The new year is in full swing and you’re probably rushing to plan out yearly budgets, but how are you going to market yourself this year? This year, make it a priority to revitalize your organizational skills and your companies’ brand. By keeping on top of projects, or even something as simple as monthly newsletters, your content will be more thorough and engaging. There are three key strategies marketers should be sure to utilize this year: content creation, social media, and video usage.

Content Creation

Content creation is one of the easiest, yet also most difficult, concepts in the marketing realm. If you have good content, it will be engaging and your audience will be more inclined to notice it. Coming up with the ideas takes time and you need to really know your audience. By taking the time to define your audience, the content you create for your brand will have more success. In an article published on thomasnet.com, the concept of unicorn marketing is discussed. Unicorn Marketing is essentially making your messages unique enough to lift up the rest of your content for the year. It takes time to plan, but it’s worth the reward if you direct it toward the specific groups you wish to reach.

Social Media

Social media is continuously becoming more utilized by businesses, but many businesses don’t know just how often they should be posting to keep their content relevant. If you don’t keep up the optimal frequency of posts, your audience will lose interest over time. The best way to manage this is to plan a set schedule of postings and keep the same pace throughout the year. It has been found in research studies that the recommended amount of posts is as follows:

• Facebook: 1 post per day
• Twitter: 15 Tweets per day
• Pinterest: 11 Pins per day
• LinkedIn: 1 post per day
• Instagram: 1-2 posts per day

These numbers might seem high, but social media is used so much each day that this is the amount needed to build a strong following. By using platforms such as Hootsuite, Buffer, or CoSchedule, it becomes easier to manage and generate content for your organization’s social media.

Video Marketing

The use of video marketing has also gained popularity in recent years. In an earlier blog post, we described the benefits of videography in the marketing world. Videos on platforms like Facebook generate a greater buzz than simple text posts. Audiences are likely to remember visual content over plain text in the long run. Did you know that it’s 50% more likely that a customer will read an email newsletter that features a video, as opposed to a plain text email? Don’t just tell your audience what you’re doing and why they should care… show them!

This year is going to be full of change and, as marketers, we need to embrace the change with open arms and open minds. Content should focus on interaction with the customers in order to generate more leads for your business. Using practices like video marketing will help keep your content fresh and fun for your audience to interact with. Having effective planning will be the best thing you do for yourself this year. Stay ahead to get ahead!

For more information on how to utilize these marketing tools and tips to keep you on top throughout the year, stay connected with our Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and be sure to check back every month for a new blog post!