What is Social Media Marketing?

I think everyone knows how big social media is and how Social Media Marketing would help you to boost up your business. Social media is one of the fastest-growing trends. It has grown faster than even the internet. Within the initial ten years of being freely available, the Internet has managed to collect around 1 billion users. If you think that reaching around 1 in six people on the earth within 10 years is quite fast, yes, I agree. But what about reaching 1 in five and that too within 9 years? Since opened for everyone to sign up in 2006, Facebook currently has over 1.6 billion users.

The population of the world has grown to more than 7.8 billion, by now, and about 1 in 4 humans has a Facebook account. Facebook is the start to take over the world. About 68% of people living in North America are used to this social media platform, and the percentages for related countries are equally stunning.  In some ways, we can say that Facebook is a country on its own. It is bigger than any other country in the world but is more connected too.

And this is just about Facebook. We have not considered other social media platforms. If we analyze those numbers also, we will probably lose the count. But do not think that people are using these social media platforms once every month. They are using these platforms every day. And not once, but multiple times. They check, check, and check again.

All of us are so addicted to our mobile phones and social media apps that we are obsessed with them. With such widespread use, social media can be a great marketing opportunity. If you have not started using social media marketing till now, then you are losing something major. Before we get into social media marketing in detail, let us first understand what social media marketing is.

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What Is Social Media Marketing?

Social Media Marketing, also known as SMM, is a type of internet marketing that involves curating and sharing content on social media networks to attain your branding and marketing objectives. Social media marketing includes different activities like posting texts, images, videos, and other types of content that drive engagement.

SMM initially started with publishing. Businesses shared their content on social media to generate enough traffic to their site and, ultimately, sales. But social media has grown far beyond a place to just publish content.

Currently, businesses use social media platforms for different purposes. For instance, a business that is concerned about what people are saying about it would track social media conversations and responses. Similarly, a business that wants to know how it is performing on social media would check its engagement, reach, and sales on social media using an analytics tool. A business that wants to reach a certain set of target audiences at scale would run social media ads. These are known as social media management.

Popular Social Media Marketing Trends

The world of Social Media changes much faster than any other online media. And keeping up with the change is not an easy task. So, here are a few social media marketing trends that you must keep in mind. Most probably, these popular trends will not only impact this year but also the several years yet to come.

1. Organic reach is dropping– There was a time when a social media user could post engaging content and easily grow the number of social media followers.

After several months, they received lots of friend requests, shares, likes, and comments, just because of their engaging content. But today, this is not the case. Most of the social media platforms are making it difficult to create an organic following.

And, yes, it is not accidental. Here is why. As the capability for organic superstars to shine drops, something else rises. Yes, the correct answer is ad spend. That is just Facebook. But the reality is that it is all the same for every social media channel. They make it more and more complicated for the users to grow their organic platform so that businesses spend more money on ads.

Always remember, social media channels are mere businesses. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and all other single social media space have one motto, i.e., to earn money. And they do this by connecting you with paying clients. Usually, they do that thing well. But finally, they are into it for money. So, you must watch out and calculate your efforts to see what are the things that work and what does not.

2. Social media is becoming “Pay to Perform”- As organic reach becomes more complicated, businesses must pay an amount to play. They cannot trust content marketing efforts to build up a following. The more social media algorithms prioritize ads, the more the businesses are interested in paying huge amounts of money to reach those customers. The user is the product. But to reach those users, you must pay.

Luckily, if you select the right social media channel for your business to invest money in, that will not be a big issue. Most of the social media sites have affordable advertising budgets, specifically, if you have thought through your ads well. After all, the better and more your ads, the less will be your spending.

3. Channels are merging– As business owners create social media sites, the possibilities become endless. And that trend is not slowing. As new means of communicating, reaching clients, and attracting leads develop, so do the likewise innovative strategies.

Take, for example, cart abandonment emails.

Earlier, the only place to receive and send car abandonment messages was an email. Now, Facebook Messenger and various other messaging platforms are also feasible.

So, what is the point in doing all this?

Channels are undergoing changes and the way marketers use them is also changing. As more and more social media websites find their support, expect the integration of various marketing channels to happen more than it now has.

4. Tools Are Uniting– It is not just the channels that are uniting. The social media tools are also merging. For example, how many times in a week, do you log in to a SaaS product with Facebook or Google instead of making new login credentials? As the internet is flooded with more and more tools, all this makes the users confused.

Fortunately, there are plenty of marketing tools online that are working to incorporate seamlessly with the titans of advertising.

Let us take the example of MailChimp.

With MailChimp, a popular email marketing software, users can design Facebook Ads using their Mail Chimp accounts. They can do this to target their subscribers or to create a lookalike audience from their present subscribers.

The more this happens between the SaaS companies and social media platforms, the easier it will be for you to market your target audience. Truly, the merging of online tools is a great thing for a business. And the best part is it is not going to slow down.

Steps to do Social Media Marketing for your Business.

1^st Step– Create a quality following- An efficient social media marketing strategy starts with whom you are attracting. If you have a low-quality following, one of these two things happens.

First, you get a poor engagement. You get just 1 to 2 shares or likes on any post. You get a few comments, which are important signs of a disengaged customer.

Second, you notice engagement. People seem to like your posts, but it will not help in increasing the revenue.

Either way, you will have an engagement issue. If either of these is the condition of your social media profiles, then it will be difficult to show that you are getting any benefit from your social media campaigns. The reality is that social media is only a hobby that you are performing on your budget and time. However, it is not mandatory to do this way if you know to do social media marketing the correct way.

2^nd Step– Fix a social media budget- Do you want to learn social media marketing that will give you positive results? Understand how much you need to spend on your marketing efforts and where should you spend them. You may consider social media as “free” advertising, but it is something more than that. There are expenses associated with it. Understanding those expenses will decide your success story.

Overspending is unavoidable. On top of overspending, social media marketers that do not have a fixed budget often fail to understand that something is not working. They keep on spending. And worst of everything, without a fixed budget, businesses find themselves struggling. Their social media profile starts giving a so-so performance, which gives them some hope. But it does not improve.

Social media marketing is planned. It is not about sharing tweets or posts randomly and hoping to get results. It is targeted and efficient. Fix a social media budget for your marketing campaign if you want to understand where the money is spent and why.

3^rd Step– Have clear objectives- Why you want to do social media marketing? “To increase my profits”, you might answer. But, just like any other thing in business, you must have a clear path to reach there. To increase your profits, you must follow some important steps. Here are a few basic ones:

• Increase the reach among your target customer- Get your brand in front of more people who are likely clients. If nobody sees your profile, business online, or website, you must handle this goal before moving on.
• Create brand awareness- How do you want to portray your brand online? How can you make people remember you even after a long time? Do you want to be known as a popular influencer in the industry?
• Improve engagement- Social media works only if you engage your audiences. This provides others “social proof”. Social proof is just like a magnet that attracts more and more potential clients.
• Generating leads- If you sell a product or service which is not affordable, you might need to generate leads that can be nurtured in a personalized manner through email marketing or salesperson.
• Signups or quick sales- If you sell a product or service that requires less planning, then you must go for the “QUICK SALE.” But you will get fruitful results only after completing one or two.
• Rising Customer Value- Social media is one of the best places to re-engage present customers to support them to spend more.

Go step-by-step. Each step will get you results. You will continuously feed the pipeline by applying social media strategies to meet each of these goals.

4^th Step– Take benefits from Paid Social Media- While you may consider social media as a free medium to reach your customers, few companies achieve success without spending money on social media advertising. Like social media marketing, social media advertising helps you to meet your important social media objectives.

Use paid to advertise to:

• Increase your following.
• Improve engagement.
• Generate new leads.
• Make sales.
• Re-engage present customers.

5^th Step– Understand that Engagement is a two-way business- Several businesses that are trying to find out how to do social media marketing find themselves “talking at” folks. “Check our blog”. Find our new products.” And many like these.

Although some of this is fine, it is significant to realize that social media is the first place where people come together to socialize. If they feel that your brand is communicating with them, they will leave you and never come back.

Instead, you should learn how to social media marketing the right way. Start a conversation with your target audience. Remember that the ability to have communication is what makes social media platforms popular among users across the globe. So, as a social media marketer, you should not wait for your followers to communicate with your brand initially. You should take an initiative from your side by creating a community for your customers. You can do this by using call-to-action at the end of your posts. Also, make sure you reply to all the messages and comments you get.

6^th Step– Curate content that your followers will love- What type of content does your audience love? How do they engage with you? How does the content help you active your business goals?

Making a content calendar that people love and that matches well with your brand is not that simple. It starts by ensuring that you know your customers well. Find out with whom do they engage the most? What is the mode of engagement? Where do they engage? With what type of content are they engaging?

7^th Step– Boost your social media posts to increase returns- If you have a social media post that draws a lot of engagement among your followers, then you are fortunate. If you have a good quality following, these followers represent your target customer. By boosting the specific post that your audience liked you can make the most of it.

For example, If a post got 1,000 impressions and 20 engagements, just imagine the numbers you will get after boosting that same post!

There are many other things involved in social media marketing. Learning how to do social media marketing efficiently takes money and time as you figure out things. But there are clear strategies that can be applied to get faster results with less money and time.

Are you getting positive results with social media? Can you notice an increase in revenue and customer retention in your business? If not, then, it is time to switch to social media marketing!

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