Have you ever wondered why so many businesses, brands and individuals prioritize their social media marketing? Nowadays, more consumers interact with companies digitally than ever before. For that reason, prioritizing social media has become an ideal way to actively engage with customers.
Still not convinced? In this article we delve into why social media marketing should be a key part of your strategy.
5 Key Benefits Of Social Media Marketing
So, how can social media channels benefit your business? Here are five things an effective platform enables your business to do:
1. Show The World Who You Are
With social media, you have the opportunity to highlight all the best aspects of your business with one click. What information would be most useful for your potential and current clients to have easy access to?
Don’t leave this vital question unanswered! Your brand’s social media is a hub for users to easily find out more about your business and what you care about.
How trustworthy is a business that shows limited facets of its work? Social media platforms provide an opportunity to legitimize your brand. They allow you to demonstrate your expertise through posts that highlight your company’s core values, brand voice and unique qualities.
You can use social media as a platform to distinguish your brand from competitors, too. Showing consumers that your brand identity is clearly defined and consistent is valuable, but you also want to make sure you are keeping up with common trends on the internet (as appropriate) to show your audience that you are up to date on the world around you.
Having a strong familiarity with all aspects of your brand allows you to have a better idea of your social media platforms’ influence when interacting with clients.
Remember, you want to sound authentic! Understanding the importance of social media and investing in it shows you can connect on a personal level with your audience.
2. Target And Attract Your Audience
When it comes to the importance of social media, there are so many different purposes. It’s up to you to define how you want to use it! Is your business trying to gain a general following or is there a specific audience that would benefit from learning about your services? It’s critical to figure out exactly who you are trying to reach with your messages. With the advancements in social media, getting to reach and interact with your audience has never been easier!
In order to create a message that resonates with your audience and clients, know exactly who you are targeting. You don’t want your intentions to be lost because they were misdirected.
Social media is important because it allows you to reach people locally, regionally, nationally and even internationally. If you understand the characteristics of your target audience, you will be able to personalize your messages to resonate with that audience more appropriately. For example, how you communicate with a teenager isn’t the same as you would with a working professional.
Social media is everywhere!
Social media provides value while also creating a low-cost way to market your business. Plus, social media allows you to have direct control over the messages you share with the world.
It’s important to note that while increasing and maintaining your presence effectively on social media is vital, so is being realistic about the amount of energy and time you might need to invest to reach larger audiences.
To help you determine your target audience, ask yourself these questions:
- Who is the audience you are trying to reach?
- What platforms does this audience typically use?
- Generally, is the target audience tech-savvy?
- What trends are popular among this audience?
Knowing your audience and who you want to reach will give you more confidence in your online interactions.
3. Diversify Your Content
Work towards diversifying your interactions by evaluating the best social media platform to share your messages on! Major platforms can reach thousands or millions of people; your next client might be on one of them.
Diversifying your social media content (through varying topics, content structure, etc.) is a valuable way to connect with your target audience and maximize your return on investment. Although maintaining a presence on a variety of platforms is important for your image and branding, you don’t want to direct energy into an outlet that isn’t effective.
Here are popular platforms and what they have to offer:
- Facebook allows users to post, like and share content (pictures, videos, articles, etc.) with just the click of a button. Much of the content is made public so it can reach as large an audience as possible.
- Twitter has a character limit to its messages, so posts are more concise and, at times, more informal. Users can favorite and retweet content to their followers.
- Instagram is a hub for sharing photos or short videos. Users can post content on their general newsfeed or give live video updates as part of the Story feature.
- LinkedIn creates a space for users to widen their professional networks. They can share articles in their field, look for jobs or watch informative training videos to increase their industry knowledge.
- Pinterest lets users discover new content (pictures, articles, links) based on their favorite interests. They can browse by topic and categorize their findings into aesthetically pleasing boards.
- TikTok is a newer social media platform that works well if your product or service is better shown through short video clips. TikTok is also a great way to reach a younger audience and stay relevant. Since it is a newer platform, it is somewhat easier to “blow up” and have your content seen by a wider audience.
Don’t limit yourself to one outlet for reaching your audience on social media. The way you engage with your audience on one network does not necessarily guarantee it will resonate with your audience on another. If you don’t have custom content for different situations, it will lack individuality and be difficult to connect to.
As you start to determine what social media platforms are best for you to prioritize, you may discover that you aren’t able to personally allocate as much time as you wanted to put into your social media campaign. Hiring an outside marketing firm can help you reach your goals that seem daunting.
4. Create An Attainable Plan
After you have critically assessed your needs as well as what you are looking to do, create a specific plan to put into effect.
Recognize your social media’s importance by taking the time to establish SMART goals for your strategy.
Determine a timeline for your social media campaign and start to create some SMART goals:
- Specific. Determine what your purpose for using social media is.
- Measurable. How are you planning to track the progress of your initial goals?
- Attainable. Choose social media goals that can be easily accomplished. Create a simple plan on platforms that are easy to navigate!
- Relevant. How does your social media enhance your brand image and business?
- Timely. Properly plan time to produce content to see progress on your platforms.
Remember that the most effective plans have some flexibility built into them. Building a brand identity on social media takes time, and you want to be well-informed on all your options.
Take care when choosing your goals and be realistic. They may change after launch as you begin interacting with your followers and see which posts resonate best with them.
5. Track Campaign Results
You put in all this effort into planning and building your social media accounts, but how do you measure social media impact?
Social media reveals its effectiveness when reviewing and analyzing the data and statistics. Looking at these reports on a regular basis is a great way to determine if you are meeting your original goals.
It is important to prioritize social media in your business marketing.
This blog post about ad tech and mar tech delves into some effective ways you can look at your data.
After reviewing the data, are you starting to notice certain aspects of your social media campaign that are working well? Are your other deliverables not showing the same results? Check your data regularly and compare reports on a monthly and a quarterly basis to give you perspective about where you are with your original goals.
By learning more about what interests your audience, you will be able to decide which types of social media content they find engaging. Remember, lasting results can take as long as 12-18 months, so don’t be discouraged if you do not see them immediately.
Get Started Creating Social Media Content Today!
Understanding the unknown can be daunting. With major innovations in the marketing field, it’s critical to stay on top of the latest trends and platforms.
Still have questions? Three Girls Media can help! We offer a 30-minute complimentary consultation! Contact us to learn more about how we can help you achieve your social media goals!
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