advertising material quickly, there are a multitude of reasons you should at least be considering the use of social media in the broadening marketing picture of your business.
So how can you use social media to market your pet business?
1. Use visual social networks
In case you weren’t aware, a lot of people think that animals, particularly domesticated fluffy animals, are cute. So visually you have a lot to work with in terms of social content. If you are looking to market your pet business (or any business for that matter that has aesthetic creative collateral) it just makes sense to choose social media platforms that are the best to showcase visual creative. Instagram, which started out as an image filtering app, is very much considered the most visually pleasing of all the social media apps when it comes to sharing images. So it is a good place to start, just make sure your content is up to par, as the audience for Instagram can have relatively higher expectations as to the images they want to see in their feed than other platform audiences.
2. Run a giveaway promotion
If you are looking to launch a business across social media, just running an awareness campaign (i.e. ‘look at our business, this is what we do’) you’re likely going to be hit with the reality that most people don’t know or have any reason to care about your ad or what it says. So it is always good to imagine you are the recipient of your ad, and like most people you probably want something in return. So offers and giveaways are a great place to start in terms of introductory campaigns. Offer a percentage discount off for each reshare of your post, or just have a full blown giveaway in order to get people to remember your business, and remember it with a warm fuzzy feeling.
3. Offer care and medical advice on social media
Not surprisingly, people that love animals as pets also care about their animals welfare and wellbeing. If you are a business that caters to the pet consumer then it is always important to try and garner trust from them, and in a manner that informs them of care and medical advice. So do some research and pull together some tips or tricks that you know your followers/audience might find interesting and practical. Although be aware that offering unsolicited medical advice can get you in hot water, so be extra careful that what you are posting is merited and couldn’t be taken the wrong way.
4. Share content from third-parties
One easy way to get out of the pool of liability worries around your medical advice content, is to share existing content from reputable sources. You can easily preface an article you find interesting and share it across your platforms, you can even share or recommend products or services in the same category (maybe not direct competitors). As not only will your followers thank you for the referral, the business you referred may see fit to do the same thing for you.
5. Use user-generated content to grow
Another way to ensure you have a consistent flow of content on your social media feed, and to get individuals motivated to engage with your activity, is to run marketing campaigns that stimulate user-generated content. This essentially means driving followers and consumers more broadly to respond to a call for content, in a competition format usually. For instance, ‘post the cutest image of your fur baby to win…’.
There are many ways you can utilise social media marketing to aid your business on its journey to success, and if you are interested in learning more about this, or anything digital marketing topic then head to our blog page or, even better, contact us directly at Patch Agency.
