Social Media Marketing

Did you know there are more than 4.55 billion social media users globally?

Social Media Marketing is quickly becoming the preferred choice for many businesses. According to the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing companies in America, social media marketing is the second most popular marketing tactic.

It's a new field, having been introduced in the mid-2000s. It has quickly gained popularity due to its interactive nature and ability to target niche markets.

If you are contemplating whether or not to integrate social media marketing, it's worth doing some research. Review the types of social media marketing, how they work, and their benefits.

Keep reading to learn more about social media marketing for small businesses.

What Is Social Media Marketing?

Social media marketing is the activity of creating content aiming to promote your business, products, and services on social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Tiktok, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.

Unique content should be created for specific social media platforms to help boost sales conversions and increase brand awareness.

Content for social media marketing should be specific for targeted audiences, customers, and clients according to the buyer's journey – awareness stage, consideration stage, and decision stage.

While social media marketing is beneficial and valuable for the growth of your business, different strategies should be adopted based on which social networks your target audiences spend their time on the most.

Why Is Social Media Marketing Important For Business?

There are many beneficial reasons why it is important to adopt social media marketing for small businesses.

1. Increase Brand Awareness

According to the Digital 2021 October Global Statshot Report, 4.55 billion people worldwide now use social media, 400 million new users have come online within the last 12 months.

As you can see, with the growing number of people on social media, there are enormous potentials for increasing brand awareness for businesses. Besides boosting company brand awareness, social media also helps bring traffic to your website.

2. Generate Leads and Boost Conversions

You can generate more leads, boost sales conversions and increase more revenue by promoting and sharing your products and services on social media.

Here are examples of how you can generate more leads through social media.

Encourage visitors and followers to participate in contests on your social media profile.
On your bio profile, add a website URL, and offer URLs (landing pages, sales pages) to promote your products and services.
Host live videos to make announcements or update about your products or services.
Implement social media advertising campaigns on your channel.
Enable shopping features on your profile where your audiences can make purchases through social media platforms and buy products directly from you.

3. Build Customer Relationships

You can build long-lasting relationships with your customers by connecting and engaging with them on social media platforms. It helps build trust and show them you value their support and input.

4. Learn From Competitors

You can conduct a competitive analysis to discover competitors' social media marketing tactics, see what products they are promoting, what campaign they are implementing, what works, and what are not working.

Types of Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is a great way to promote your business, and it helps increase brand awareness and gain new clients and customers. But which social media channel is best for your business?

The answer to that question depends on your individual needs and goals. There are many social media digital marketing strategies:

Social Networking Sites

Social networking sites allow people to meet, interact, and share information. Sites like Facebook and Twitter are the most popular platforms for marketers. More social networking sites like Pinterest, Instagram, Wechat, and Tumblr are worth exploring.

The best part is, you can try them out without spending a penny. However, hiring a social media marketing expert and strategist is most effective. An expert knows the best site, media, and method to reach your intended target audience.

Media Sharing

The digital economy drives consumers' attention to specific types of unique content. They are no longer interested in consuming the same things they did a decade ago. Sharing new content is a way to gain traffic and influence others.

Businesses overlook the power of media-sharing sites to spread their message.

Media sharing sites have some of the highest marketing potentials. It can share and connect with people all over the world. These media-sharing sites are popular for both personal use and business promotion.

Social Blogging

Social blogging is a low-cost and high-return marketing strategy for any business. Blogging drives traffic to your website, builds your brand, and increases sales.

Blogging is a timeless way for your companies to get their content out there and define a brand voice. The popularity of blogs has been trending upwards for a while now. According to Pew Research Center, The number of people who read blogs regularly has increased by 20% year after year. Forty-eight percent of blog readers also follow that brand on social media.

Social News

Like Reddit and Hacker News, social news sites provide an excellent opportunity to market your brand. Both sites have a large audience of people looking for exciting content to read.

Social news sites collect user-submitted content from all over the web and allow users to vote on it. The most highly voted content is placed on the site's main page, and the user who created it is displayed on the page.

Benefits of Social Media Marketing

Some businesses are reluctant to invest in marketing. Marketing is costly and is not a one-time event. Investing in social media marketing is worthwhile.
Your business enjoys the following:

Audience Targeting

Social media marketing is a great way to target the right audience for business and personal use.

If you have a new clothing line, you can target the right people by gender and age. Since you know your target audience, you can create content that appeals specifically to them.

Increased Brand Awareness

Social media marketing connects you with your customers. You get to engage with and establish relationships.

The interactions increase trust in your brand leading to an increase in sales and profits.

When clients know your business, they become familiar with your products and services, which gains their attention and interest, influencing consumer behavior.

Higher Conversion Rates

Recently social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest have added the “buy” buttons to their posts.

Customers can now make purchases from a brand's social media pages with just one click. After the customer makes their purchase, they are directed to a thank you page. Here clients can rate the product and leave comments.

The feedback will help you improve products and services for future customers.

Offers Valuable Market Insights

Businesses need to understand what content resonates with their audience. What causes them to engage or disengage? Social media marketing can facilitate that.

Social media tools make it possible to track followers' demographics and interests. You can see how many people have liked and shared it.

If you're in the entertainment business, you can find out where your fans are from, which movies and music they like, and so on. The insights are valuable in increasing customer satisfaction.

Cost-Effective

Social media marketing has a higher ROI than more traditional forms of marketing like direct mail, cold calling, and TV advertising.

Social media marketing costs less than traditional marketing, and it doesn't require a significant investment in staff, design, and materials.

How To Build Social Media Marketing Strategies Specifically For Your Business?

Here we will discuss how to ensure your social media marketing is sustainable and generates positive results for your business.

1. Research your buyer personas and audience

Identify who is your buyer personas and audience, what are their needs and interests. Then, determine what content your should create to attract these personas.

2. Determine which social platforms you'll market on

Identify what social media platforms your targeted audiences spend their time on the most.

3. Create unique and engaging content

Create content that stands out and provides viewers a reason to interact with your brand. For example, do live videos on a Facebook sharing product launch or giveaway. You can also encourage your existing clients or customers to use hashtags to share their experiences of using your products or services.

4. Organize a schedule for your posts

Save time by using a social media management solution to schedule posts in advance, monitor all interactions and engagements on social media platforms.

How often should you post on social media?

Now you might be wondering how often you should post on social media channels.

You should only post on social media if you have quality content to share.

If you post irregularly, your followers might forget you.
If you post too frequently, you are likely to become annoying to your followers.

Each industry is different; I recommend you experiment with more or fewer posts. Also, test the time of day you post on social media. Then, determine what provides the highest level of engagement.

5. Analyze your impact and results

It is vital to track the results of social media marketing. There are 10 of the most important social media tracking metrics.

Engagement: This includes clicks, comments, likes, and replies on your social media posts. There are also platform-specific types of engagement, such as “Saved” posts on Instagram and “Pinned” posts on Pinterest.
Reach: The number of people who have seen any content associated with your page or profile is your reach.
Followers: This is the number of people you have on your profile who have clicked your “Follow” button and regularly see your content in their feeds.
Impressions: This is the number of times a post from your profile or page is seen, whether or not your audience members click on it. This is often what happens when someone is scrolling through their newsfeed but not clicking on anything.
Video views: On Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, or any other social channel with video capabilities, this is the number of views each gets.
Profile visits: The number of people who have opened your social media page is your number of profile visits.
Mentions: This is the number of times your profile has been mentioned by audience members in their posts.
Tags: This is when your audience adds the name of your company's profile or your hashtag to another post.
Reposts: This is when a member of your audience posts a piece of your content on their profile.
Shares: These are the posts your followers and audience take from your profile and share with their network.

You can influence all of these metrics, increase your social following, and improve overall engagement on your profile by using the same tactics to generate leads and boost conversions. You can also interact with your followers more frequently by talking to them, tagging them in content, responding to their questions, like their posts, encouraging them to use your hashtags, and sharing your content (and you can also repost user-generated content).

Invest in Social Media Marketing Today

Considering how many people are on social media today, no surprise that many businesses and marketers use social media to promote and engage with their targeted audiences.

In today's competitive economy, you need to establish a competitive advantage. Social media marketing is a valuable asset in boosting brand awareness, sales, and customer loyalty.

You don't have to be an expert in social media to enjoy content marketing benefits. You can partner with experts in social media marketing for assistance.

Emmy Panthong is an expert strategic marketing consultant. I facilitate social media marketing for small businesses, whether a coach, consultant or professional service provider.

Get in touch today for effective social media marketing services to increase brand awareness, boost sales conversions and build long-lasting customer relationships.