You may not be living the glamorous lifestyle of a celebrity, but that doesn’t mean you can’t use similar social media strategies. Just like your business, celebrities are also highly focused on how they market themselves on social media. They use their social media platforms to interact with fans and promote themselves. You can look to celebrities’ social strategies for effective ways to promote your business, increase brand awareness, and build your fan/customer base.
Artsy is Easy
With Pinterest and Instagram growing rapidly as influential social media platforms, you don’t have to be a professional photographer to post beautiful and artistic photos. Because visual storytelling has become incredibly important in social media marketing, businesses are looking for ways to effectively post images and videos that garner attention and engagement from their fans. To see successful examples, you need look no further than fashion designer and reality TV star Lauren Conrad’s personal Instagram account. She is praised for her pretty and artfully captured pictures she takes in her daily life.
This Instagram of a delicious-looking glass of pink lemonade with the ocean in the background is certainly beautiful and captivating. The photo inspires reactions from viewers and therefore generates engagement. For example, viewers may comment that they are thirsty and want lemonade, they might say they think it’s beautiful, or they might tag their friends. This directs more viewers to the photo and in turn, to Lauren Conrad’s account.
What We Can Learn
Whether it is related to your business or not, a photo can get a ton of attention simply because it’s attractive or interesting. Now that you recognize the engagement that an artsy photo can create, try it out yourself! You could take a photo of the view from your office or the flowers you have on your desk, add an Instagram filter, and voila—you have yourself a beautiful photo for your followers to like and share with their friends, therefore increasing awareness of your brand.
To Relate is to Appreciate
Celebrities do a particularly good job of mixing promotional posts about themselves with posts that make them seem human and relatable to their fans. Sometimes, it’s difficult to picture a celebrity like Jessica Alba doing something average; she’s a superstar after all! However, she visits theme parks just like the rest of us as you can see in this photo. Below, Jessica is pictured with of her with her family and friends in Disneyland, showing a mega-celebrity in a setting that is common and familiar to fans.
What We Can Learn
Just like Jessica, you too can use relatable content to create a personal connection with your users. Your customers are much more likely to want to engage with your business and build trust with your product or service if they can feel some sort of personal connection with you. If your activity on social media is exclusively business-minded and formal, it will be more difficult to create lasting relationships with current followers and capture the attention of potential new customers. You can make your company relatable by posting behind-the-scenes pictures of your company or employees on their days off. Also, consider posting status updates and tweets about hobbies or events people in your business are passionate about. This will help your customers feel like they can connect with you on a personal level and it will create a greater sense of trust, which is incredibly important for any business.
Interaction Leads to Attraction
It’s important for celebrities to show they care about their fans. Not only is this crucial for maintaining a positive media presence, but it’s also vital for keeping loyal fans.
Comedians Steve Martin and Jimmy Fallon have done a good job of tweeting in ways that encourage interaction and engagement from their followers. Steven Martin asked his Twitter followers their thoughts on a photo of him, which generated a great deal of responses. Even more effective is Jimmy Fallon’s tweets about his late night talk show, where he consistently reminds viewers to use the hashtag #FallonTonight in order to interact during the live show.
What We Can Learn
This strategy of asking questions and acknowledging fans encourages engagement particularly well. To use this strategy for your business, you can ask strategic questions about aspects that you want feedback on or test out new ideas and see how your followers react. Also, you can come up with a unique hashtag that relates to your business and encourage your fans to use it in order to create a conversation. For example, the hashtag #SplashSaturday could be used every weekend to interact with our fans and ask them what interesting activities they are doing on Saturdays. Like Martin and Fallon, your business can increase interaction by asking for fans to participate in the conversation.
Show What You Know
Celebrities are their own brands. They are constantly under the public eye and always must be aware of how they are marketing themselves on social media. After all, social media can have a huge impact on their careers. Much like celebrities, your business also must have an effective social media presence. We have seen that celebrities have a powerful social media presence that includes the use of attractive images, relatable content, and fan involvement. If you’re ever unsure what your business should post, simply look to the stars!
