Social media marketing is a type of digital marketing that makes use of the popularity of popular social media networks to achieve marketing and branding objectives. But it’s not just about setting up business accounts and posting whenever you want. Social media marketing necessitates an evolving strategy with measurable objectives, which include:

• Keeping and optimizing your profiles
• Posting images, videos, stories, and live videos that represent your brand and appeal to a specific audience.
• Monitoring your reputation and responding to comments, shares, and likes.
• Following and engaging with followers, customers, and influencers to create a brand community.
• Paid social media advertising, in which you can pay to have your business appear in front of large numbers of highly targeted users, is also part of social media marketing.

The Advantages of Social Media Marketing

With its widespread use and versatility, social media is one of the most effective free marketing channels available today. Here are some specific advantages of social media marketing:

• Humanize your company: Using social media, you can transform your company into an active participant in your market. Your profile, posts, and interactions with users all contribute to an approachable persona that your audience can become acquainted with, connect with, and trust.
• Drive traffic: With your profile link, blog post links in your posts, and ads, social media is a great way to drive traffic to your website and convert visitors into customers.
• Create leads and customers: You can also generate leads and conversions directly on these platforms by utilising features such as Instagram/Facebook shops, direct messaging, call to action buttons on profiles, and appointment booking capabilities.
• Increase brand awareness: Because social media platforms are visual in nature, you can build your visual identity across large audiences and improve brand awareness. Better brand awareness translates to better results in all of your other campaigns.
• Build relationships: These platforms allow you to network, gather feedback, hold discussions, and connect directly with your followers via both direct and indirect lines of communication.

The larger and more engaged your social media audience is, the easier it will be to achieve your marketing objectives.

Statistics on social media marketing

Don’t just take our word for it when it comes to the benefits listed above. Let’s look at some social media marketing statistics that demonstrate its effectiveness:

• Every day, the average American adult spends 2.25 hours on social media.
• Over 70% of people who have a positive social media experience with a business will recommend that business to their networks.
• Every month, Facebook users click on an average of 12 Facebook ads.
• Instagram is used by 81% of people to research products and services.
• When they receive a response to their tweet, nearly 80% of Twitter users feel more positive about a company.
• Four out of every five LinkedIn users make business decisions.

The components of an effective social media marketing strategy

A successful social media marketing strategy will look different for each business, but the following elements will be shared by all:

• Know your audience: what platforms they use, when and why they use them, what content they like, who else they follow, and so on.
• Brand identity: What message do you want to send to your target audience? What emotions do you want them to have after viewing your content?
• Strategy for content: While there is some spontaneity on social media, having a consistent voice and producing quality content on a regular basis will require a structured content strategy.
• Analytics: Quantifiable insights will inform your strategy, such as who you’re reaching, what content to share, when to post, and so on.
• Regular exercise: Social media is a platform that operates in real-time. If you want to use it to grow your business, you must post on a regular basis, stay on top of engagements with your business, engage back, keep up with trends, and keep your profiles up to date.
• Inbound strategy: Do not pitch your company on social media. Concentrate on adding value through useful and interesting content and on strengthening those around you. This, in turn, will organically promote your business and others will promote it for you.