“A dainty butterfly flapping its wings can cause a typhoon on the other side of the world.” The butterfly effect suggests that the world is deeply interconnected and small things or actions can act as a catalyst, making a huge difference in the end. Social media is that manmade interconnection across the globe or perhaps the butterfly itself. It opened a mystical portal, presenting an opportunity for brands and businesses to represent and connect to their consumers. This blog will help you understand everything you need to know about social media marketing, its potential, and its strategies.
Definition
David Alston said “Social media is not a media. The key is to listen, engage, and build relationships.” People who built this relationship successfully are the ones sitting at the top of the board. Social media marketing can help you build the company’s brand by enhancing your social media network and representing yourself in front of 4.48 billion global social media users.
Guidelines
There are a few things you need to know before diving deep into this abyss.
- Content:
Everything you read on a webpage or any social media is called content. Whether it is a status update, a youtube video, or a tweet, content needs to be precise and as intact as possible.
- Context:
How you use your content is equally important. If you are not careful enough with the context of your content, the audience will lose interest and leave your site or page. This can also increase the bounce rate and leave a bad impression on the brand or organization.
- Engagement:
Interacting with social media is like performing for a live audience. You get feedback then and there, in the form of likes, comments, direct messages, and shares. All these things come under engagement.
Now that you are done with the basics, we can move ahead and dig deeper.
Basic Building Blocks:
Did you know how brands like Boohoo, The Royal Academy, Depop, and Gymshark excelled at social media? Because of their understanding of these core pillars. It is a necessity of this age to put your business out there on social media and to create an unyielding social media strategy. You also need to have a separate budget for your brand. To craft a profitable business and build your brand, you first need to understand a few core pillars of social media marketing. These bullet points will give you an insight into your customer’s wants, needs, and expectations.
- Strategy
Without a strategy, your marketing would likely be a spineless slime dripping all over. It would be nearly impossible to reach and target your consumers, at the price of wasting time and resources. A good strategy will entitle you few benefits single-handedly which include unique brand voice, perception of your target audience and clarity in your goals and target.
- Planning and Implementation
Publishing content without a plan can be irrational, affecting your brand and business. With proper planning and implementation, it can prove to be a powerful tool for your social media marketing.
Key points to remember before mapping your content:
- Purpose: Always keep in mind the motive that you are creating to connect with your audience. Whereas understanding them is also a crucial task before serving them your content.
- Line of Focus: Many times people get so carried away in their goals and plans that they lose track of the main line of focus, which should be their ‘brand’. Highlight your brand and its values in your content to attract your audience.
- Keep it Short: Your target audience will not read or watch your content if found prolonging. Therefore, always put quality ahead and content as dense as possible.
- Advertising
Social media advertising is a path worth exploring for brands and businesses to expand their reach as it is the most cost-efficient way. Some paid social media marketing resources such as Facebook ads and Instagram ads are a good place to start.
- Analytics
Collecting and tracking data for analytics is considered to be one of the most important tasks carried out during social media marketing campaigns. Analytics helps you understand the following things:
- Analyzing prospect’s behavior
- Redefining strategy to drain out any leftover flaws
- Tracing the best time and platform that boosts your business
- Improving engagement
- Keeping a side eye on your competitors
Perks of using Social Media Marketing
Growing your brand awareness, increasing your traffic and promoting your products and services are some of the benefits of social media marketing. The biggest benefit is that you can interact with your audience through your post, story, and profile which in return humanizes your business.
- Traffic Accumulation
Social media is the best route to engage more traffic to your website. You can achieve this with the help of the links provided in your profile, blog post, and ads. This helps you gain new customers.
- Generating Prospects
Brands can engage directly with people interested and convert them into potential customers. You can gather all the information of your targeted audience, which later helps to score a lead.
- Enlarging Brand Awareness
It helps you gain good results in your marketing campaigns. This is achieved with the help of visual identification, provided by all these social media networks. Here are a few tips to increase your brand awareness.
- Start right with the right platform.
- Content delivery should be engaging.
- Maintaining this relationship with customers.
- Leverage trends and breaking news.
- Always measure your progress.
Advantages
- It is inexpensive and very flexible.
- It allows you to reach new audiences along with their requirements and helps you improve effectively.
- You can effectively open your business to a wider variety of consumers which in return will increase your “Inbound Traffic”
Final Thoughts
No matter what you call it, a hurricane-causing butterfly or a spider connecting parts of the world with its web, all I know is that social media holds a great amount of power in shaping future generations. From the way we talk to the way we eat or from the way we earn to the way we liberate, everything is and will continue to affect the future creating opportunities for progress. One of them is “Social Media Marketing”. We hope this blog helped you add a drop in the ocean of your wisdom and answered all your questions.
Anubhav Jagadhane
Also Read: 8 Best Email Marketing Tools for scaling up your Business