Blog 4b: Let's Get Thrifty.
- christinaalberto
- Sep 3, 2020
- 5 min read
Updated: Sep 4, 2020
Meet Sally.
Sally is a friend of mine who is looking to start up an online thrift shop, Hidden Treasures. However, she is relatively new to marketing and has come to me for advice on how she should use social media marketing to optimise her business. To assist Sally in considering how to use social media marketing, I’ve conducted some analysis below which not only will assist Sally in finding suitable tactics, but may also help you, if you are stuck yourself!
To Begin
Social media is massive. With over 3.5 billion social media users worldwide, it is near impossible to tailor your business to meet the needs of each and every person on social media (Mohsin, 2020). Knowing this, it is important to understand who the target audience of your business is, so that the best social media tactics can be identified and used. Let’s use the following as our target market for Hidden Treasures:
13-25 year old females
Based in Australia
Low income earners
So now we’ve defined our target market, we need to think about which social media platforms would be able to engage these customers and best meet their needs. I have a number of recommendations for Sally, which I will explore below.
Tip #1
My first recommendation for Sally would be to work hard on producing visually appealing and aesthetic visual content. Visual content is known to receive up to ten times more engagement than text only posts (FIPP, 2016). In addition, visual content increases a customers chances of buying a product by up to 85% (Justesen, 2018). Knowing this, it is important for Sally to focus greatly on producing visually stunning content. Once the visual content has been created, I would definitely recommend using Instagram to share the content. Instagram is a visual based platform, which means it would be perfect to share the images created (Sharma, 2019). By doing this, the customer engagement with the company will increase and ultimately assist in driving sales for the business.
Another benefit of Sally using Instagram, is that the target market of Hidden Treasures is highly active on this platform. This is another important point to consider. Is your target market active on the platform you are planning to use? If not, it might be time to look into another platform. Take a look at the statistics below from Sprout Social (2020). These statistics show significant portions of the 13-17 and 18-29 age bracket are using Instagram. This means Instagram is the perfect way to reach the target audience for Hidden Treasures.
Tip #2
My second recommendation for Sally would be to ensure her content is short and to the point. It is in fact true that humans have a worse attention span than a goldfish. From a digital perspective, it has been found that when a person visits a web page, they often leave within the first 10-20 seconds (Wyzowl, 2020). What better way to address this than by using a social media platform which has a 280-character limit on its posts (Perez, 2018). That’s right, Twitter.
The question is then raised about what to post on Twitter. If we think back to our target market, one part of it included low income earners. A way in which Hidden Treasures could utilise Twitter to ensure this target market is effectively engaged would be to post promotions/discount vouchers. Low income earners love special and deals, basically anything that will save them money. By combining a platform which will have short and sharp posts, along with promotional deals, this will attract the target audience for Hidden Treasures. Below are some examples of how Hidden Treasures could utilise Twitter for promotions.
Tip #3
My final tip for Sally and her online thrift shop would be to utilise video to her advantage. Social media users love to watch videos, and the best part is, it works in favour with the marketer. Statistics from Insivia (2013) showed that when a person watches a video, they remember 95% of the message, compared to a mere 10% when reading plain text. Knowing this, I would highly suggest that Sally utilises YouTube as a platform for her online thrift shop. In terms of content, there is an increasing number of users searching YouTube to learn how to do something they have never done before (Smith, 2020). Taking this into account, I would suggest that Sally uses YouTube to create videos that show her customer “how to” do something. Some examples could be how to create a look for under $10 from thrift shop items or how to do a DIY project with certain thrift shop items. This would engage the customers of Hidden Treasures and assist in driving sales to Sally’s business. Some examples are shown below of potential video ideas.
All of the suggested social media marketing tactics provide a strong basis for marketing a new business online. By aiming to implement all of the suggested social media marketing tactics, Sally’s business will be thriving in no time!
References:
Breannaclothes, 2019. Clothes Diy Thrift Store 19 Ideas For 2019. [image] Available at: <https://www.pinterest.com.au/pin/646548090235131961/> [Accessed 4 September 2020].
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FIPP, 2016. Pinterest, Snapchat And Instagram: Why Visual-Based Social Media Is Growing So Much Faster Than Facebook And Twitter - FIPP. [online] FIPP. Available at: <http://www.fipp.com/news/visual-based-social-media-growing-fast/> [Accessed 4 September 2020].
Freepikcompany, 2020. Happy Young Girl Waving Hand To Camera While Taking A Selfie With Mobile Phone Isolated Over Gray Wall Free Photo. [image] Available at: <https://www.freepik.com/free-photo/happy-young-girl-waving-hand-camera-while-taking-selfie-with-mobile-phone-isolated-gray-wall_8472842.htm> [Accessed 4 September 2020].
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