Do you really know what social media marketing is all about?
Is your business really enjoying the huge traffic that could be provided by updated social media marketing strategies?
If you are unsure of the answers to this question then this article is for you.
Today, there’s no upper limit to the possibilities of social media marketing in promoting your business. While most digital marketers agree with this, it is still subject to debates, because it has risen to the top quite suddenly and therefore suspected to soon fall off suddenly.
However, Instead of joining this debate, I’ll teach you the techniques to utilize Social Media Marketing to its maximum potential.
So here you go; with the blueprints on how to do social media marketing.
Firstly…
Ask the honest questions
Why social media marketing, what’s in it for me?
Which social media is best for my business?
How do I get an audience on social media?
What sort of content should I be posting?
Why Social Media Marketing?
As an entrepreneur determined to push services to the next stage, it is logical to question the need and effectiveness of anything labeled ‘marketing’.
As a digital marketer, on the other hand, you should agree social media marketing is the most propagated digital marketing technique of our time.
The reason for this is that social media marketing does not need a high knowledge bar as compared against other digital marketing strategies. Besides, a good percentage of the netizens today, spend a larger chunk of their online time on social media.
Take Facebook for example; the social networking platform with the largest number of users about 2.27 billion per month.
Which social media marketing platform is best for me?
Preceded to deciding how to choose a platform, based on the kind of services you offer.
Who are your target customers?
Males or females?
Working class or fresh high school graduates?
This brings us to the understanding that Social networks vary with the services they provide and how they categorize users; therefore people join them for different purposes. You would then expect Facebook and LinkedIn to have different categories of users, where LinkedIn is professionally inclined; Facebook is a little more social.
So if you are after corporate institutions, you’d rather focus LinkedIn marketing but if you are after a less professional crowd, try Facebook marketing.
How do I get an audience on social media?
So long you have made an appropriate choice, finding an audience would be an easier task.
The applicable strategy here still depends on what social media networking platforms you have chosen.
Firstly, know that when it comes to search engines, you can appear on the SERPs as either an organic result (profiles that pop up naturally in response to searched phrases) or a paid result (profiles that appear at the top of search results with the ‘ad’ tag) The preferred one, however, is to be organic, because some users have a subconscious ignorance for results that bear the ‘ad’ tag and jump straight to the organic search results.
Take YouTube marketing as an example; the endgame is to get users to subscribe to your channel on a network where about 400 hours of video is uploaded per minute.
Therefore to remain visible to your target customers, it’s is OK to pay for adverts but much better to put in the effort to appear organic atop. This means you have to utilize SEO, use a custom thumbnail and target Google ads.
After all these, you should find a trivial way to prompt your viewers to subscribe or comment.
Instagram marketing as a second case study; you know your business has to have a lot to do with photos before choosing this platform. Follow this choice with photos that especially attracts your target category of users, doesn’t mean other user categories won’t be interested at all.
You, however, wouldn’t expect a user base filled with American housewives to be especially interested in armour tanks or a user base filled with fresh High School Graduates be interested in a new Anticancer supplement. Learn to use your focused area.
Don’t underrate the potentials of posting your business on other websites and social pages too, even if it is just in the comments section.
Make use of influencer marketing from other websites and blogs to promote your own page.
What sort of content would I be posting?
This is the major part that determines how well you have mastered social media marketing strategies. Content is key, and that means it is specific for your target customers.
You have to offer the most engaging and interactive content, this way you get to keep loyal customers. Try not to be too salesy, self-promoting, or imposing your ideas, even if they have references.
After establishing your point, leave spaces for contradictory opinions, it helps to engage users. Remember, your audience is the favorite here, not you.
Use photos, memes, and GIFs, preferably one that is related to the topic you are discussing, which if users hastily scroll over, they would be compelled to return and examine the photo.
Use Social Media Tools
This is another important aspect most social media marketers don’t take advantage of.
If your content is as honed as needs be, applying the right tool could attract traffic exponentially. Social media tools assist in scheduling and analysis, with them you’d get to organize content to be posted at a later time and at the same time, analyze the effectiveness of your chosen social media marketing strategy.
An example is Sprout Social; it allows hierarchical coordination of posts on your social media page by the manager or Lower level personnel.
Other tools providing this feature include Hootsuite, Meetedger, Buffer, IFTT, SOCIAL OOMPH, and a couple of others. Take some time to learn about them separately so you may make an educated decision.
Try Cross-sharing your social media content
This is another major way of pulling traffic to your social media platform. Cross sharing benefits both you and your referee, especially if your businesses are noticeably related.
Call to action
Here’s a social media marketing strategy designed primarily to seek honest opinions but also to engage potential customers.
If used properly, a ‘call to action’ could easily convert your potential customers to loyal customers. Examples are; instructing users to comment, hit the like, dislike or subscribe button.
You could also ask plainly if your article had been helpful to the user if not, offer to further assist.
Use Social Media Influencers
The strategy here is to orient marketing activities towards people with influence over your potential customers, instead of targeting your potential customers directly.
Now you are imagining how cool it would be if Dwayne Johnson or Selena Gomez could talk about your business on their Instagram pages, that’s OK, but it’s easier to find a local influencer in your niche.
Follow them and gently reach out to them, keep an organized list of such reach-out efforts. Does this by using your network, talk to people you know that could connect you with people you don’t know.
Invest in Paid Social Media Advertisement
This is a good start, get over the skepticism; pages always experience higher traffic after paying for an ad.
It is important to know the difference though, and their relative effects.
Instagram ads and Pinterest ads may bear the same graphic design since they have pictures and short videos in common.
Facebook ads, just like Twitter ads, may be simple or sophisticated (choice dependent) through texts to pictures, as it allows you to run campaigns with the aid of simple self-service tools.
LinkedIn ads should follow the professional LinkedIn template and not the trivial social media template.
YouTube ads are paid for only when watched by an audience, it is age, gender, topic, and location-specific so you are prompted to link your Adwords account with your Google account.
So we’ve gone across the important steps to be taken for a successful social media marketing campaign.
We’ve been able to see why social media marketing is an effective digital marketing technique, which of the platforms would be best fit your business how you would acquire worthwhile traffic for it.
We also saw that content quality is important and the use of social media tools alongside cross shearing, paying for adverts and influencer marketing are all needed. This would be a good start for your social media campaigns, and please do make further research to increase your opportunities.
