How to Digitally Market your Content with Khamisi Hamisi

In this slogging AMA, we talk to digital marketing consultant Khamisi Hamisi, an expert social media strategist and founder of Khamisi Digital, a platform that connects brands to social media. We discuss how to market social media content online alongside other topics.

This Slogging thread by Jack Boreham, Khamisi Hamisi and Amy Shah occurred in slogging's official #amas channel, and has been edited for readability.

Khamisi is nominated for this year's Noonies tech awards. Vote for him as HackerNoon Contributor of the Year - Social Media Marketing.

Hey @channel, please join me in welcoming our next AMA guest, Khamisi Hamisi, a Digital Marketing Consultant. He is the founder and social media strategist at Khamisi Digital, which connects brands to social media.

Please feel free to ask Khamisi anything about:

Hi Khamisi Hamisi, thank you for joining us; it's great to have you. Can you tell us a bit about what you do and your company? 😄

Hi Jack Boreham, it is great to be here. I am a digital marketing consultant from Kenya. I help businesses tell stories on social media that engages and delights their audience.

Khamisi Hamisi, great to have you here!! How do you go about helping businesses to tell stories? What tools do you use?

Jack Boreham Depending on the niche, I use cost-effective methods that any business can implement regardless of their budget. 

Some of the main tools I use include:

Khamisi Hamisi Interesting, so in terms of analytics, how do you use that data. I used to have my website, and found analytics useful but could never harness them properly.

On the content creation side, what kind of content do you create? Canva is a great one; we used it for this AMA. Can you tell us a bit more about the other content creation tools and how you use them?

Jack Boreham When it comes to analytics, it all depends on your goal. 

What is your goal?

These are a few examples of questions that you can ask yourself for effective use of analytic tools. Every business has a goal of its own.

For this conversation, I will use an online store as an example.

For an online store, analytics play a role when it comes to making sales. 

It all comes down to what you want to achieve with your website.

Here are the tools I use for content creation.

Lumen5: This is a great tool that allows you to convert articles into videos. They have templates for different social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. These videos help you share your articles on social media in a fun way instead of posting links. Aljazeera, BBC, and other news outlets post such videos online.

PlaceIt: Placeit has mockups for almost anything. They have video mockups, t-shirt mockups, mugs, hoodies, e.t.c. If you have an online store and want to create image/video mockups, then PlaceIt is the go-to tool.

Grammarly: Grammarly is a good tool when it comes to editing articles. The best part is that, as you keep using it, your writing gets better and better. If you have a blog or business website, this is the tool you need for those professional articles. 

Trello: Trello is a good content managemnt tool. You can collaborate with so many people at the same time. You save a lot of time and eliminate the back and forth email notifications. If you are a content creator and want to manage several teams or collaborate with others, Trello is your tool.

Giphy: You can use this tool to create your gifs or search the ones available. They make an article engaging and say more than most of the words you write. 

Google Trends: The world has come to a point whereby people follow what is trending. Remember, if you snooze, you lose. Google Trends keep you in the loop on what's happening. With such information, you will know which meme you will create next, or which gif is trending in your industry and so forth.

Jack Boreham

Khamisi Hamisi, so for my previous venture, my goal was to target keyword research. It's interesting because editorial and writing have become more consumer-focused over the last decade. Now most writers use google analytics and other tools like ahrefs; I should have used more when setting up my website. What would you say about using targeted advertisement through social media? It's not cheap. Does this work in the long run, or is it a waste of time? I know twitter ads are around £50 a pop. Am I guessing social media should be used more organically and other means to grow online presence?

We use some of these on Hackernoon, I use Grammarly, and it's brilliant. Lumen5 sounds awesome; that's something that would probably help with advertising slogging posts. How does the app work? Is it easy to use for a novice?

Social media ads are like a double-edged sword. When used effectively, you get the desired results. On the other hand, when not optimized, you end up with losses. 

They do work for the long term. Many things can affect how your ads perform. Here are some of the main ones.

I have put together some tips that you can use to increase your ROI when it comes to ad spending:

 
I agree with you that social media should be organic. The problem is that organic growth is fading. You only reach 10% of your followers. Social media ads help you boost your reach from time to time.

Also, social media ads help you reach a new audience.

About Lumen5. It is an easy tool to use. Once you sign up, you will gain access to your dashboard, just like Canva. 

They have ready-made templates that you can use or, you can start from scratch. Also, you get to choose which platform you want for your video. 

Copy your article and paste it into the article section. It will generate a video for you automatically. Moreover, you can edit the video and add background music, images or videos of your own. 

It is easy to use for a newbie.

Jack Boreham

Khamisi Hamisi, thank you, that's amazing. These tips will help out our blogging fellows if they want to promote their work on social media using advertisement and myself if I get back to my website. I have a question regarding some social media platforms; what do you think about platforms such as Instagram limiting the ability to have clickable links on posts? Do you think this is on purpose? I've heard that some social media platforms deliberately limit functionality. What are your thoughts?

Also, there's so much to learn when it comes to social media. What made you get into the space and start your own business?

Instagram is a visual platform. It focuses mainly on photos and videos. In my opinion, Instagram limits the ability to have clickable links on posts to avoid spam and keep users engaged on the platform.

On the other hand, links channel the traffic away to another platform. These social media platforms, including Instagram) make money when people are engaging with their platform.

To answer your question, yes, this is on purpose. It is done in the name of protecting the community but also increasing revenue.

I was browsing on Twitter one day and decided to go through the trending section from my country. I watched some hashtags go from rank 6 to rank 2 in the trend list. I then started searching on how I may track particular hashtags and find out their reach.

To my surprise, these hashtags had impressions of 1M plus. There and then, I realised how a business could benefit from having its hashtag trend. I went ahead and did my research on how a hashtag trends.

Since many small businesses have a few following, having their hashtag trend will boost their online presence. I approached small businesses and started trending their hashtags.

I then saw that trending is not the only thing a business can do on social media to boost its presence. I learned about video creation and marketing, content management and other social media marketing techniques, which led me to start my own social media business.

Jack Boreham

Khamisi Hamisi Thanks for answering our questions! Thank you so much for sharing something simple that a person can improve their social media presence. I have been curious also how you plan a strategy for your clients.

Can you share more about that?

Amy Shah, I am glad you found my answers educating. 

When it comes to planning a strategy, I follow some easy steps to keep things organised. Here are some of the things that help me come up with a good plan.

Goals: Depending on their goals, I will know which social media platform(s) I will use. Each social media platform will play a different role for the client. What are they hoping to achieve?

For example, Instagram is good for brand awareness because it is visual. LinkedIn is good for lead collection and getting web traffic. Twitter can be used for support or generating traffic. 

Target audience: Knowing the target audience helps me create the right content or pick the right platform for my client. I start by creating a persona for my clients' ideal audience. Some questions I ask include:

For example, if the client has a business blog targeting C.E.O's, their audience will be on LinkedIn. On the other hand, if the client has a boutique, their audience will be on Instagram or Pinterest. 

Competition: It is not good to copy, but you can find out what others in the same field are doing. The information will help me know what others are doing and help me with my plan.  

Here are some of the things I look for from my clients' competitors:

One can track their competitors using social listening tools like Sprout Social. You can monitor keywords or hashtags of your choice. 

Content creation: After knowing client goals, target audience, and competition, content creation comes next. Remember, you need the information above to be able to come up with compelling content. 

For example, our C.E.O blog will benefit from articles, podcasts, and educating videos posted on LinkedIn. 

On the other hand, our boutique will rely on flashy GIFs, short videos or images with attractive colours posted on Instagram. 

A content calendar will come in handy to organise when and where I will be posting. 

Remember, social media is all about the conversation. When creating content, I make sure to start conversations and not broadcasts.

Tracking and adjusting: Using social media tracking tools, I can know how the clients' accounts performed. You cannot have a solid plan if you are not tracking what you are doing.

Using the data, I will know where I went wrong and what needs to be changed. Moreover, I will see what performed best and what I can add to make it better. 

I hope this answers your question.

Khamisi Hamisi, that's interesting and makes complete sense. After all, social media is a highly competitive market. Do you have a particular favourite or one you prefer or tell your clients this is the one you have to get on? I'm a big fan of LinkedIn at the moment!

Jack Boreham Facebook is a good start for newbies. Growing a page is easy. They provide a lot of tools that allow you to scale your business.

The best thing about Facebook is that your content gets a free boost if it turns out engaging. Moreover, the ads are cheaper with good targeting.

So, if you stick to good, engaging content, then Facebook will be a walk in the park. You can later channel that traffic to other platforms. Depending on the business, I always recommend my clients to start with Facebook.

Khamisi Hamisi, thank you, super insightful. As you probably know, we have a ton of blogging fellows and new writers at Hackernoon who want to get their work out there. What are the best ways for writers to self promote on social media? How can they do this effectively? What would be the first steps at doing so?

Jack Boreham, As you pointed out, social media is evolving at a rapid pace. New technology is popping up every day that will help businesses use social media effectively. What catches my eye is the Metaverse technology.

Metaverse will help business owners tell their stories more vividly in the future. They will be able to have virtual shops or offices that users can walk in using their avatars. I am currently working on knowing more about the Metaverse.

Jack Boreham, There are so many ways that writers can promote their content on social media. I will focus on one effective method that you can use to grow as a writer on social media.

I have attached a video example I just created. I used one of my replies in this AMA. You can add music, images, and videos of your choice. They offer stock videos, audio, and images if you want.

From your dashboard, you can convert this video to be fit for any social media platform. You can then post this anywhere. The TL;DR army will thank you because many people do not click on links these days. They fear things like clickbait, paywalls, redirects, and so much more.

Such a video will prepare them for what to expect once they click the link. In short, you are creating trust among your followers. Facebook recently announced that creators can now offer paid subscriptions on their pages. You can ask your followers to subscribe to your videos or drop you a tip.

Remember, you are adding value to them, so naturally, they would want to support you.

Another thing is that videos appear high on search. If you can craft SEO optimized video titles, they might appear on search. Facebook and Twitter videos now appear on Google search. Free traffic for your videos and website.

In conclusion, if you are a writer, promote your work using video on social media. They are easily shareable, people recall them quick, and they can increase your click-through rate.

Khamisi Hamisi, thank you for your advice. It will help our blogging fellows and writers. That's a wrap on this AMA. Any closing thoughts, anything you want to promote? Thank you for joining us Khamisi

It was a pleasure being part of this AMA.