Are you trying to understand what is social media marketing? Learn the basics of social media marketing and how to get started.
Social media marketing is a sub-type of marketing that uses social media platforms to connect with your audience, drive traffic to your website, and build your brand. Currently, the major social media platforms are Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Tumblr, Reddit, and Pinterest.
Similarly, there is also a wide range of social media management tools to align your social media activity. For instance, Social Grow is a unique platform that allows you to schedule posts, manage ad campaigns, engage your audience, get insights, and hire digital brand experts.
In the world of social media, the worst kind of activity is no activity. Hence, it is important to keep your audience updated over the latest products, services, and promotions. It is important to get your audience talking about you. If no one is talking about you, there is no opportunity to grow. In facts, nowadays, businesses are using social media for a number of reasons. For example, if a business wants to learn what people are talking about it, they’ll monitor conversations and respond to specific mentions.
The advantage of social media marketing is that you can have a large audience as well as a niche audience. The only difference between traditional and social platform is that you’re talking through a keyboard, and there are lots of potential customers.
Here are a few steps to get you started with social media marketing:
1. What is your objective?
The basic questions that will determine the objective of getting social.
- What do you wish to get out of social media marketing?
- Why are you doing it?
- Is it for generating direct sales?
- Or offering a type of customer service?
2. Identify and evaluate your sources
You have to make sure you have all these resources in place to execute a social media strategy.
- Who will be creating your content?
- Who is going to manage your social media?
- Who will be the online voice of your business?
- Who is going to respond to your audience?
- Are you able technically to join the conversation in-house?
3. Understand your audience
- Find out where your audience spends their time online.
- What kind of content is the most vocal about?
- What kind of information will benefit them?
- What are their dislikes?
You’re not just publishing marketing messages and promotions on social media. You need to understand exactly what they’re looking for. This way, you can provide them with the content they prefer. However, you also need to be personable when they want to interact with you.
4. Craft engaging content
Once you know where your audience spends time online and what kind of content they prefer, it’s time to create content. Take time to give them more of the content they prefer.
You need to be continuous with quality content to give to your audience. It also represents itself in the form of conversations. You need to build a loyal follower-base of people who trust you to meet their needs and expectations.
5. Integrate your marketing
All your efforts of marketing on social media should feed off of each other. This means you need to cross-promote your offers, both online and offline. Your social media marketing and traditional marketing should work together, seamlessly.
6. Create, Schedule and calendar
Keep aside specific times during the day to devote to social media marketing. For example, spend a few minutes on Instagram before you check your email. Then, for another few minutes before you leave for work. When you create a schedule, it becomes easy to follow through. You need to make sure you don’t skip your social media marketing activity each day.
7. Implement an 80-20 rule
Allocate 80% of your time on social media activity that is not self-promotional. Along with this, allocate the remaining 20% of your time of social media activity that is self-promotional.
8. Quality over Quantity
It is really easy to get caught up in numbers. But make sure you don’t become a slave to a follower count. It is better to have 1,000 loyal and engaged fans that 10,000 followers who followed you and never acknowledge you again.
9. Give up control
Let your audience take control of the online conversation. Let them develop an emotional attachment to you, your business, and your brand. Remember, on social media, apathy or invisibility is a bigger issue than negativity.
10. Learn, learn, learn
For social media marketing success, you need to accept and adapt to change. Understand that change is inevitable and good. You can never stop learning.
Social Media Marketing can boost your business in the digital world. In order to have a stronghold, you have to manage it properly and social media management tools can come handy in that. Visit Social Grow to know more about social media management tools.
