Utah gets a surprising amount of attention in the media. And yet people rarely understand it in the way that those of us who live here do. The assumption is that this state is nothing but Mormons eating green Jell-o under the Delicate Arch while it’s snowing. Admittedly, that does do a fairly good job describing Utah. But there’s more to this state than meets the eye. Which is why it’s worth taking a look at what social media marketing looks like in Utah, because it certainly is not what you may think at first. And if you want to keep up with other Utah businesses, it’s best to know what it’s all about.
Finding your voice
One big thing to consider when it comes to social media marketing in Utah is what is your business? What is the general feeling of your brand? What exactly is the message your trying to convey to your followers (you know, besides “buy our goods and services”).
A good thing to do when deciding this is to look at competitors’ social media accounts. What kind of voices are they using? Are the usually more formal and informative? Or are they casual and funny? Then you have to decide if you want to do what they’re doing (if they have a lot of followers and a lot of interactions with their posts, then you may want to) or do you not like that voice and want to forge your own.
For example, the Salt Lake City based bookstore, King’s English, has a very successful Instagram page. They post with a helpful, bright, and informative voice. They are forever making posts and stories asking for and giving reading recommendations. Or you could go more in the direction of Gray Whale, a record store that is the favorite of many Utah hipsters. They’re posts are sarcastic and funny, making comments on the news of the day that always ties back in with music.
Now, if a bookstore and a record store can use their social media voices to keep their businesses alive in 2020, I don’t know what can.
Content is everything
Once you have your voice figured out, you need to decide what kind of content you want to post. This will, of course, change depending on the platform you want to use. If you’re doing Instagram, you will definitely need some good images. Afterall, Instagram is considered to be more of a photo sharing site than anything. But if you’d rather be on Twitter or Facebook, images aren’t as required (though they do still help). With the text focused sites, you are probably already set if you know your voice, but with images things tend to get a little bit more complicated.
But in all reality, it is only as complicated as you allow it to be. If you’re a store, you can do just fine with things like high-quality photos of what you have in stock, especially if it’s new or really popular and has only just been restocked. One Salt Lake consignment store, Salt and Honey, does that on their Instagram feed and stories. This is a great way to get your customers to come in or order, because they will already know that there is something there that they will love.
One thing that you may or may not have noticed about Utahn is that we’re ridiculously proud of being Utahns. I mean, who can blame us, this is a pretty awesome state. So, leaning into the fact that you are a local company could be a great social media marketing strategy. Find a way to mention that you’re a local company in your captions. Find someone (like one of Avant8’s designers) to make you a graphic that emphasizes your Utah-ness. Share the posts of locals who have posted about your goods or services. Just make sure that people know that you are Utahn and proud. Finding a specific example of this is kind of difficult because it’s hard to narrow down. Utah usually businesses understand how much we love our state and want to share in that love. So, why not join in?
These are really the basics to know when it comes to marketing your company on social media in Utah. It will likely take some experimentation to get it exactly right. But once you do, you won’t believe the results that you’ll see. Think about it, most of us (no matter where you’re from or live) spend probably a little too much time on social media. So, what better way to reach out to your customers and find new ones than through social media. Of course, if you’re feeling too busy to keep it up like you should, then why not let us take a crack at it. We’re pretty good at this stuff and we know Utah the backs of our hands.