Today, around 4.70 billion people use social media in the world. Some of the top social media platforms are Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn. Due to such a massive demand, businesses are running various social media marketing strategies to attract audiences. Social media marketing (SMM) refers to the application of marketing strategies across social media platforms to increase brand presence and conversions. According to HubSpot, 77% of social media marketers claim that social media marketing has been extremely effective for their business this year.
If you are planning the same, but don’t know how to do social media marketing, worry not. This quick guide will teach you various social media management tips and tricks. Read on to discover more about social media marketing!
Why do you need Social Media Marketing? 5 Benefits of SMM!
Social media is a powerful tool today. So how does it help your business grow? Here are 5 benefits that signify the importance of social media marketing for your business—
Increase your brand awareness
Social Media Marketing plays a vital role in increasing your brand awareness. The more visibility you get on digital platforms, the more you can spread about your brand.
Increase your conversion rate
It helps to increase your conversion rate. Just by dropping a comment or sharing a post, the audience might visit your website. And this, in turn, might lead to conversion. Further sharing or referring to a brand through social media is much easier and more common, which again brings in more conversion.
Customer engagement
You can engage with your customers easily. Reaching out to your customers, or vice versa, is easier on social media. So, you can interact with your customers, present your latest offers, they can address their complaints or concerns and much more.
Saves a lot of money!
Social media is one of the most cost-effective marketing strategies to reach out to a wider audience. You don’t have to shell out much money to spread your brand awareness globally. Just one click, and you are done!
Learn market trends
You learn more about market trends, what your target audience wants, and how to fulfil their needs. Furthermore, since everyone is there on social media, you can discover what your competitors are doing, what is currently in demand, and much more. Social media marketing is an excellent source of gaining rich market insights.
5 Tips to Build a Winning Social Media Strategy—
You are mistaken if you think social media marketing is about posting random stuff on your channel. You need a solid social media strategy to leverage the best out of the platform. For this, you need to focus on three essential components:
- Business goal
- Target audience
- Market trends
Wondering how to use social media marketing to grow your business? Here are 5 tips you can try to develop a winning social media strategy—
Create an effective content calendar
A social media calendar is a plan or an overview of your upcoming social media posts that is organized by date, content type, etc. You can begin by conducting a social media audit to learn about your current performance. This will assist in comprehending how you are functioning, what is lacking, and what upcoming opportunities can you cash on. After this, create a compelling social media calendar with posts pertaining to your brand. Have the right balance of different posts, such as reels, normal posts, polls, etc.
Tip: Try the 80-20 rule. 80% of your content must entertain or educate your audience, whereas the remaining 20% of your content must be business-centric and promote the brand.
Choose the right social media platform
There are numerous social media networks, and deciding what content must go where is crucial. This is because every social media serves a different kind of audience with different mindsets. So, choose the social media accordingly. For example: If your business is into selling courses, go for LinkedIn. And if you are an Interior Designer, Pinterest is your best social site.
Use Chatbots
A chatbot is a form of bot that employs artificial intelligence to respond to questions and undertake primary responsibilities of the specific application. For example, a chatbot would give your consumers a smart assistant who can converse with them, much like a customer care representative. Additionally, it teaches more about your customers and what things they are most interested in. Chatbots on social media also offer 24/7 customer support, substantial time and money savings, improved client satisfaction, and ultimately increased revenue.
Have a SMART Goal
Several firms using social media for marketing purposes have never taken the time and effort to develop relevant and practical social media marketing goals. They have their presence on social media, but if you ask them why they don’t know the answer. This is because they lack a clever objective. To solve this, SMART Goal is the solution. SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-Bound. This will help you quantify your performance and measure your success. Furthermore, add vision and value to your objectives. For example, with the SMART goal, you can aim to reach 100k subscribers on YouTube in the next three months.
Build a community and churn out engagement
Don’t let your brand sound robotic on social media. Instead, appear more friendly, funny, relevant and inspiring. Bring a mix of content that is not only one-sided (don’t just post, post and post) but is engaging and lets your audience give some input. How can you do this?
- Try conducting some polls.
- Narrate a relevant story or scenario and ask your audience to tag their friends.
- Speak about a current issue or trend and ask them to share their opinion in the comments.
10 must-have social media marketing tools!
- Buffer- Schedule your social media posts
- Hootsuite: A comprehensive social media management tool
- Social Status: Automate your social media reporting
- SocialAlert: Track your keywords and hashtags
- Sendible: Manage social media campaigns
- Buzzsumo: Market research
- Zoho Social: Analytics and create custom dashboards
- Metricool: Support Ads on social media
- Postpickr: Multiple social media accounts can be operated together from a single tab
- HubSpot: Metrics for social media performance
5 common social media marketing mistakes to avoid—
Ignoring metrics and data
Always focus on the insights and make an effort to comprehend what the data is telling. Most social media provide an ‘Insights’ section. Don’t overlook the stats because they affect how well you do. Furthermore, utilize software that enables marketers to monitor their social media performance. Finally, research the available information extensively before developing a strategy for your campaign.
Going off-topic, not following brand tone/ voice
Many businesses simply keep generating meaningless content to maintain a social media presence. Performance suffers when there is a lack of a content plan, no brand voice, and no consideration for the tone. This will not connect your audience with your brand. You won’t appear relatable. Don’t do that. Instead, develop a content strategy, adhere to the subject, and provide relevant content. Make yourself stand out!
Not posting at the right time
There is a specific time for everything, and so is for your social media posts. Often people post on social media as per their convenience or their mood. But that won’t bring you views or engagement. Instead, check the analytics and post your stuff when your audience’s activity is at its peak. This will help you gain more views and actions.
Ignoring negative reviews
No matter what you do, there will be folks with unfavourable things to say. Unfortunately, many businesses opt to neglect it, but you shouldn’t. What you can do is- take the criticism constructively and then answer thoughtfully. For example, suppose someone comments negatively on one of your posts. In that case, you can thank them for bringing up the specific issue they are experiencing and respond to it politely and professionally.
Too much automation
Automations are a terrific way to reduce costs and save time. However, going overboard can harm your performance. Social media is a platform for online networking. And to do this, you must use a human approach to engage your audience. Over-automation could detract from your brand’s human element and give your social media accounts a robotic appearance.
How to learn about social media marketing?
Here are 5 courses for you to master social media marketing—
- Advanced Certificate in Digital Marketing and Communication by Upgrad
- Social Media Marketing Course by HubSpot Academy
- Social Media Marketing Specialization by Coursera
- Social Media Marketing MASTERY by Udemy
- Digital Marketing Specialist by Simplilearn
Social media marketing is one of the most effective marketing strategies available today. Even though the social media environment is constantly evolving, utilising the key essential tactics will continue to produce results. Therefore, don’t hesitate to change your strategy, don’t be afraid if something goes wrong, and don’t let failure demotivate you. Everything here is tried and tested. So, what do you need to do? Just strengthen your foundation and keep infusing your creativity!
