New Ways to Leverage Top-of-Funnel Social Marketing

Top-of-funnel marketing and social media are long-standing partners; yet, in today’s turbulent environment, a fresh and innovative approach to tactics and techniques is crucial for leveraging top-of-funnel social marketing. And that’s exactly what Jaime Shine of Clearly Conveyed Communications and I chatted about for the second LIVE Audio Event** for The Marketing Mirror on LinkedIn.

**LinkedIn discontinuedLIVE Audio as of December 2024.

⬇️⬇️ Listen to the entire episode below! ⬇️⬇️

Covering everything from starting conversations to spotlighting your business nonchalantly, Jaime and I share a ton of ideas and topics in this one!

How to Rock TOF Marketing with Social Media

Powering up top-of-funnel (TOF) content means hopping outside of the box with a willingness to experiment, test, and try new things. Going against the “norm” may surprise you with positive results.

Special Guest Host, Jaime Shine, shares usable insights you can try right away for social media marketing while working on your bigger, better, bolder new strategies (discussed last show) to shake up your social feeds! Top-of-funnel social is the light, bright side of social media marketing and generally seeks a triple-A (AAA) intent:

• Attraction

• Attention

• Awareness 

Essentially, it’s visibility marketing. I think of it sometimes as PR (public relations) or goodwill marketing. But no matter the label, you need people to first know about you if you want them to do business with you. And generally, top-of-the-funnel is all about getting out there and getting seen. But how can we do it in NEW ways, bring fresh ideas, gain reach, and foster interactivity via Social Media Marketing Strategies in this tumultuous time in digital and within all the social platforms?

Well, not so fast if you consider the weight of that last sentence, because the first noteworthy mention is that there’s no longer a “within all” answer for social posting. That’s right, no more social posting with one button to all your social media platforms with the same content! Repurposing your content is still smart, but sharing the same thing in the same way isn’t optimal to satisfy each platform’s preferences.

Not only are each platform’s specs for content/media different, but demographics and user intent are also factors. So, customizing to satisfy each platform’s preferences means better content performance, plus the ability to foster deeper relationships and connections with your audience.

Building Genuine Relationships Online

Creating interactive engagement, sharing relatable and useful ideas, and prompting two-way conversations are crucial to your TOF strategy.

Conversation Starters are one way to ignite relationships within your social strategy. Here are a few of the techniques to boost more coveted engagement among people:

1. Pose Inviting Questions… that stir conversation and evoke others to contribute, adding value to your post.
2. Create Polls: Biz or Not… people love to share their opinions, adding engagement to poll posts.
3. Request Advice or Opinions… beyond relationship building, writers can gather quotes via social channels and conversations.
4. Leverage Generally Loved Topics… let’s just say, there are a LOT of pet lovers out there! But humans share so many commonalities (if you think about it), so use them to make inroads with people.

Another wise but sometimes surprising, technique to promote conversations also helps you gain leads and new business by learning to optimize commenting for credibility.***

*** Resource: Aware founder Alex Boyd on social selling: https://www.apollo.io/academy/master-classes/social-selling-for-a-seven-figure-income

Three key components to commenting for credibility that Alex discusses are:

• Demonstrate Expertise in Comments
• Comment Purposefully: NOT where but WHO
• Initiate Sales Without Selling (or Ads)

He further shares examples like: dropping results you’ve achieved, suggesting helpful services, and giving how-to answers that showcase your expertise. Alex also points out that you are putting your name in front of new audiences and getting seen by the posting person’s connections, expanding your reach while spotlighting credibility!

By the way, don’t forget to acknowledge comments on your posts by replying, or at least by ‘liking’ them, so people get a response from you and feel noticed.

Creating Content to Mix and Mingle

Offering a mix of content and media types on your social channels is imperative, but can be fun and creative for you and your viewers, especially at the TOF level.

To offer a media mix that attracts and engages, try the following:

✔️ Create a VISUALS-only Campaign (with or without copy)-Ideas include:

– 1 original photography -2 Infographics -3 drawings

✔️ Craft Platform-Specific Shares with Clout!/GO LIVE/Staycation (on-platform content)

✔️ Highlight Happenings– Behind-the-Scenes, EVENTS, Awards

✔️ Showcase Other Businesses and Share Curated Content

✔️ Fire up UGC Campaigns; Invite Collaborations, or Partner Projects

✔️ Share What Other People Say, Including Project Successes/Challenges/LIVE Q&A

✔️ Spotlight Your Brilliance Nonchalantly (you know?)

Including visuals— whether graphics, drawings, photos, or videos— always enhances your social shares and adds another attention-grabbing dimension. But be sure to use visuals in a meaningful way. For some businesses, brand design or stylesheets may apply.

CTA ALL THE WAY!

Establishing a call to action (CTA) is a consideration for every post you share. From micro-actions to the ‘buy button,’ each post’s purpose has a business goal. It acts as a stepping stone to you/your business/your products, furthering your interaction and relationship with a viewer.

CTA’s for top-of-funnel social marketing may be soft, including asking for comments, likes, follows, or shares. Still, they’re imperative to initiate action to move a person forward and closer to knowing about you. Make these next steps easy, comfortable, and sensible for users to want to do.

Also, try using CTA’s for community building (Join my Group, Challenge, Page Follow, Webinar, Mastermind, Workshop, etc.)

Remember, by correlating CTA’s with business goals, your CTA’s are more strategic and easier to track for analysis. They’re also helpful for building a bridge between you and your potential customers.

Flexible Top-of-Funnel Social Marketing

Top-of-funnel content is flexible, fun, and creative. It gives you a place to test and experiment publicly. Plus, it offers an exceptional opportunity to gauge viewer response and find intel about your audience.

Your TOF social content doesn’t have to be all business, although you decide how personal you are comfortable with or what you want to share publicly. One way to help decide on content/topics, or to spice up your feeds, is to organize your TOF social sharing schedule using ‘content buckets.’

This is content you can produce and share while taking time to slow down, rethink, and reimage your social media management strategy at this crucial time. You can play with new ideas, test and experiment with formats and styles, and throw in personality pieces to show background about you or your interests.

Content Buckets to Organize and Schedule Social Media

One benefit of using ‘content buckets’ {hat tip to Stephanie Garcia} to plan and organize social media content is it helps you avoid friction and repetitiveness in social content production and scheduling. Create buckets of core topics, holidays, promotions, campaigns, quarters, quotes, or themes, so you can schedule things evenly across your channels and social timelines.

Keep things interesting, insightful, and inspiring. Demonstrate your expertise and credibility along the way. Mix up content types, styles, and formats. And don’t be afraid to experiment and try brand new, never-heard-of things!! Viewers will thank you.

Working TOF too?

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  New Ways to Leverage Top-of-Funnel Social Marketing