The Ultimate Guide to Digital Marketing Strategies: How to Boost Your Affiliate Marketing with Social Media in 2023
Are you tired of trying every possible marketing strategy and not seeing the desired results? Look no further! In this ultimate guide, we’ll show you how to boost your affiliate marketing with the latest digital marketing strategies, including the power of social media. As we move into 2023, it’s more important than ever to stay ahead of the game and adapt to new marketing trends.
Why Digital Marketing Strategies Matter
With the rise of digital technology, businesses need to shift their focus to digital marketing strategies. The internet is where the majority of people spend their time, and it’s the easiest way to reach out to potential customers. From social media to SEO, digital marketing strategies have a lot to offer for any business, big or small.
The Power of Social Media Marketing
Social media platforms have taken the world by storm, with millions of users logging in every day. This makes it a powerful tool for businesses to promote their brand and increase sales. With the right social media marketing strategy, you can reach a wider audience, build brand awareness, and connect with customers on a personal level.
Choosing the Right Social Media Platform
Not all social media platforms are created equal, and not all are suitable for every business. It’s important to choose the right platform that aligns with your brand’s goals and target audience. For example, if you’re targeting younger audiences, TikTok might be the way to go. If you’re a B2B company, LinkedIn is the better choice. Understanding the strengths of each platform will help you create a more effective marketing strategy.
Creating a Winning Social Media Strategy
Creating a social media marketing strategy takes time and effort, but it’s worth it in the end. You need to start by defining your goals, whether it’s to increase brand awareness or boost sales. Once you have a clear objective, you can start creating a content calendar, selecting the right keywords, and engaging with your audience. It’s important to monitor your progress regularly and adjust your strategy accordingly.
Affiliate Marketing Tips for 2023
Affiliate marketing is a popular way to earn passive income, but it’s not as easy as it sounds. You need to have a solid strategy in place to maximize your earnings. Here are some tips to help you succeed in affiliate marketing in 2023:
Choose the Right Niche
Choosing the right niche is crucial for your success in affiliate marketing. You need to pick a niche that aligns with your interests and has a high demand. This will make it easier for you to create content and promote products that your audience is interested in.
Select the Right Products
Not all products are created equal, and you need to be selective when choosing which products to promote. You should only promote products that align with your brand’s values and are relevant to your audience. It’s also important to choose products that offer a good commission rate.
Build Trust with Your Audience
Building trust with your audience is key to a successful affiliate marketing strategy. You need to be honest and transparent with your audience about the products you’re promoting. This means disclosing your affiliate links and only promoting products that you truly believe in.
Social Media and Inspector Gadget
Depending on your age, you may or may not have heard of a cartoon called ‘Inspector Gadget‘. This character was a bumbling detective who needed a lot of help from his niece Penny to solve many of his investigations. The point of bringing this 80’s cartoon in reference, is that this detective had numerous gadgets at his disposal to help investigate the mysteries he was on. Social media is a little like that in which we live our lives completely exposed (or at least what we want out there) on various different types of social media platforms. One moment we could be on Facebook, another we are posting pictures on Instagram, and other times we may be on TikTok performing the latest trends. There is a platform for every one of us and all are geared toward sharing who and what we are. This age of social media has great promise for businesses, and brands, and is just the beginning of what is to come!
What is Social Media?
Social media is a mix of websites, applications, and mobile apps that allow us to create, share and interact with content on public forums. Here are the most popular social media sites (with statistics) out of the hundreds available to us:
- Facebook – is the most widely used social networking site across the world. This site allows you to play online games, post pictures, and participate in local and national groups, and is used for both personal and business use.
- Has over 2.5 billion, active monthly users
- Users are 43% Women and 57%, Men
- 90% of Facebook’s daily active users are from outside the United States and Canada
- 62% of seniors that are 65 and older are on Facebook
- 72% of people between the ages of 50 and 64 are on Facebook
- 84% of users between 30 and 49 are on Facebook
- 88% of users between the age of 18 and 29 are on Facebook
- Almost 69% of U.S. adults have a Facebook account
- 88% of online users are of age 18-29
- Instagram – (owned by Facebook) – This platform was created to solely share photos and videos. Its success was based on its phone app allowing users to share their best moments of life and precious moments.
- Has over 1 billion, active monthly users
- Users are 56.3% Female and 43.7% are Male
- 120.7 million Instagram users are from the United States
- 89% of users are from outside the United States and Canada
- 37% of United States Adults use Instagram
- 30% of their total audience is between 18 and 24 years old
- 35% of their global audience is between 25 and 34 years old.
- 72% of teenagers use Instagram.
- 63% of Americans use Instagram daily.
- YouTube – (owned by Google) – Notably the world’s largest video-sharing site that allows users to upload videos. It is commonly referred to as the 2nd largest search engine as most end users search for useful videos to help overcome common daily tasks.
- Has over 2 billion, active monthly users
- Has over 30 million active daily users
- Has over 5 billion videos shared on its network
- The average user viewing time is about 40 minutes
- 70% of United States Adults use YouTube
- 62% of YouTube users are male
- 78% of United States Men use YouTube
- 68% of United States Women use YouTube
- 62% of businesses use YouTube
- 9% of Small Businesses are on YouTube
- 70% of users’ watch time comes from mobile devices
- TikTok – This platform is a social video app that allows users to post and share short video content. As of 2020, TikTok is the latest and hottest social media platform for teens. Launched in 2017
- Total of 800 million monthly active users
- 1.65 billion TikTok downloads
- 1 billion video views per day
- 41% of users are between 16 and 24 years old
- 56% of users are male (44% are female)
- Chinese users account for 80% of total time spent using TikTok
- The app is very popular in Asia since the company owning TikTok is based in Beijing with offices in Los Angeles
- 26.5 million monthly users are from the United States
- 90% of the app’s users visit the app more than once per day
- TikTok is the most downloaded app on the Apple App Store with 33 million downloads in a single quarter
- The average engagement rate is about 29%
- Twitter – This social networking platform allows you to post short text messages (‘Tweets’ up to 280 characters) to convey your particular message. The shortened tweets made the platform very popular for quick consumption of the most common and hot topics.
- 330 Million active Twitter Users
- Over 500 Million Tweets are sent per day
- 80% of Twitter users are on Mobile
- 34% of Twitter users are female and 66% are male
- 22% of United States adults use Twitter
- 79% of all Twitter accounts are from outside the United States
- 42% of Twitters users are on its platform daily
- 38% of Twitter users are between the ages of 18 and 29; while 30 to 49 years olds make up 26%
- Pinterest – is a photo-sharing and bookmarking social media platform. This site & app allows its users to find creative ideas for projects, vacation spots, DIY, home improvement projects, and much more.
- 335+ Million total Global Users
- 88 million users are from the United States
- 200 Billion total Pinterest Pins
- 2 million users who save shopping pins on their boards daily
- 71% of Pinterest Users are Females
- 40% of New Signups are Men (60% are Women)
- 40% of United States dads use Pinterest
- 50% of Pinners live outside the United States
- 34% of Pinterest users are aged 18 to 29
- 80% of United States mothers use Pinterest
- 50% of United States millennials use Pinterest every month
- 83% of weekly Pinners have made brand purchases based on what they found on Pinterest
- Linkedin – is a professional networking site that is available in over 20 different languages. This site is used globally by all types of professionals and services as a platform to connect with different businesses, hire candidates, and much more.
- Linkedin has a total of 675 million users
- 310 million users are active every month
- 167 million users are from the United States
- More than 70% of Linkedin users are from outside the United States
- 48 million users are students and recent college graduates
- 24% of Millenials (18 to 24 years old) use Linkedin
- The average income of a Linkedin user is roughly $46,000 per year
- Linkedin Is the number one platform/ channel that marketers use for Business to Business (B2B)
- SnapChat – is a messaging platform that allows you to chat with friends by using pictures or 10-second videos. Snapchat stories last for 24 hours and will disappear forever (unless you save them to your story).
- 360 Million Users
- 218 of those users are active daily
- 86 million of those users are from the United States
- 3 billion Snaps are created every day
- 53% of users are between 18 and 24 years old
- 105.5 million monthly active users are from the United States and Canada
- 64 million users use Snapchat daily in Europe
- WhatsApp – Founded in 2009 by former Yahoo employees (Brian Acton & Jan Koum). The app is defined as an instant messaging platform sold to Facebook in 2014. The popularity of the platform has been driven by the fact that mobile carriers have been charging for SMS.
- Has roughly 300 million daily active users worldwide
- The app allows users to delete messages accidentally sent within the first 7 minutes of being sent
- There are 3 million businesses using WhatsApp
- There are more than 2 billion minutes of voice and video calls made daily from the app
- The top country by users is Brazil
- Average users check their app more than 23 times a day
- Reddit – This platform allows users to post content that is up-voted or down-voted due to validity and popularity.
- Foursquare – is a local search platform that allows you to find ideal places to visit. This is commonly used for food outlets, entertainment venues, and local businesses.
- Nextdoor – A neighborhood-based (subdivision) private social network platform for neighbors to suggest contractors, gardeners, neighborhood watch blogs, and local garage sales.
- Discord – Is a communication platform commonly used by gamers to voice and text chat. It is a free service that works on desktops and mobile devices. This is a great alternative to TeamSpeak.
- Tumblr – is a platform that allows users to post anything from pictures to videos. Owned by Yahoo.
- Flickr – is a photo-sharing site that hosts high-quality images from photographers and photo enthusiasts.
- Skype – A communication-based platform that allows you to connect with other users via voice and video calls. This was widely used to bypass long-distance (country-to-country) calls without being charged. Owned by Microsoft
- StumbleUpon – This platform suggests websites, blogs, images, and videos to its users empowering them to rate them per personal tastes and interests.
- Vine – A video-sharing platform where its users can post videos. It is commonly referred to as the precursor to YouTube as many of the top Vine users later converted to YouTube.
- MySpace – The precursor of Facebook, this platform is music-focused providing an interactive network of blogs, groups, pictures, videos, and of course music.
What are Social Media Benefits?
Why should I use Social Media?
Generally, when I start talking about Social Media, I am often asked by someone, ‘Why should I use Social Media?‘ So depending on the reference (personal or business), your age, and the age of your target audience – the answer can be very different. There are distinct differences between Personal and Business (Professional) use of social media.
Personal Use of Social Media
Now using social media platforms for personal use tends to be geared as a way to engage with your family and friends. Often this is a perfect way for Grandma (in another state) to see what is going on with the grandkids on a day to day basis. Here are a few common personal use traits:
- Photos shared on social media typically capture precious moments of their lives. Commonly seen photos are vacation photos, food, home DIY, hobbies projects, family photos, and even some times controversial topics covering social economics, politics, or religious beliefs.
- Hashtags are commonly not used or are used incorrectly.
- Never uses analytics! Why should they? Analytics really do not apply to social media use and most users have no idea that it exists.
Professional Use of Social Media
Social media for businesses and professional use is basically used as an online multi-media resume for your services and products. Often you find many professional offering insights on industry thoughts and setting themselves as an expert in their field. Here are a few common traits with professional social media use:
- Uses hashtags key to their product, industry, or brand geared toward prospects to find your business or professional services.
- Unlike personal use, photos are focused on business projects, advertisements, promotions, networking, and your brand.
- Social media analytics is key to understanding successful a social campaign. The use of analytics is a way to measure your impact of various social marketing efforts, insights to users’ likes and dislikes, and see if your efforts are effective.
Benefits of Using Social Media
Social media is changing the way we live our lives starting with how we consume our news, celebrate our lives, and how we shop. There are tremendous benefits to using social media and here are the most common benefits for businesses to use social media:
- Social Media platforms are free to use and cost little to nothing for a business to create an effective social media campaign.
- The biggest expense is typically a time associated to create, manage, monitor, and execute a successful social media campaign
- Marketers tend to spend 12+ hours a week on social media marketing.
- Social media shapes the image and personality of your brand
- Through a successful campaign, small businesses have the opportunity to capture the attention of your audience increasing brand awareness, attracting new customers, and reinforcing continued patronage of past clients.
- Creating a history of social engagement in the community equals to brand security long term. Social media is definitely here to stay and set up an online presence is key to the perception of prospective clients. Today’s buyer does not simply buy; but often goes online and searches for reviews, the company about us, and competitive pricing. If a company cannot be found online, it is often perceived to be less secure and perhaps even a fly by night risk. Having an online social media campaign is more than a desire – it’s a necessary strategy.
- So you and your company may not be on social media, but your clients definitely are. Good or bad, they are talking about you, your products, and your service. Not being part of this communication is a matter of averting bad public relations, or capitalizing on positive feedback. The greatest benefit of being on social media is your ability to reach out to prospects and interact with topics that matter to them and affect their buying experience.
- Capitalize on customer engagement by building up brand awareness and brand advocates. Wish your customers a happy birthday, happy anniversary, or even offer special discounts for repeat purchases. Using social media to make your clients feel special, and appreciated can grow your brand awareness and loyalty.
- Get an SEO Boost and search engine rankings through the number of backlinks created by social shares. Social media has become a very valuable method for improving your search engine optimization by increased social shares. Social shares are just one key metric that Google uses to determine user preference and acceptance. Having social shares can be the one metric that pushes your webpage above your competition.
- As your brand becomes a mainstay in the community, your social content will start to reach more and more new clients granting you organic referrals and traffic to your website.
