Social media marketing is the present day process to use the social media platforms for a business to get connected to their target audience to build their brand, attempt to increase sales or to drive traffic to their website. To use social media marketing successfully the marketers need to publish quality content on their social media profiles. It will ensure that they are listening to their client’s needs, they are engaging followers, analyzing the results and most importantly they are running ads that will turn more customers towards the business.
The appropriate social media platform may vary depending on the business. The common platforms at the moment are Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, Quora, Snapchat, TikTok ets.
From time to time digital marketers have used various social media management tools to help any business reach their desired goals. The success rate in social media marketing is one of highest in the marketing industry only if it is utilized properly. It can be used for both growing a business or building a brand from scratch.
The emergence of social media marketing was through the urge of the business owners to publish ads on these platforms. In the beginning, they were sharing content on social media to just generate traffic to their websites that might lead to better sales statistics.
Today the definition of social media marketing has changed from the very core. Rather than just focusing on advertising, the social media platforms now have shaped themselves to be a thorough research medium for reach, engagement, sales navigation etc. a business now can trace what the consumers are talking about the product by monitoring social media conversations and response to relevant mentions. The features of social media reach, engagement, and sales allow the business owners to have clear insights about its performance on these media. Highly-targeted social media ads are their way to reach a specific set of audience.
All these when served on one plate is called social media management.
The five core pillars of social media marketing
Success in social media marketing highly depends on the strategy followed for the purpose. It is the bigger picture that the marketer needs to follow and set the right strategy to ensure that the efforts are put in the right place.
The first point to bring under consideration is to decide how social media can help you achieve your goals. You can use it both for increasing brand awareness and driving traffic to the website for better sales. You can also create a community by generating engagement around the brand. Using the media as a customer support channel is also a perk.
Generally, different social media is preferred for creating different sorts of brand value. As each business is different from the other, you have to choose the right platform for you as well. The major social media platforms are Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, and Snapchat. If you are focusing on smaller and rising platforms you would choose Tumblr, WhatsApp, and WeChat. It is better to pick a smaller or few platforms and grow as you go with your business.
Content marketing is a huge part of social media marketing. Whether or not you are going to get the desired outcome from the campaigns hugely depends on the contents you share. You have to design images, video, links etc. in a way that can attract your target audience. Create a marketing persona for a clearer overview of your campaigns. You can always modify the posts according to your social media posts performances.
Review: HubSpot uses social media to create its brand awareness.
“Social media marketing is about creating content that brings your audience together as a community and inspiring authentic conversations while increasing your brand’s awareness.”
-Krystal Wu, Social Media Community Manager, HubSpot.
The plan is to have a consistent presence on social media and make your campaigns stand out in the eyes of its users. There are almost three billion people active on social media. If you can hold on to a consistent presence in the platform then you are most likely to be seen by your future customers.
The best part of social media marketing is that you can publish a media as simple as a blog post, an image or even a short video. It is just a simple post which you need to publish by maintaining a content calendar to ensure consistency. with the right timing and frequency you can maximize your reach on social media.
In today’s digital world there are tons of scheduling tools available that can help you publish your content automatically at preferred time. Facebook scheduling is just an example. Use your time and resources smartly and you will be able to engage your audience with eye catchy content.
Review: Pin Point uses the post scheduling features on the social media platforms to maintain a steady engagement without any extra efforts.
“We publish regular posts on social media platforms, this is our way to engage with our audience. We constantly use the post scheduling features on Facebook and other platforms so that we never miss any post. Scheduling posts for the next one or two months has never been this easy before.”
-Martha McGonnagan, Social Media Manager, Pin Point.
One way to measure your engagement across the social media platforms is to follow the conversations around your brand. If you are gaining enough reach on these platforms then people will be commenting on your social media posts, tag you in the posts, comment or message directly.
There might be discussions taking place about your business without you knowing it. That is why you have to keep a close eye on social media conversations about your brand. A positive comment is both encouragement for you to keep up the good work and allow your customers to enjoy privileges brought by you. A negative comment opens scope for supporting and correcting a situation before it gets worse.
You can check all your notifications across all the social media platforms one by one or you can simply use the engagement tools. The nsight tools generate a whole report of your engagements over the various campaigns you run and help you to take further steps for your brand awareness.
Review: TechGen uses social media platforms as their primary medium to engage with their audience.
“We all know that social media platforms are the most convenient place for people across age, gender or class to connect. As we have customers over the borders, we use these platforms with a hundred percent accuracy. We make your brand visible through the platforms and create a community of the people who interact with us. Necessary measures are always being taken to add to this ever-increasing community.
Our hard work is not just following up with the people who directly message us or engage in conversations on our page or group. We follow them on other discussions regarding our services as well. The conversations we have on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, the comments or group discussions allow us to have better insights of our customers and serve them accordingly.”
-Susan Mathews, Social Interaction Lead, TechGen
You have to maintain analytics of your campaigns side by side of your continuous engagement in the media. You have to have a clear idea about how your social media marketing is performing. If you are reaching more people on social media or not is an issue worth your attention. Know about the positive mentions you are getting and the number of people using your brand’s hashtag on their social media posts.
You can get a basic level of understanding of these concerns in the platforms. To get these in-depth analytics of your campaigns, use the insights features of your social media pages. You can use a wide range of social media analytics tools as well.
Review: Cafe Coffee Co. uses social media analytics to help them design their content calendar.
“The best part of these analytics tools is that you can foresee the future of your brand on social media platforms by analysing the past and present performance. The analytics tools hand us out a complete report on how much reach we are getting from our campaigns. We can customize the publishing schedule depending on that to get the odds in our favour in the future.
We want to keep track of every detail of our posts for the year which includes every content so that we can build a better model for our future content. Our aim is to increase reach by generating more engagement.”
-Matt Cooper, Marketing Manager, Cafe Coffee Co.
You have to maintain analytics of your campaigns side by side of your continuous engagement in the media. You have to have a clear idea about how your social media marketing is performing. If you are reaching more people on social media or not is an issue worth your attention. Know about the positive mentions you are getting and the number of people using your brand’s hashtag on their social media posts.
You can get a basic level of understanding of these concerns in the platforms. To get these in-depth analytics of your campaigns, use the insights features of your social media pages. You can use a wide range of social media analytics tools as well.
Review: Cafe Coffee Co. uses social media analytics to help them design their content calendar.
“The best part of these analytics tools is that you can foresee the future of your brand on social media platforms by analysing the past and present performance. The analytics tools hand us out a complete report on how much reach we are getting from our campaigns. We can customize the publishing schedule depending on that to get the odds in our favour in the future.
We want to keep track of every detail of our posts for the year which includes every content so that we can build a better model for our future content. Our aim is to increase reach by generating more engagement.”
-Matt Cooper, Marketing Manager, Cafe Coffee Co.
Social media marketing resources
Social media platforms are some of the most dynamic technologies present today. For example, initially FAcebook was just a place to share texts and now it has numerous features including images, videos, live video, stories, insights, analytics etc.
Only when you stay updated with all the details of these trends in social media marketing, your strategies succeed in building your brand. You can take help form the following resources for this purpose:
Social media marketing blog
Write engaging blogs with detailed information about our product or services. For better reach you can always come to Ignite Corp and get the finest written blogs on your website.
Social media marketing guide
At Ignite Corp we give away a complete social media marketing plan for brands from all sectors. Get a straightforward way to start your company through social media platforms.
Social media engagement guide
Engagement is your primary gain from the campaigns you run on these social media platforms. Develop a successful strategy with Ignite Corp and step up in the race.
Social media analytics guide
Learn to make good use of your social media data. We offer you quick and actionable analytics by thorough research using the insight tools.
Social media advertising guide
You have to advertise according to your audience. It might get overwhelming to know where and how to get started. Ignite Corp is always there with the best bunch of advertisements right when you need them.