The role of social media in marketing is growing year by year as more people go online and create profiles on these platforms. Nowadays, it has become impossible for businesses to survive without having a presence on at least one social media site.
Mostly, the biggest brands create content on all the major social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. The reason why is, the consumers are there. There are 4.33 billion social media users, or more than 50 percent of the entire human population, around the world. Businesses of all sizes and across all sectors do not have the luxury to ignore the power of social media.
That said, social media is saturated with ads from all brands, all trying to gain the attention and support of consumers. It has become difficult to stand out from the crowd even with targeted ads which social media platforms can offer.
If your social media marketing campaign is not attracting consumers, incorporating lifestyle content into your feed might work. It can be the key to gaining interest from your desired audience.
Lifestyle Content as a Marketing Strategy
Incorporating lifestyle content into your marketing strategy is easy — as long as you know who your audience is. For example, as a meal kit startup, you either want to gain the attention of people who are interested in living a healthy lifestyle. They might be young professionals who do not have the time to decide what to eat every single day.
Facebook and Instagram help in this by gathering extensive data on consumers. They know who might be interested in health by the type of accounts they follow or if they typed for “experienced nutritionists near me” on the on-site search bar.
However, despite the tools made available by social media platforms to improve engagement, businesses still need to get to know their customers on a deeper level. This can only be achieved through market research.
The point of getting to know the customers is to find out what kinds of content will appeal to them. The business or the marketer will create content based on the consumer profile, reflecting the consumer’s wants and needs, interests and behaviors, and even personality. Content must be able to appeal to them in a way that is personal.
How They Have Fun
Finding out how your audience spends their free time is useful information when it comes to creating lifestyle content for social media marketing. Going back to the example earlier, a consumer interested in well-being might enjoy going for a run or doing yoga. Now, the business will post photos and videos of young people exercising and having a lot of fun.
The social media feed should reflect an image of young people who exercise, eat balanced meals, meditate — things that consumers interested in health want to see. In addition, it can also offer solid advice, even if not directly related to the product being sold, for the audience to continue paying attention to the social media profile.
How They Like to Feel
Emotions have been a powerful tool that has been in use in marketing for as long as the process has been around. And, there is a reason why: it works.
Inciting emotion through an ad makes an ad memorable. People are more likely to remember events that trigger a strong emotion.
Moreover, emotion influences the shopping habits of consumers. In one study, 31 percent of ads that used emotions succeeded in turning views into a purchase. Meanwhile, only 16 percent of ads that focused on rational events had similar positive results.
Businesses should, therefore, create ads that trigger emotions that their audience wants to feel. John Lewis, Google, Apple, and many other brands use it as a strategy to gain attention on social media.
What They Have Experienced in the Past
Identifying a common experience will also put more eyes on a social media ad. People respond and engage with content that reflects a situation they have undergone in the past or a problem that they are currently facing.
In 2020, the pandemic was used in marketing campaigns. The boredom from lockdowns, the isolation and loneliness caused by physical distancing, and even the toilet paper shortage were utilized to create lifestyle content for social media marketing.
Social media is a low-cost but effective tool for marketing. However, it is also very competitive. There are many strategies that businesses and marketers can use to catch the attention of the audience, and creating lifestyle content is only one of them.
