Feeling overwhelmed about taking your business into social media ? or feeling like you don’t know what to do or how to start ?
We got you covered !
Here is a foolproof comprehensive guide to social media marketing from scratch .
" PEOPLE CHECK, CHECK AND CHECK AGAIN"
There are over 3 billion people active on social media worldwide , with so much consumers using Social media everyday , it presents an incredible marketing opportunity.
Social media refers to websites and applications that are desinged to allow people to share content quickly and effectively .Many people access to social media through their mobile phones.
The ability to share photos, News and opinion ,The ability to engage with your audience and be a friend to your customors has transformed the way we do business these days
I know you have alot of questions right now ,
what is social media marketing ? how does social media help your business? why do people use social media as a platfrom to expand their business? and what social media platforms are used in marketing ?
in this beginner’s guide , we’ll cover the answers to all these questions …
What is social media marketing ?
The process of using marketing strategies on various social media platforms to increase awareness, increase sales and maintain a great relatioship with your customers by publishing great content , engaging with your audience and keeping them excited about your products and business and running advertisments .
- By it’s nature social media is a short attention span media , You have to catch their eye before they scroll past with a flick of the thumb , Therefore your content must be eyecatching and easy to comprehend .
Why use social media in marketing?
Social media can help you with a geat number of goals.such as,
- Increasing awareness of your brand : Social media pages are visted and revisted every hour , therefor spreading alot more information than any other , these pages are proved to be effective by boosting your brand awareness.
- Increasing sales : Being engaged with your audiences automatically leads to increase in sales because you are advertising to people who follow your account.
- Strentheing relationship with customer : Hosting live videos , creating contests and giveaways are some ways to strenthen your relationship with the customer. Responding to the likes , comments , feedbacks , reveiws and providing the with any help they may needs helps you build an everlasting relationship with your customers.
- learning from your competitor: Having a social media platorm for your brand is a great way of keeping tabs of your competitors . it is an easy way to see which ways they are using to build up their business and to know what to do and not to do in your business . This also helps you build a different approach and a unique buiness platform.
- Creating a brand identity :Different social media platforms paves the way for an outstanding brand identity .This allows your business to project your brand image on a variety of social media platforms , leading to a large response and a brand identity .
How is social media marketing done ?
Here’s a step by step process of how to create and be strategic on socal media marketing
- Determine your audience : before you get started , you need to know who your audience is , knowing your audience helps you pick the suitable social media platform to enage with them
for example , if you are selling a product for teens or the millenials , instagram is your place to go .. studies show that atleast 80% of the American teens engage in activities in instagram for more than 19 hours a day .
- Create unique and interesting content : now that you have successfully identified your audience , now is the perfect time to start creating your content . appropriate contens play a vital role in the marketing process .
for example , the above mentioned audience would be interested in vibrant colours , desings and activities . they are the majority of the social media users who engage in activities . catching their attention through your content would increase your sales
- Organize a schedule or posting : one of the common mistakes made in using social media for marketing is creating multiple accounts in social media platforms and by time not bring active .
you will want to plan ahead and not publish spontaniously . To ensure maximum reach you need to post content at the right time and frequently
- Analyze your results : along the way you will want to know how your social media marketing is progessing . Are you gaining more followers than last month ? Are you receiving more likes than last month ? How many positive feedback have you gotten last month?
social media platforms provide these basic analysts and google analytics can be great way to monitor your progress.
What social media platform is best for social media marketing?
There are various social media platforms . here’s a brief of some social media platofrms you could use according your audience and your product/business.
FACEBOOK : It’s the world’s biggest social network with 3 billion active users. when it comes to which network people use the most , Facebook dominates the list .
so no matter which age group your target audience is , it’s a great platform to get started .
start by creating a Facebook business fan page and a good content .
GOOGLE+ :This has been in use from 2011 and managed to gather 395 milion users , while this may not be as popular as Facebook , this social media platform can also be used in social media marketing , Google+ allows for awide variety of posts .
INSTAGRAM : Within three months of releasing the app it had atleast a million users . that’s how successful the growth was and still is .
considering the fact that almost 800 million users use it everyday , with the use of hashtags , amazing pictures and an eyechatching caption , with likes and comments to be kept tab in instagram can be a pretty successful platform when it comes to social media marketing .
this also uses influencer marketing to create demand . It is so succcessful that 65% of the brands use influencers to market their business
YOUTUBE : Users watch about 1 billion hours of Youtube every single day . people can now build a great business using youtube to create small funny videos , make up tutorials , familiy channels or literally anything , thanks to Youtube in all it’s glory .
this is a great platform to turn your blog posts into videos for an audience who prefers wtaching something to reading .With just a camera ,decent light and a microphone your business could flourish into something unique and successful
PINTEREST : This is the way to go if your target audience is women .81% of their users are female . this platform mainly uses pictures and videos . desining , interior desinging ,decorating , crafting and clothing are some of the topics that do really well on Pinterest.
TWITTER : if you are funny and want your business to grow , this way please!
twitter is a great social media platform that uses words and sometimes pictures to be in use. whether is pop culture , local or international news , what to wear or where to eat , twitter is a powerful social media marketing tool and search engine . Twitter makes it easier to distribute content with about 326 million average monthly twitter users globaly for you to share your content with .
Now that we successfully completed the “which platform to use ” part of this study , let’s get you hooked up with some of the social media slang or key words , if you may
life as a marketer seems to require a degree in social media terminology , but worry not . we’ve got you!
BIO : Your social media bio is the place to tell your audience who you are . it is also a great way to share websites and other accounts .
DIRECT MESSAGE [DM] : A direct message on social media is a private message sent directly to the user , this exists in contrast to the pubic form of interaction called commenting .
FOLLWER : A follower is a person who has subsribed to see your posts in their feed . your number of followers is a key metric for seeing how your social media perfomance is growing or shrinking .
HASGTAG : A hashtag is a way of connenting your social media posts with other similer posts or topics . social media marketers often follow the popularity of hashtags to see what’s treding on social media .
SOCIAL MEDIA ADVERTISING
social media advertisments is a must if you are looking to reach a new large , targeted audience . all the social media platforms offer advertising options .
when choosing where to place your ad it is important to know which networks are popular with your target audience .
pinterest for example has a wide female audience , and if your target audience is a younger crowd , then instagram and snapchat are your friends
alright ! that was Alot . Now that you get a glimps of what social media marketing is you are all set to start up
with all these information and analyzing , there’s nothing holding you back .
and remember ,” No fun for the creator , No fun for the audience” .
