As Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder famously said: “If you make customers unhappy in the physical world, they might each tell six friends. If you make customers unhappy on the Internet, they can each tell 6,000 friends.”
That is the case because of social media.
In this technology-oriented world, social media has the power to push your brand name towards popularity and success in a short span.
From teens, tweens, business owners, and the biggest Hollywood stars to the not-as-technologically-advanced Baby Boomers, many people have already adapted or tried to adapt to the new normal. The times are changing at a lightning-fast pace – and nowadays, social media marketing requires a lot more than merely posting pictures a few times a day.
What is social media marketing?
Social media marketing utilizes various social media channels like YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok to educate, engage, and entertain potential customers to build your brand identity and drive traffic to your business website’s landing page for more sales.
When brands successfully attract and engage potential customers virtually, it opens the possibility of increased traffic to the website and the brick-and-mortar store.
Why is social media marketing essential?
3.96 billion people worldwide will use social media this year, which will be an increase of 1.1 billion in just five years and will increase 4.5 billion in just the next three years, according to Statista.
There are many possibilities as to how your business could benefit from social media marketing. These are some of them:
- Inform/educate about your brand and/or product
- Increase website traffic
- Increase foot traffic to the brick-and-mortar store
- Retarget customers with the help of advertisements
- Influence people to trust and invest in your product or service
- Build brand authority
By establishing a social media presence, you can:
- Know what people are saying about your brand
- Understand customer behavior towards your brand
- Maintain strong relationships to increase the likelihood of repeat customers
- Monitor the reputation of your brand
- Become a part of the customers’ conversation
- Address grievances in real time
If you like to possibly outsmart your competitors and potentially compete with the biggest names in your industry, pay heed to the following social media trends.
Investing in advertisements
The probability of your brand showing up in the feed of relevant audiences increases with ads.
The prospects are incredible!
What’s even better: running ads isn’t an expensive affair. Thus, every penny you invest in social media ads may be worth it.
The merging of multiple tools
With so many software as a service companies inventing tools for managing social media channels, creating and running ads is easier. Now, you can find various marketing tools integrated seamlessly in one app.
Social commerce being the future
You can set up a complete story on your social media channel. Thus, the moment customers land on your page, they can get the shopping experience.
The convenience you can provide to your customer by setting up an online store is simply amazing. But is understanding social media marketing enough to kick start your journey? Unfortunately not.
You need to incorporate intelligent strategies in social media marketing to give your business hopes for a roaring success.
Smart social media marketing strategies to optimize chances of business success
1. Know your target audience
Find out the psychographics and demographics of your potential customers. As a business owner, you need to understand your market and what people are searching for on the internet.
For example: knowing that a marketing strategy for selling a product designed for senior citizens will be different from a marketing strategy for promoting products intended for youth.
Before planning that strategy, ask yourself the following questions:
- Who is your target audience?
- What is the gender of your target audience (if your product is gender-specific)?
- What is your target audience most likely to search for?
- Which social media platform do they use the most?
Understand the buyer persona and then design your social media marketing strategy accordingly.
2. Choose the top trending social media channels
Determine where on social media your target audience spends the most time. Here is a list of some of the top social media channels:
- Snapchat (500 million monthly active users, according to CNBC)
- Facebook (2.89 billion monthly active users, according to Statista)
- Instagram (2 billion-plus monthly active users, according to CNBC)
- TikTok (1 billion monthly active users, according to MarketWatch)
- Pinterest (444 million active users, according to The Motley Fool)
- YouTube (2 billion-plus monthly active users, according to Hootsuite)
Since the list keeps growing, check the top trending social media channels with the most active users.
3. Keep an eye on your competitors
Investigate what your competitors’ social media marketing strategy may be, and see how much you can find out about how they stay on top of their game. Then, follow in their footsteps while adding new elements that you believe can improve on the strategy.
4. Schedule your posts
Since social media posts are time-sensitive, don’t create social media posts just for the sake of it. Instead, plan a weekly or monthly schedule with the help of tools like Hootsuite and Buffer. Also, you should plan and post only during the hours your audience is highly active.
Social media channels have separate sections that display metrics, including click-through rates, engagement rates, reach, and impressions.
5. Use the 80-20 rule
The key with social media marketing is to produce relevant content. If you don’t know what to post, the 80-20 rule can help. Ensure that 80% of the content your business posts on a social media channel is entertaining, informative, and educating. The remaining 20% of the content can be promotional, which will help you convert prospects.
The world of social media can be overwhelming. It can also convert a mere name into a brand. Don’t know how that can be done? We do! Allow us to help you. We can custom-design an innovative social media marketing strategy for your business. Get in touch with our team today!
