Social Media Marketing: What Is It & Why Is It Important?
Let’s face it: everyone uses social media now. From children to the elderly, we’re all constantly scrolling through Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok feeds to see what everyone else is doing. So, naturally, using social media as a marketing tool can be extremely effective for businesses. But it’s not as easy as it looks. In this blog post, we’ll outline some social media marketing tips and tricks and explain why social media marketing is important.
Let’s start with the basics: what is social media marketing?
In simple terms, it’s the practice of using social media platforms to connect with your customers and target audience in order to build your brand, increase website traffic, and drive sales.
Understanding Social Media Marketing
To understand marketing on social media, we need to understand the history of social media. Those who grew up in the 90s and later have had social media — in either desktop or smartphone form — nearly their entire lives. However, the reason behind the name “social”, is because these platforms started as ways for people to connect with each other. Businesses didn’t have social media platforms until they realized how beneficial they could be.
Fast forward to today: social media is used for so much more than making friends. Now, it’s also a great way for businesses to connect with customers. With the creation of Facebook Ads in 2007, the world of social media was forever changed. Since then, all other widely used platforms have added opportunities for businesses to use their platforms in their marketing strategies.
Components & Types of Social Media Marketing
Everyone uses social media — but that doesn’t mean that anyone who uses it is qualified to start marketing. A common misconception is that social media marketing is easy — but it’s actually quite complicated! It takes multiple steps, including research and data analysis to even be able to begin the process. Wondering what those steps and components of social media marketing are? We’ll tell you!
Strategy and Planning
As with anything else in business, you need to plan before you take action. Before you can start social media marketing, you need to outline your social media goals and how you plan to achieve them. List the platforms you’d like to use, the results you’d like to see, and what content you’ll share. Research management platforms and decide which is best for your business. Doing this will position you much better for starting social media marketing. Once all of your goals and details are in line, you’re ready to start.
Branding and Publishing
Posting on social media is easy. But publishing brand-relevant, engaging content is difficult. That’s why you need to think about branding. How do you want your customers to view your business? Do you have enough media and content relevant to your business to post? These are things to consider before publishing anything. Then, when you’ve outlined everything, you can start posting with confidence.
Listening and Data Collection
After you’ve been a social media presence for a while, your business following will grow. Once you get enough engagement, you’ll want to find out what your customers think and what you can improve on. Social listening is a way to do this.
Data Analysis
When you’ve run a social media marketing campaign long enough to have some significant data, it’s important to perform data analysis. Without analyzing the data you find, you won’t know what is and isn’t working for your social media marketing campaign. When doing data analysis, look at the campaign through multiple lenses and picture yourself in the customer’s shoes. Why did your customers like or dislike different aspects of your campaign? What about your campaign made it easy or difficult for users to convert? Ask yourself these questions and more when performing data analysis on your social media marketing services.
Advertising
Once you have a solid foundation based on the components above, you should ramp up your social media marketing efforts through social media advertising. Many platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn have advertising features that are cost effective and easy to use.
Why is social media marketing important?
If you’re still not sure why social media marketing is important, pick up your smartphone. Look at your apps: how many of them are social media platforms? If you have one or more social media platforms, that’s your automatic answer for why social media marketing is important. Now that so many of us are on social media, it’s one of the easiest ways for businesses to reach customers and nurture leads.
If you’re still not convinced about the benefits of social media marketing, give us a call! We would be happy to answer any questions you may have or have a conversation about the world of social media and digital marketing. Or, if you’re ready to start marketing on social media, contact us today for a free consultation on social media marketing services from one of our social media experts.