Social media has changed the way we connect, interact, and do business. With more than 4.76 billion social media users jumping online in 2023, that’s a lot of potential customers that could be landing on your brand pages.
If you’re just getting started with social media, there are lots of reasons why you should be getting your brand name out there. It promises a large reach with modest costs, lots of customer engagement and feedback and more traffic to your website.
But with so many social platforms and strategies to try, where do you start? This beginner’s guide will explore the basics of social media marketing, how it works, and how to develop an effective strategy to grow your brand and business.
Social media is the use of online networking websites to promote your brand for greater awareness while also sharing content to engage and connect with your customers. Popular social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, and even Tiktok can be used for paid advertising to target ideal audiences precisely.
When someone follows or likes a social media page or profile and starts interacting with a brand, a relationship is built between that individual and that company. Social media’s relationship-building quality makes it a unique tool for the marketing professional or small business owner. That is, providing the content they share is relevant, informative or compelling to their audience.
In the case of paid advertising, personal information collected by social media sites can be used when advertising to an audience, allowing you to get very specific about who will see your advertisement. This means you get greater ROI for less investment.
Large reach
Social media can help you reach a large audience with a single post. A modest action can increase brand awareness and recognition from shares, likes, and comments.
Customer engagement
As social media facilitates customer engagement, you can build stronger relationships with your customers by interacting with them and being responsive.
Less expensive
Social media marketing is typically less expensive than traditional marketing methods due to the precision with which you can target certain demographics.
More traffic
If you link to your website or blog from your social media posts, you will likely generate more traffic to your website, which can add to your conversions.
Instant feedback
You will soon understand what your customers want if you are on social media because your interactions with them will make it obvious. Complaints tell you where you need to up your game, while praise tells you what you’re doing right.
The first thing you need to do is come up with your plan of attack. The worst thing you can do is spread yourself too thin across social media, especially if you are completely new to it. You will want to start where your customers are.
Different social media platforms attract varying kinds of people and demographics. For example, Pinterest has a predominantly female audience, Facebook has an older audience, Tiktok is popular with younger people, and LinkedIn is for professionals.
It helps to research the platforms you are considering just to ensure it’s a good fit with your potential customers. It’s a good idea to begin with one or two social media sites and get good at them before expanding your reach.
Of course, if you find social media marketing completely overwhelming, you can hire a digital marketing agency like One Stop Media to handle it all for you. We can come up with everything from the overarching strategy to the images and words for captions. That way, it’s one less thing you have to worry about.
You need to get into your customer’s shoes to understand the kinds of posts that should be made to your social media accounts. What kind of content do they want to consume?
Developing what’s known as “content pillars” will help you generate ideas. These are reoccurring topics or themes you can cycle through in your posts. Themes such as “company updates”, “customer testimonials”, “giveaways”, “new products or services”, and “sponsorships and charities” apply to most businesses and are relevant to their customers.
These ideas are a good place to start when looking for examples of social media posts.
But your job is not done after simply making some posts. The real trick is to look at the performance of your posts and see which ones are getting the most views and interactions. Learning from what has gone before will help you craft more successful posts in the future. That kind of data-driven action is what we’re all about at One Stop Media. We have the time and the insight to analyse your posts, working out what needs to be done to get the best results, aligning with your business objectives.
At One Stop Media, we are experts in social media management, with strategists, designers and copywriters ready to work on your social media campaigns. We can help save you time while ensuring your brand gets all the benefits social media can provide.
Talk to us about social media today.
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