Social media marketing can be defined as the promotion of a product or service through social media platforms. This form of marketing is used to connect with an audience through the use of ads created on social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn in order to achieve a certain goal. These goals could include:
- Building brand awareness
- Driving traffic to your website
- Increasing sales
- Generating new leads
Social media marketing for businesses
Social media marketing has become an extremely effective and popular marketing tool across many industries. Businesses large and small have started using social media platforms in their digital marketing strategies in order to reach and engage with potential customers. Businesses getting started on these platforms need to have a few things in place first, including:
- A mobile-friendly website Most businesses already have a website but it is crucial that their website is mobile-friendly. This is important because most social media interactions are done on mobile devices, so chances are very high that your target audience will visit your website from their mobile devices.
- A target audience You need to make sure that your ads are being shown to the correct audience. Spend some time creating your target audience so that you don’t waste time and money marketing your business to the incorrect people. There are many tools that can be used to help you create the right audience, one of them being Facebook Pixel.
- An objective Your entire social media strategy should be built around your end goal. If your goal is to increase sales then you need to make sure that your ads are effective at both directing visitors to your website and generating sales of your product or service. If your goal is to build brand awareness then your ad needs to stand out in such a way that it will not be overlooked.
Picking the right social media platforms for business
For most businesses, it’s a no brainer! Social media platforms need to be a part of your digital marketing strategy. The difficult part is having to decide which social media platforms will work for your business. It is also essential to make sure that you do not fall into the trap of over-marketing your business using social media.
Here are 3 steps you could follow to ensure that you choose the right social media platforms for your business:
Step 1: Identify your audience
Have a few questions in place that will help you determine who your audience is. You can use the answers to these questions to figure out which platforms you should use to target your audience.
Step 2: Define your goals
You need to have a clear understanding of the types of goals each social media platform can help you achieve. Once you know who your audience is it will be easier to define your goals and pick the social media platform to use in order to achieve your goals.
Step 3: Determine which platforms your audience is engaging with
Once you have identified your target audience and defined your goals you will be able to determine which social media platforms your audience is using. It is important to know how active they are on these platforms so you know where to focus your time and money.
Deciding on content for your social media marketing strategy
A content strategy can be the glue that holds your entire social media marketing strategy together. The type of content you use for your social media posts will be determined by your audience and your goals.
Types of content for social media marketing:
- Curated content Getting this type of content involves filtering through content across different websites and then using it on your social media platforms. Curated content is generally used by a brand if they feel that it will be of interest to their audience and includes links to external content.
- Personalized content This content will be tailored to the needs of your audience and is generally created by you from start to finish. This type of content requires a lot of research to make sure you understand your audience as well as how to appeal to their interests/needs.
- Blog posts Many businesses write blog posts on their website and sharing these with your audience on social media is a great way to interact with them. Sharing your blogs correctly across your social media platforms will help send a steady stream of visitors to your blog.
Another important point to keep in mind with regards to content for social media marketing is how often you plan to post on social media platforms. Understanding your audience and goals will help you determine how often you would like to post. Having a content calendar in place once you have established this will help keep you on track!
Benefits of social media marketing for businesses:
Having social media marketing as part of your digital marketing strategy can help generate exposure for your company. Here are a few benefits of using social media marketing:
- Gain traffic to your website
- Increase brand awareness
- More interaction with your customers
- An inexpensive form of marketing
- Helps build trust and relationship with your customers
- Improve SEO
Not using social media marketing for your business yet?
Well, then I would suggest you start! And if you are using social media marketing already then you know the power it can have when used correctly.
‘’We don’t have a choice on whether we do social media, the question is how well we do it.’’ – Erik Qualman
