Social media plays an important role in our lives- sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. Some like it, some hate it, but no one can deny its place in our lives, and the way it shapes our culture. These make social media a crucial tool for those who are looking to connect with their audiences via digital platforms. In this article, we will extensively talk about social media marketing, and its importance, and provide you with basic social media tips!
Here is all you need to know about social media marketing!
What is Social Media Marketing?
Basically, the term encompasses all the operations where brands use social media platforms to market their products and services. The most popular platforms for social media marketing today are the following:
- YouTube
- TikTok
- Snapchat
As these platforms have a huge daily user base, social marketing is a very effective way for brands to not only promote their products/services but to connect with/grow their audiences as well. It is used by brands of all scales today -from small businesses to global firms- and usually is a major part of everyone’s digital marketing strategy.
Benefits of Social Media Marketing
Why should you do social media marketing? Well, because in today’s digital world, you barely have any other choice. But to give some concrete answers, here are the main benefits of social media marketing:
- Helps you build a strong relationship with your customers
Bonding with your audience is a must, and social media platforms are one of the best places -if not the best- to do it! As you keep creating engaging content and interacting with your audience on a regular basis, your relationship with them will grow stronger and stronger.
- Generates lots of leads & conversions
Social media marketing -both paid and organic- is a great way of generating leads and getting conversions. Just by doing a contest post on a social media platform, you will be able to get lots of qualified e-mails. Just be creative and find interesting ways of interacting with your audience to get better results!
- It is cost-effective
Besides from social media ad campaigns and maybe a social media marketing tool -which is not a requirement, but always recommended- it does not really cost you to run social media marketing campaigns. Opening profiles are free, and so is sharing content! Of course, if you invest in content experts and social media managers to run your operations, you will always get better results, but it is essentially a very cost-effective method of promoting your business.
- Gets you more inbound traffic
As your audience will grow on social media platforms, you will most probably notice an increase in your website traffic as well. Think of your social media platforms as gateways to your website, and remember that successful campaigns will help you get more visitors.
- Increases brand awareness
Social media is a great -and again, very cost-effective- way of marketing your products/services and increasing your brand’s visibility while doing so. As you keep implementing successful social media marketing campaigns and reach bigger audiences, your brand awareness will increase in time as well.
How to Create a Social Media Marketing Plan?
There is more than one way of answering this -social media plans might vary depending on the brand’s approach and social media platform- but to give you a general idea, here are the 5 main steps to a basic social media marketing plan:
1- Research Your Audience & Find Your Platform(s)
Identify your main audience, and do your research on them. What are their main interests, and what trends are they following? What platform do they use the most? Answers to these questions will provide guidance to you for the rest of the way.
2- Identify Your Goals & Key Metrics for Success
What are your main goals for social media marketing? Consider metrics such as conversion rates, brand mentions, website visits, more followers, etc. Find the most important metrics for you and base your strategy and content on them.
3- Plan Your Content & Publishing Schedule
Instead of creating content when the time comes for publishing, plan & create your content ahead of time, so you will never find yourself in a jam. Then make a publishing schedule and try to stick to it! Use social media marketing tools to help you with this. The type of content to use is a matter of another article and there is no single answer to that, but still, keep in mind that most people have very short attention spans, and visual content such as videos and photos are always more interesting than blocks of text!
4- Listen & Engage
Keep an ear on the conversations about your brand/posts. As your audience grows, so will the number of comments, messages, and reactions, and you will need to pay attention to what your audience is saying, mainly for two reasons- they love to interact with their favorite brands, and what you will learn from their reactions will help you better your social media marketing strategy.
5- Report & Analyze
Now is the time to see the results and decide what needs to be improved! You definitely want to -and need to- know how your social media marketing plan is performing to make the right decisions going forward, so make sure to pay a lot of attention to social media reports.
Social Media Marketing Tips
If you want to reach a broader audience in a relatively shorter amount of time, and if you have the budget for it, that’s great, you can just advertise on social media! Social media platforms are very successful at targeting the correct users with your ads – based on lots of data such as demographics, user behavior, interests, etc.- so a well-planned social media ad campaign will most of the time worth the time and money. Here are 10 tips for more successful social media marketing campaigns:
1- Know where your audience is
If you wish to communicate with preteens, probably Facebook marketing is not your best bet in 2023. You should be aiming for platforms that are popular among young audiences, such as TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat… So, make sure you know your audience and have done your research before starting your operations.
2- Make a schedule- and follow it!
It is important to be organized no matter what you are doing, and it will certainly make things a lot easier for you if you schedule your social media content beforehand. Just make a month’s sharing schedule, and try to follow it.
3- Be Consistent!
This is an important one- being consistent is the key to cementing your brand on social media platforms. By being active, you will increase the chances of your audience seeing your posts. Also, don’t forget that success usually doesn’t come overnight, so you need to put in some time and effort! Try posting daily, but if you cannot at the moment, at least make sure you are sharing a few posts every week.
4- Always be Interesting!
Yes, it is easier said than done in today’s digital scene, with every brand and influencer trying to one-up each other with all kinds of creative -and sometimes cringy, to be honest- campaigns, but it is what it is. Don’t just post for the sake of it, but try to grab your audience’s attention with interesting ideas for posts. Remember to use different kinds of social media content, like polls, video and keep your audience engaged- for example; small contests with rewards are a great way of engaging with your audience.
5- Watch for the algorithm changes
If you notice a drastic change in your engagements, the reason might be an algorithm change, which happens from time to time. The bad thing about this is, you won’t ever know for sure what exactly has changed -as this information is usually not public- but you can track the changes in results carefully and see the patterns- or visit authority sites to see what they say about it.
6- Have a different strategy for each platform
You should have a separate, detailed plan for each social media platform, as their dynamics -and audiences- vary. This, of course, does not mean that your brand should be on every social media platform, but for the ones you are operating on, it is always better to have specific strategies to follow for the best results.
7- Respond to your audience
People love engaging with their favorite influencers, brands, etc. We all do. So, try to respond to your followers as much as you can- and as detailed as you can! Obviously, depending on the scale of your channel, you won’t be able to reply to everyone, but keeping an eye on the comments section and your inbox will make for happier customers!
8- Always follow the trends
In social media, trends are everything! And they can change quickly, so always keep an eye on what’s trending to not lose touch with the present. Also, don’t forget that the trends are great sources for new content ideas!
9- Partner with influencers
Some like them, some hate them, but there is no denying that influencers can easily grow your audience with just a couple of clicks, assuming you have found the right one for your brand & audience. It might be costly though, so do your research wisely, and when the time is right, partner with the right influencer to give your brand a boost!
10- Analyze the results
Always measure and analyze your results so you can track your growth, but more importantly, you can see your strategy’s weak points, which will give you a starting point to improve.
Top 5 Social Media Marketing Tools
When it comes to social media marketing tools, you have lots and lots of options. So, to help you, here are our top 5 picks:
Missinglettr
Missinglettr is a very popular tool, and for good reasons: it creates and schedules social media content, and easily automates this process for you, saving you a considerable amount of time. Its social media analytics is quite helpful and easy to use as well. Visit Missinglettr to learn more.
Biteable
Visual content always had an advantage over text, it is a fact. Biteable is an easy-to-use content creating tool that is used for creating short videos to share on social media platforms. If you rely heavily on video content on your social media posts, you should check it out!
Buzzsumo
Buzzsumo is a research tool that analyzes what type of content performs better for any topic. It is quite popular among social media experts and is a very effective tool that helps you come up with better content for your campaigns.
Buffer
Buffer is a scheduling tool, originally created for Twitter, now available for every major social media platform. Using Buffer, you will be able to easily schedule your content, track its performance and manage your accounts.
Hootsuite
Another very popular social media marketing app, Hootsuite handles multiple social media accounts for you, so you can easily manage your accounts from a single dashboard.
Conclusion
Trending platforms might change, but it is safe to say that social media will remain an important part of our lives for years to come. This is why brands should make social media campaigns a part of their digital marketing strategy.