As a business owner, you need a good marketing strategy to build brand awareness and increase your traffic. That’s why you need social media – it plays an important role in marketing. But how do you use them correctly? In this article, you will learn everything about social media marketing.
What exactly is social media marketing?
Social media marketing uses various social media networks to spread awareness of your brand.
This is an ongoing promotion that involves using quality copywriting and visual aids (images and videos) to reach a wider audience.
There are several reasons that social media marketing is a necessity for any business owner:
- Social media acts as a platform to freely interact with potential customers, build trust and build relationships
- With the help of social networks, you can quickly reach a large audience
- It’s much more affordable than advertising in traditional media, such as brochures, billboards, or TV
- Most social media networks incorporate real-time reporting on the quality of your campaigns – it’s a great way to measure your marketing effectiveness.
Creating a plan
If you want to use social media to accomplish your business missions, you can’t jump in blindly.
You need a good social media marketing strategy so that the resources you devote to it are well-targeted. Here’s what you need to consider.
- Properly set your goals
- Learn which measure(s) to follow
- Identify your target audience
- Decide on the message you want to convey
If you need further explanation, don’t worry. We’ll go over each point to help you plan your strategy now.
- Set goals correctly
First, it’s essential to know what goals you’re trying to achieve with any social media marketing campaign.
There are many criteria to consider when creating a good plan. The use of goal-setting strategies, such as the SMART technique will help you detail them. Here’s how.
Specific – “becoming more popular” is not a good goal. Technically, your popularity increases a bit with each new subscriber. To succeed, assign specific goals, such as “gain 2000 subscribers in the first quarter” or “post at least 2 videos per week”, etc.
Measurable – once you have a specific goal, it will be easier to measure it. It’s not something you measure with mere feelings but with your own eyes: reports, follower counts, etc.
Achievable – consider all factors, such as the quality and quantity of human resources you have. Is it possible to display hundreds of high-quality visuals each month with a team of five people? Make sure you have the means to achieve this goal.
Relevant – it is a question of “why”. If you want to increase your sales by gaining more subscribers, that probably won’t work. Try to get more testimonials instead, as this has a bigger impact on sales.
Timely – timelines play an important role in goals. It allows you to track your progress and assess your effectiveness.
It is important to set clear goals and measure them. Avoid using the wrong guidelines to judge your results.
- Learn which metric(s) to track
Most popular social media networks, such as Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, have their own built-in analytics reporting tools.
However, these are just tools – you decide which metrics are important to achieve the specific goals you have in mind.
Choose a goal below, and use the metrics to measure your process.
- Promote your product – the more people you can reach, the more people know about it. Track the number of people following you, track shares, likes and retweets.
- Increase engagement – once subscribers start asking about your products, that means they start showing interest. Count the number of comments you receive.
- Turn subscribers into buyers – subscribers aren’t always buyers. You need to convince your audience that your product is worth it. So be sure to maintain a high conversion rate.
- Earning Customer Satisfaction – There’s no better solution than hearing the answers directly from customers. The more reviews and testimonials they have, the better you can rate your products.
- Identify your target audience
Knowing your target audience is essential to a successful social media marketing strategy.
There are many factors to consider when researching your target audience, such as nationality, age, gender, etc.
Also, to identify the right audience, you need to know your product well.
What problem does your product solve? For example, if it’s a delivery of ingredients for healthy meals for easy meal prep to help people stay on track for their health, you need to focus on professionals in their 20s and 30s.
Another example: if you offer snow boots, you probably won’t get many customers from tropical countries.
So what else can you do to find the right audience?
- Research your current customers. If most of them are women, it might be a good idea to align your brand identity with women.
- Find out which audience your competitors are targeting. A little reference can help you get a bigger picture. You can either target the same audience as theirs or another market that is still relevant.
- Conduct surveys. If you’re looking for a more direct answer, invite your subscribers to visit your site and ask them to tell you which product in the catalog interests them the most.
After identifying your target audience, ensure your content matches their characteristics. This can help you connect with your customers and grow your relationship with them.
- Tailor your tone to your audience
Every group behaves differently – so you need to look at how they think, what they like, and how they communicate.
It is essential to maintain the message you are trying to convey. You can use two distinct tones: the formal tone and the informal tone. If you choose the wrong tone, you risk alienating your audience.
So how do you know which tone best suits your audience?
Let’s say you offer a wine subscription service. Your target audience could be people who love wine – either older people or young people with sophisticated tastes. At this point, you should already know what tone to use – more formal.
The same principle can be applied to other products. If it’s a product aimed at young people, such as gadgets, use an informal tone or popular slang to appeal to them.
Once you have gathered all the theoretical knowledge, it is time for you to put it together into a well-thought-out plan to make your social media marketing campaign a success.
Social Media Marketing Strategies and Tips
Formulating a social media marketing plan requires a lot of dedication and consideration.
Write great social content. By constantly posting varied content, you’ll attract more followers and get better engagement – post exciting videos, infographics, and posts. Create a brand and stick to it. There’s no point in changing your tone – unless you change brands. Otherwise, stick to one personality to avoid confusing your audience.
Follow your competitors. If you are a new business owner, you will realize that the competition can be intense. Tracking your competitors can help you stay ahead of the game – understand why they are doing things differently, what aspects they may have overlooked, etc.
Social media sites on different platforms provide different outcomes.
There are many social media platforms to use, but they need to be used in different ways. Each should employ a different strategy to get the desired outcome. We’ll cover various platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.
Facebook is one of the largest social networks. Its popularity and huge audience make Facebook an effective advertising tool. Additionally, Facebook has helpful insights functions that help you understand the performance of every post.
Twitter. There’s no better method to keep your audience informed of your company’s advancement. Fewer characters mean more effectiveness in the creation of each message. Furthermore, news is shared quickly thanks to the ability to share immediately by clicking the retweet button.
YouTube. If an image is worth a thousand words, think of what you can achieve when you create a video. You can make content, such as tutorials or showcases of new products.
LinkedIn. There are two options you can do with LinkedIn. First, you can recruit new employees to your company. Then, you could target a particular niche within your industry. It’s evident that those who use LinkedIn are generally educated. This lets you give more information on your brand or product.
Reddit. This combines a forum and social media. There is a topic for every topic imaginable under subreddits. With its huge number of users, it is an expansive social media platform.
Instagram. This is another platform that offers opportunities to rapidly contact potential customers. Instagram is ideal for mobile devices and is very visual. This allows you to keep your campaign in motion.
Paid Social Media Marketing
Do you feel your efforts haven’t produced the results you’d like? You’re not alone. It isn’t easy to reach the goals of an organic marketing campaign. Therefore, you may look into paid alternatives for simpler and faster campaigns. Can paid social media advertisements help you? They can make your brand visible quickly.
Social media, as efficient as it is, is also highly competitive. When you invest some money, your content can be given a higher priority, and will appear more prominently on the feeds of users, even for those who haven’t followed your account. Your budget can be adjusted according to your specific needs. The greater the cost, the quicker you can reach your target audience.
There are certain factors to be aware of before a paid campaign can be effective. Targeting your audience and setting the duration of your ads are two basics to consider when starting a paid social media campaign. Look at your business social media activity and find the times during which your targeted audience is the most active.
Social media paid ads have many advantages that accelerate your business when used wisely. It’s your choice whether you’d like to try paid ads, but one thing for certain is that you shouldn’t underestimate the importance of implementing an organic traffic plan.
Conclusion
Now that you’ve learned the steps for a good social media marketing campaign, all you need to do is take time to get started.
To conclude, here’s a summary of the steps to launch a social media marketing campaign.
- Set your goals properly, making sure they are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and that you can achieve them on time.
- Understand which metrics to use to measure the results of your goals.
- Identify your target audience.
- Match the tone of your content with the behavior and tastes of your audience.
- Keep creating great content and make sure you’re using the right social media platform for your audience.
- Use paid social media marketing if you need to.
That’s all! Even though social media marketing takes time to plan, the results are not that hard to measure.