Social Media Marketing: Tips and Platforms
If you want to reach your potential customers and want to increase the size of your business, then Social Media Marketing is a key to your success.
This is just the right guide for you to get going with social media marketing.
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Social Media Marketing
Social Media Marketing or SMM is a form of digital marketing that involves creating brand awareness and sharing content on Social Media channels.
This is done by many brands and companies to achieve their marketing and branding goals.
This guide provides an introduction to social media marketing, tips, and platforms you can use to get those potential customers.
Social Media Marketing or SMM is using social media and social networks to markets your products or services.
Your customers are already interacting with different brands through social media and if you are not interacting with them, then my dear reader. You are missing out on a great deal of potential customers.
It provides you an opportunity to engage with existing customers and reach out to new ones while allowing you to promote the desired culture.
Moreover, it involves social media posts like posting text, images, blog post, video updates, and other type of content that drives audience engagement as well as paid social media advertising.
Social Media and Marketing: Starting with a Plan
Before creating a social media marketing plan, consider your goals.
A marketing campaign without a social media marketing strategy is like a wandering mind around a forest without a map.
Therefore, start with some basic questions when defining your media marketing goals.
The following are some of them:
- What are you hoping to achieve through social media marketing, SMM
- Your target audience
- Area of your target audience or the platform most used by them
- What message do you want to send out to your target audience with this campaign
Your type of business can help you derive your marketing strategy.
For instance, if you are running a retail brand of clothes, then being highly visual, can create a lot of strong presence on Instagram, or Pinterest,
However, a business-to-business marketing campaign is more beneficial on Twitter or Linkedin.
Social Media Marketing Trends
The world of media is changing rapidly than any other online space.
And keeping up with these changes is not a piece of cake.
Just imagine, that since opening up for everyone Facebook now has 1.6 billion users.
The population of the world is 7.8 billion and nearly 1/4 of humans have a Facebook account.
Moreover, people are not only using Facebook but other platforms like WhatsApp, YouTube, and others not once a day but multiple times a day.
Now imagine the impact your marketing campaign will have on your business.
Let us now learn about the trends.
Organic Reach is Going Down
There was a time when you could post content on media platforms and could grow followers.
After a few months, you would receive a number of friends request, followers, shares, and comments because of your amazing content.
But today, it is not the case at all. This is because these platforms are making it difficult to build an organic following.
However, it is not intentional. As the ability of organic users to shines goes down something goes up and that is ad spend.
It is not just true for Facebook but for every other platform.
Moreover, remember that all platforms want to make money, and they do that by connecting you with paying customers.
Thus, you have to measure your own efforts to see what works well for you and your business and what does not.
Pay to Play
As organic reach is becoming difficult every day, businesses have to pay to play.
You no longer can rely on good content to build a following. Thus, the more social media algorithm prioritize advertisements, the more businesses are willing to pay.
Advertising budgets for social media doubles from 2014 to 2016 and by 2018, they amounted to more than $89 billion.
Moreover, these social media companies are practically making money from their advertisements.
However, for companies, a user is a product, and to reach them, they have to pay money.
Thus, if you choose the right platform, it will not be a big problem.
Most sites have reasonable advertising costs, and it will work well for you if you have a specific budget for it.
Social Media Tools are Merging
Not just the channels but the social media tools are also merging.
For instance, when you log into Instagram, you can easily use your Facebook account.
As with more tools, it is becoming more confusing for the users, thus, marketing tools all around the internet are working to integrate with the against of advertising.
The more this is happening between the social media platforms and the SaaS companies, the easier it is for you to market your products or services to the audience.
Moreover, it is not going to slow down any time soon. thus, with these trends in mind, you can make use of these platforms and come up with great content.
Now, let us learn about the Social Media Marketing Tips.
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Tips for Social Media Marketing
Both new brands and the ones already present in the market are making use of social media platforms to generate leads and increase sales.
Moreover, building a brand using social media is a massive undertaking with all the platforms available for use.
However, it is easy to use social media and increase your sales by targeting your audience.
Whether you are a new one or a business giant already present, there is always room for improvement that can help you optimize your marketing strategy.
The following are a few social media marketing tips to help you start off with your social media campaigns.
Content Planning
A social media marketing campaign is essential for every business today.
To target your specific audience, consider keyword research and competitive research to help brainstorm content ideas.
Moreover, it will help you to learn what other businesses are already doing to drive the engagement of the target audience on social media.
Great Content
When you are considering using marketing platforms, then great content is a key to success.
Make sure to post regularly and offer valuable information that your ideal customers will find helpful and interesting.
The content you choose to share on social media platforms includes images, videos, infographics, how-to guidelines, and more.
This helps to attract the consumers that are most likely to act on promotion.
Consistent Brand Image
These media platforms allow you to project your brand image across a variety of different social media platforms.
While each platform, had different and a unique environment, your business’s core identity should stay consistent.
For instance, Facebook uses long written posts with images, Instagram uses images with hashtags and captions, etc.
Content Promotion
Social media marketing is a perfect platform for sharing your site and blog content with your readers.
Once you have a loyal following, you will be able to post all the new content and make sure that your readers will find it.
Moreover, great blog content will help you to build more followers, and is a surprising way that content marketing and social media marketing benefit from each other.
Tracking Competitors
Keeping an eye on the competitors is crucial for your business.
It provides valuable data for keyword research and other social media marketing insights.
If your competitors are using a certain channel or technique, then consider doing the same thing. However, the key here is to do it better.
Measuring your Success
Without tracking the data and analytics tool you can measure the success of the marketing campaign.
Google Analytics is a great tool that will help you to measure the most beneficial marketing techniques as well as determine which strategies you should abandon.
Moreover, by attaching tracking tags to your marketing campaigns, you can monitor them properly.
Use it within each social media platform which will provide you insight that which social content is performing best with the target audience.
Now let’s move to choose the best social media platforms.
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Choosing the Right Social Media Platform
Choosing a social media platform is beneficial for your content.
However, if it does not align with your budget and strategy, then it can make things difficult for you.
Each platform has a unique environment and user base and knowing about it can help you to determine which platform is best for you.
The following is a brief overview of how to use a social media platform according to its user base and environment.
Different sites need different approaches, thus developing a unique strategy can help you outperform in each one of them.
Let’s get started.
1: Facebook
Facebook has a very friendly and cause environment that requires an active marketing strategy.
You can start by creating a Facebook Business Fan Page.
Moreover, pay specific attention to the layout, as the visual component is the key to the Facebook experience.
Facebook is a platform where people relax and chat with their friends and family, thus keeping your tone light and friendly in the content can help you.
Moreover, organic reach on Facebook is extremely limited, thus consider a cost-effective Facebook ad strategy that will have a big impact on your organic Facebook presence as well.
An interesting this is that the ad you choose to run on Facebook can also be placed on Instagram.
You can simply click the Instagram ad placement button and select the ‘feed’, ‘stories, or both.
Moreover, you might want to consider this integration of ads if your target audience is youth.
Learn more about the ways of running Facebook ads.
2: YouTube
YouTube is an effective and number 1 place for creating and sharing video content.
Moreover, it is also an incredibly powerful tool for marketing.
Many businesses today make video content in the hopes to create a “viral video” however, the chances are really slim in reality.
Instead, by focusing on creating a useful, instructive video, you can grab your audience’s attention.
These instructive or ‘how-to’ videos have the added benefit of ranking on the video search of Google, therefore, do not underestimate the power of video content.
Learn more about YouTube ads.
3: Pinterest
One of the fastest-growing marketing trends is Pinterest.
Its image-centered platform is an ideal place for retail with eye-catching and stunning pinboards.
However, not everyone can benefit from Pinterest for social media purposes or driving sales ads.
Pinterest allows your business to showcase your products while also developing brand personality with unique pinboards.
However, when developing Pinterest’s strategy, remember that its main audience is women.
Thus, if your demographic is focusing on women, then you need a presence on Pinterest.
4: Google+
Google+ came in as a competition of Facebook.
However, now it serves a more niche audience and does not work for everyone.
Moreover, some communities are more active on it than others.
Google+ allows you to share images, videos, links, and view all your 1+s.
You can take advantage of its circles, which allow you to segment your followers into smaller groups.
Thus, enabling you to share information with some followers while barring others.
For instance, you might try creating a super-fan circle and share special discounts and offers with only this group.
5: Instagram
The growth of Instagram from the start was organic and it dominated the app store charts for months and it still does.
In seven years it had a billion users and works still in the same way.
Instagram is all about videos and images, however, videos are gaining rounds.
Moreover, out of all the big networks, it has the highest engagement rate.
But if you are a new business, then start with pictures.
The following categories work well:
- Inspiring Quotes
- Photos of items
- Questions in the form of test
Also using hashtags, a call-to-action with each photo, and the right bio will make you grow on Instagram.
You can also use Instagram Influencer Marketing.
It is because the influencers are using visuals to create brand images and people love following what they do.
Moreover, they are the new trendsetters in the market.
Thus, using them can help you create a potential market.
6: Linkedin
If you are looking for more professional marketing sites, then Linkedin is your answer.
Its groups are a great place for entering into the professional dialog with people in similar industries and also provide a place to share content with like-minded and reliable customers.
Moreover, it is great for posting job ads and employee networking.
You can encourage your customers or clients to give your business recommendations and this makes your business appear more credible and reliable for new customers.
According to Content Marketing Institute:
Also by growing the Questions section of Linkedin, helps you get answers and get you established as a thought leader and earns trust.
Moreover, Linkedin is a top platform for lead generation by a long shot, which means your business can get attention on the platform.
7: Reddit
Reddit is a great platform for social media marketing.
With over 2 million views on a page per month, it has incredible marketing potential.
However, only unique and interesting content is welcome there. In fact, Reddit’s users will ferociously attack you for spamming link bait or dumping promotional links on their boards or subreddits.
Thus, if the Redditors like what they see, they can easily drive enough traffic to your site to crash it.
Two key factors that helped Reddit grow to such a massive platform are:
- AMAs, Ask Me Anything
- their voting feature.
Thus, if you have content you believe the Reddit community will love, then you can easily reap the benefits and earn valuable traffic.
Final Thoughts
With a Social Media Marketing campaign, you can grow your business, earn leads and grow exponentially. By using the above platforms you make use of Snapchat, TikTok, Tumblr, and others to post ads.
You know who each platform works, what content you can share, and thus, coming up with good content is a key to driving your audience. You can contact us for more information and running your ads for Facebook, Youtube, or Instagram.