Social media marketing is about creating tailored content for your customer segment on social media platforms. Social media marketing aims to drive engagement and create long-term brand awareness.
It follows the AIDA (Awareness, Interest, Desire, Action) model. A lot of your potential customers are on social media platforms, and you can engage with them without spending a lot of money on traditional marketing.
Social media marketing helps brands strengthen customer relationships and help others identify with your brand. If you count the social media platforms owned by Meta, like Instagram, Facebook, and Whatsapp, you will find that they have a user base of 3.51 billion people.
There are a lot of customer segments you can target on social media, and the best thing is that people spend a lot of time on social media. All you have to do is find a relatable way to engage with them.
If your brand can create a sense of community around a social media platform, you will greatly increase the number of customers. Word of mouth is a very strong form of marketing.
People are more likely to believe what they hear from a friend about a product than what some advertisement on television says.
With social media platforms, everyone has the opportunity to communicate what they feel about products. This works for the organisation's benefit if they serve the customers well.
However, it can be a double-edged sword if your brand fails to deliver as many times people complain on social media about their terrible experiences. More and more people are now making purchasing decisions through social media.
Your brand can even add and sell products through your social media page. However, it is always smart to maintain a balance in the type of content you post. If every post is about a product, your customers may find your tactic too aggressive.
Make most posts about community, your brand, what value you deliver, and your customers, and then add posts about your product at the right time.
How does social media marketing work?
There are multiple social media platforms like Facebook, TikTok, Twitter, Instagram, WeChat, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Pinterest, and more. What you should understand as a marketer is that you cannot make one strategy and then apply them to all these platforms.
The type of content you post on each platform should be different, and how you engage with people should be different too.
If you sell sports shoes, you can create a post about the benefits of going on a morning job for Facebook, but on LinkedIn, you should try creating posts about your company’s work culture.
Take your time to figure out the type of content that gets the most engagement on each platform, and then create the posts that will increase your engagement rate.
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There are multiple aspects of social media marketing to be explored. For example, you can choose to pay an influencer to promote your products or run a paid ad yourself. You can also do influencer marketing and then pay the influencer to boost their post.
Influencers already have a large following and can convince their followers to love your brand. If you are considering partnering with an influencer, you must ensure that the influencer is right for you.
Successful Examples of Influencer Marketing
1. A resort in British Columbia, Sun Peaks wanted to raise awareness about their top winter destinations and the region’s awe-inspiring beauty. They designed a campaign targeting adventure seekers who wanted to get away for a vacation.
To lure new customers, they had to show them just how beautiful the destination is, and for that, they partnered with Canada’s best adventure photographer, Callum Snape.
2. Marriott has always used influencer marketing in the past. However, this time they wanted to celebrate a special milestone. Around one million customers checked in to Marriott hotels with the help of the Marriott app.
Youtuber Jeana Smith captures the video of a surprise dance party for the mobile user that completed this milestone. The video got viral and currently has four million views.
It goes to show that the Marriott chain cares about its customers and the type of service they provide. The surprised customer will never forget this experience; since this experience went viral, many others will prefer to stay at a Marriott hotel.
In both these examples, it is clear that the brands cleverly picked out influencers who have a following with their target customers. People who followed Callum Snape loved adventure, and they would take his suggestion for a lovely ski resort.
Followers of Jeana also watch her content on travelling, moving, hotels, Airbnbs, and so on. That’s why when they view her collaborating with Marriot; they feel that their company has value. If you can strategically partner with the right influencers, you can see great returns from this investment.
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Brand Persona
Your brand should have a persona, and you should align your social media marketing campaigns with that persona. Having a persona is not limited to social media marketing; if your brand has a persona, people feel easily connected with the brand’s page. Even before social media, most brands promoted themselves with consistent marketing messages.
This created a persona around the brand and the customers who buy their products. On social media, if your brand has a personality, then your followers can see you as more than just a company and can see you as another person.
People are looking for authenticity; they do not want products shoved down their throats, but if you can create witty posts that promote your brand in the long term, that can do wonders for you.
Nike always posts about athletes playing a game or people working out. They rarely directly promote any of their products, but just through these posts, they have gained a huge following on Instagram. The brand persona of Nike is that they celebrate athleticism and individuals who just do it.
Your content should align with your brand’s values and vision. Bring out the human side of your brand. If your brand has a light-hearted tone with a human side, it will easily gain attention.
With social media marketing, you have the chance to convert users to followers and followers to customers. Because social media users are so high in number, the potential for your business to grow because of social media marketing is huge.
Many businesses gain customers through a social media presence, but most miss out on serving customers through the same platform. If a customer has complained about an issue, reach out to them quickly and fix it. If you can solve their problem, you will retain the customer, and others will see that your brand cares.
What is Social Listening?
A social media marketing campaign should include social listening to help track the campaign's effectiveness. Social Listening is the process of monitoring social media channels for mentions of the brand, its products, its rivals, and its posts.
Basically, with the help of social listening, you will be able to understand how people feel about your brand. With the help of these insights, you will be able to make any necessary changes in your long-term marketing strategy. While social listening helps brands take long-term action, it also helps them solve customers’ problems instantly.
Not every platform is for your brand!
When it comes to social media marketing, you should go for quality over quantity. Just because a platform like Facebook has billions of online users does not mean your brand needs to have a page there.
You must list the goals of your social media marketing plans and then analyze which platform will be the best for reaching those goals.
Only one or two social media platforms can help you gain new customers. User intent for each social media platform is different, so you must decide which social media platform you will be active on and what kind of content you will be posting.
A B2B business can benefit much more by creating a presence on LinkedIn and Facebook than by creating a page on Instagram.
If you are still confused, you can test out different platforms, and eventually, it will be clear which platform provides more engagement. Then you can focus completely on the specific social media channels that create more engagement.
Conclusion
Marketing is no longer as expensive as it used to be. With the help of the right strategy and creative posts, your brand can start creating a following today. It does not take long for a group of followers to become customers.
Even running paid ads on social media is extremely affordable. The best thing about social media marketing is that any business can do it. Even running paid ads is incredibly affordable on online platforms.
Not only are brands promoting themselves through social media, but many businesses exist only on social media. Many brands sell products directly on social media channels like Instagram and Facebook. The potential that social media provides you with is huge, and the best part is that it is accessible to everyone.
