Social media marketing started with publishing content on different social media platforms. Businesses were sharing their content on social media to drive traffic to their websites and, hopefully, sales. However, social media has matured far beyond being just a place to broadcast content.
Nowadays, businesses use social media in numerous different ways. For example, a company that is concerned about what people are saying about its brand would keep a look at social media conversations and respond to relevant mentions (social media listening and engagement). A business that wants to know how it’s performing on social media would analyze its reach, engagement, and sales on social media with an analytics tool (social media analytics). A business that wants to reach a particular audience set at scale would run highly-targeted social media ads (social media advertising).
1. Planning
Before you go further, let’s dive right in and publish something on social media. Let’s take a step back and look at the bigger picture. The first step is to think about your social media plan.
What are your goals? Some businesses use social media to increase their brand awareness, while others use it to drive website traffic and sales.
Which social media platforms should you focus on? The major social media platforms mentioned above are Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, and Snapchat.
What type of content do you want to share? An excellent place to start is to create a marketing plan, which will help you answer these questions.
2. Publishing
Publishing to social media is just as simple as sharing a blog post, an image, or a video on a social media platform. It’s just like how you would handle your personal Facebook profile. But you will want to plan your content before time instead of creating and publishing content spontaneously. Also, to ensure that you maximize your reach on social media, you need to post engaging content that your audience likes, at the right timing and frequency.
3. Listening and Engagement
As your business and social media followers grow, conversations about your brand will also increase. People will tag you in their social media posts, comment on your social media posts, or message you directly.
People might even talk about your brand on social media without even letting you know. So you will want to understand social media conversations about your brand. If it’s a positive comment, you get a chance to surprise and delight them. Otherwise, you can offer support and make a situation right before it gets worse.
4. Advertising
When you have funds to grow your social media marketing, an area that you can work on is social media advertising. Social media ads enable you to reach a wider audience than those who are following you.
Social media advertising platforms are so powerful nowadays that you can specify precisely who to display your ads. You can create your target audiences based on their demographics, interests, behaviors, and more.
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