Scrolling through the social media accounts and getting updates about your favourite bloggers, and brands. Have you ever wondered, what are they trying to do on social media? Except for entertaining, informing, or educating.
They all are marketing themselves, their products, and services.
The activities they perform on social media platforms (Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat) are all part and parcel of social media marketing.
Why are they using it so much and how does it benefit them?
Well, they are doing it for the sole purpose of attracting clients, generating ROI by increasing sales.
The social media platforms allow them to attract, engage, promote, and even sell their products.
But apart from all of the above, why is so important and why should businesses spend a lot of time on social media platforms?
I will give answers to all these questions as we proceed.
First let us understand some basic concepts;
What Is Social Media Marketing?
Social media marketing is the process of creating content for social media platforms. The content creation is done keeping in mind the specific platforms. The content is tailored according to the specific content and is shared to boost conversions and increase brand awareness. The aim is to connect your brand with your target audience. See where they are, identify their social behavior online, and see how they interact with other brands.
While social media marketing is highly valuable and beneficial to the growth of business, your strategy for every social media channel will differ.
Let us see the type of engagement on varied social media channels.
This platform has grown over the years. From being used for entertainment only, this social media platform is now being used extensively for businesses as well. The business owners advertise their products and services through Facebook ads. These are paid but quite helpful in reaching the target audience. If we go by numbers, there are around 1.79 billion daily users across the world. This is so far has been proved to be the best for advertising and brand awareness.
This social media platform has different audience from that of the Facebook. Primarily the audience is millennials. This media engages around 1 billion active users and is best used for advertising, user-generated content, and natural-looking media.
This social media platform has different audience from that of the Facebook. Primarily the audience is millennials. This media engages around 1 billion active users and is best used for advertising, user-generated content, and natural-looking media. Â
This platform is more of a professional platform but is widely used by businesses as well. This social media platform has 675 million monthly active users with baby boomers, millennials, and Generation X as the audience. This is best suitable for business development, B2B relationships, and employment marketing.
Snapchat
Primarily generation Z is the audience who uses this social media platform. 249 million daily active users use this social media application worldwide. This platform is also best for brand awareness and advertising.
All the above platforms have enough users to attract but as I said before, all these social media channels vary in their nature, audience and even the type of content they would house. But each one of the above channels offer unlimited benefits. Let us see what are those.
Benefits of Social Media Marketing
There are variety of reasons for businesses to market themself on the social media. Let’s see:
Increase Brand Awareness
Social media users depend on social media platforms to seek information. In 2018, there were over 3.2 billion people on social media worldwide. – Data Resource Awario
The people using social media are huge in number and will probably increase with time. This is the primary reason why businesses must share content on the social media platforms. When you will share your products and services with the right audience, they will get aware and with the word of mouth spread it even more.
Adopting social media marketing is good for all sorts of businesses. Whether you have just started or have come a long way, promoting your content on the above-mentioned platforms will bring your brand to notice. This should be the first and the foremost aim of the business. Next, through social media marketing, you can also boost the awareness through comments, shares, likes, and re-posts.
Besides, it also increases brand awareness by directing traffic straight to your site. You can do this by directly linking your website in your profile, posts, and bio.
Generate Pipeline of Leads
Social media allows you to promote and share your product. This is one of the best and the simplest ways to improve lead generation, boost conversions, and even increase sales. You can also boost conversion by creating contests for your visitors, followers. Ask them to participate and engage. Many bloggers and businesses promote themselves by announcing giveaways. This is one of the best ways to increase engagement.
You can also include links to your website and offers in the bio sections of your business profiles.
Conducting live sessions is another strategy you can adopt.
Not just this, social media platforms also allow you to sell your products and services. For example, Facebook enables you to start a shop through Facebook Shop Section or Instagram shopping feature. These features allow your visitors and followers to click on the products you have posted. They are able to check the prices, material, and size, depending on the type of product. Once they visit your website or engage with you for price and other details, the process of generating leads begin. Yay!
Build Customer Relationships
By connecting and engaging with your social media followers, you are able to build lasting relationships with the potential customers.
You can also do this by interacting with them on posts, responding to their comments, providing them feedback, and updating them with any information they may need.
You can also ask questions to your followers. Ask them about their issues, what are they looking for, and help them in alleviating their issues. This way you will not only build trust but will also get their valuable input regarding your products and services.
Keep Tab On Competitors
Social media platforms are a great way to track the progress of your competitors. The best part of social media platforms is that these are free and easily accessible. You can jump onto the profile of any of your competitor and see their strategies, media tactics, the products they are promoting, campaigns they are running, and everything else too.
The social media platforms allow you to look at what is working for others and what is not. I am not saying that what is going fine for others will also prove to be fine for you. But at least you get a rough idea about what might work for your business. So, it is a great place to be at when it comes to running your business. Afterall, the last thing you would want to do is to stand out in the fierce competitive market.
To carry out the above activities, you would need strong social media marketing strategy.
Let us see what are those:
- Conduct research on your buyer persona
- Know about your target audience
- Determine the social platforms you will market your services on
- Brainstorm the content ideas according to the platform chosen
- Create unique and engaging content
- Create a schedule to post products and services
- Analyze the results and impact
- Repeat the process if the results are not in favour
Conclusion
It is true that there are billions of users on social media platforms but all those users are not your customers or target audiences. While planning to post on social media, you will have to figure out who your target customers would be. Narrowing the focus will prove to be more beneficial than taking a whole world in.
Handling a social media account is easy only until you are scrolling and using it for fun. But if you are a business and have big goals, you would want more in terms of audience, leads, ROI, and attention too. So, to get all of the above, it is important for businesses to get the services of the top social media marketing company. The Big Unit is the number one agency in Australia. Contact to know their services.
