ARE YOU READY
to take your social media to the next level?
Social Media Marketing (SMM), is a form of internet marketing that involves creating and sharing content on social media networks in order to achieve your marketing and branding goals. Social media marketing includes activities like posting text and image updates, videos, and other content that drives audience engagement, as well as paid social media advertising.
SMM is all about meeting your target audience and customers where they are and as they socially interact with each other and your brand.
There are MANY ways to go about doing social media marketing, we will be laying out a simple outline of an overall strategy that is broken down into five core pillars (all clients receive a much more in-depth version of this process, sometimes with slight modifications). These pillars are:
- Strategy – Before we dive right in and publish something on social media, we always take a step back and look at the bigger picture. The first step is to think about the overall social media strategy. When doing so, we will need to answer the following questions
- What are your goals?
- Which social media platforms do you want to focus on?
- Who is your target audience?
- What kind of content do you want to share?
- Planning and Publishing – Publishing to social media is as simple as sharing a blog post, an image, or a video on a social media platform. It’s just like how you would share on your personal Facebook profile. But you will want to plan your content ahead of time instead of creating and publishing content spontaneously. Also, to ensure that you are maximizing your reach on social media, you need to publish great content that your audience likes, at the right timing and frequency.
- Listening and Engagement – As your business and social media following grow, conversations about your brand will naturally increase. People may comment on your posts, tag you in their posts, or even message you directly. People might even talk about your brand on social media without letting you know. So you will want to monitor social media conversations about your brand. If for example, it’s a positive comment, you get a chance to surprise and delight them. Otherwise, you can offer support and correct a situation before it gets worse.
- Analytics – Along the way, whether you are publishing content or engaging with others content, you will want to know how your social media marketing is performing. Some of the questions you may want answers to are: Are you reaching more people on social media than last month? How many positive mentions do you get a month? How many people used your brand’s hashtag on their social media posts?
- Advertising – When you have more funds to grow your social media marketing, an area that you can consider is social media advertising. These ads allow you to reach a wider audience than those who are following you. Social media advertising platforms are so powerful nowadays that you can specify exactly who to display your ads to. You can create target audiences based on their demographics, interests, behaviors, and more.
Why are so many businesses turning to social media to help grow there business?
- Your customers are on social media – according to Statista, 70% of the US population has at least one social media profile
- Marketing through social media can help increase brand recognition
- Marketing through social media increases inbound website traffic
- Different social media channels help reach specific audiences. Here is an overview of the top platforms to help make an informed decision about the platforms your business should be using:
- Users: 2.2 billion
- Audience: Generation X and millenials
- Industry impact: B2C
- Best for: Brand awareness and advertising
- Users: 1 billion
- Audience: Primarily millennials
- Industry impact: B2C
- Best for: Natural-looking media, behind-the-scenes, user-generated content and advertising
- Users: 645 million
- Audience: Baby boomers, generation X and millennials
- Industry impact: B2B
- Best for: B2B relationships, business development and employment marketing
- Users: 335 million
- Audience: Primarily millennials
- Industry impact: B2B and B2C
- Best for: Public relations and customer service
- Users: 250 million
- Audience: Primarily older millennials and younger baby boomers
- Industry impact: B2C
- Best for: Visual advertising and inspiration
Snapchat
- Users: 300 million
- Audience: Primarily generation Z
- Industry impact: B2C
- Best for: Brand awareness and advertising
YouTube
- Users: 1.9 billion
- Audience: Millennials, followed closely by generation Z
- Industry impact: B2C
- Best for: Brand awareness, entertainment and how-to videos