What is social media marketing (SMM)-
Social media marketing (SMM) is the use of social on which users build social networks and share information through which they build a company’s brand, increase sales, and drive website traffic. social media marketing is a way to connect with the people all around the world that help businesses as well as the customers to reach their prospects and goals
What does social media marketing include-
- Content -anything that you share in social in any format like text, photo, graphic, videos, Link etc. We generally say we are posting something on social media and that posting is contant.
- Context – Gary Vaynerchuk said, “Content is king, but context is God.” Context fills in the blanks, and gives the reader a fuller meaning and understanding of what you’re trying to communicate.
- Hashtags- (#)specific unique keywords that make the content or the post more relevant and searchable. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest etc everywhere we use hashtag to describe.
- Share– when people view or interact with our content, that is nice but when they share to some other people that is plus point a business has achieved. Sharing increases the ability to create links organically
- Engagement- just like share, we get comments, likes, reaction, subscriptions or purchases, and all of these make an engagement to our business which is like interaction with the people
Social media marketing platforms-
There are many social media platform or tools that everyone should and get connected with. The following statstics show that how business can reach globally-
- Facebook- 2.8 billion
- Youtube-2.29 billion
- Instagram-1.39 billion
- Linkedin-800 million
- twitter-463 million
- Pinterset-454 million
- Apart from this other social media platforms are- reddit, tumblr, snapchat, we heart it , quora and many more.
Types of social media marketing-
- Content marketing/ creating– blog writing is one of the best and finest example of content marketing. Bloggers connect with audience with there own knowledge and personal experiences.
- Social networking-
- facebook- Facebook is the largest social media platform globally as well as one of the biggest local business listings.
- linkedin- here one can connect with professionals in your industry, great platform for B2B relationships and connecting with same niche professionals
- intagram- It’s popular for its diverse content formats, including Feed posts, Stories, Lives, Reels, and IGTV. People use Instagram to follow influencers and brands they buy from and who support their personal values.
- Twiiter- Twitter is a complete network of quick thoughts, useful little informations, and energized discussions. Many people use Twitter to get news, follow brands, and get customer service. Be sure to retweet when a customer has something nice to say and don’t forget to answer people’s questions when possible
- Visual content creation-YouTube, Instagram Stories and Reels, Facebook stories are some platforms where you can create short and long or directly upload videos to these with related content and context
- Influencer marketing- it involves endorsements and product placement from influencer. These influencers are opinion leaders with social following base
- Advertising- this is kind of paid ads run digital platforms. This involves paying to promote content on social media platforms to reach interested leads and get them to check out your business.
How to choose the best platform for social media marketing
- know your audience
- be up to date with latest trends, scenarios, likes or dislikes, statistcs and new things or follow ups with business.
- Align to your business goals
Benefits of SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING-
- Brand awareness- social media makes brand building simple and effective. Social media has an advantage that it allows you to get your brand attention in front of people much more quickly and easily. It draws attention of the audience more easily even when they are not thinking about it. Growing brand awareness and visibility also help in improving the sales.
- Leads Generation- “content is the king” that means the better the content the more readers or viewers will like to visit to your page or blog. Lead generation is one of the great benefit for social media marketing.
- Drives More Traffic- social media ads and post are way to generate more traffic to your website . for example adding website address or Call to action ( CTA) which leads to your website can lead to more traffic.
- Boost More Sales- social media marketing helps to increase with some real life ads or reviews of the particular product or service. Example can be for those who are new to social media or into shopping experience can have feedbacks and reviews before making any purchase from existing customers.
- Cost Effective- Almost all social networking sites allow signing up and creating a profile for free, and in any paid promotions you decide to invest in are relatively inexpensive when compared to other marketing tactics or any traditional marketing strategies. It can allow the business person to see higher return on investment when further continued. Even in paid social media advertising, always start small to see what to expect. In future, one can fine tune strategies and experiment as per the results achieved.
- Higher Conversion Rates- Business will have higher conversation opportunities due to higher visibility. Giving a human touch to your brand using social media, the conversion rates will automatically begin to increase. The importance of responding to all reviews and comments including negative comments is that it can increase the trust and loyalty in potential customers.
The bottom lineThere are so many advantages of social media marketing, so if a person or his business does not have its presence on the social media, it is high time to start creating profiles. There are practically no reasons why you should not implement social media marketing.