The Ultimate Guide to Social Media Marketing

The year was 2004. Facebook began growing as a social media network with users ranging from your young next door neighbour to your grandmother who lives a hundred miles away. Advertisers began recognising the potential of marketing to these large and varied groups of people who spent hours on the website, reconnecting with near and dear ones. Thus, the world of social media marketing was born.

So, what is Social Media Marketing?

The use of social media platforms by brands to build an audience, connect with them, increase website traffic and drive up sales and revenue is called social media marketing.
Success with social media marketing follows updating content that users connect to and engage with, analysing these interactions to chart out content that works and running paid social media advertisement to further connect potential customers to your brand.

Most marketers have identified social media marketing as an indispensable tool in their marketing armamentarium- due to some of the obvious advantages that they offer over traditional marketing methodologies.

Advantages of Social Media Marketing
1.Brand awareness
Starting a social media presence for your brand is one of the most cost-effective ways to get your name out in the market and improve brand awareness.
2.Improving website traffic and higher conversion rate
Social media platforms offer brands a great way to get traffic onto your website. It opens the doors to a whole new demographic of people who may be interested in your product or service, who may have not encountered your website as is. The conversion rate is also improved for brands with an active social media presence.
3.Building customer relationships
Social media as a platform allows you to not just reach potential customers but also foster meaningful relationships with them. Use social media to humanise your brand, interact with people and solve their queries- which eventually ends up in happier customers in turn improving brand loyalty.
4.Identify competition and keep an eye on what they’re doing
Keep a tab on the social media platforms of competitors to identify what campaigns they run, analysing their demographic and understand how they interact with their followers. This allows you to keep an edge in your field and gain valuable insights that you have otherwise missed.

Social Media Platforms to market your business

1.Facebook
Facebook continues to be one of the largest social media platforms with approximately 3 billion active users worldwide. It gives you adequate exposure to different content styles ranging from texts, pictures, videos in the form of posts, stories, groups and Facebook Live sessions, to name a few.
Facebook has the most user-friendly advertising tool called Facebook Business Manager to run campaigns in line with the marketing goal you hope to achieve.
2.Instagram
Instagram is emerging as the next major player on the social media marketer’s checklist due to the high engagement rate that it offers. Like Facebook, Instagram too offers a variety of formats like posts, stories, lives and guides to name a few. With Instagram, the possibility of success via influencer marketing is also higher.
3.LinkedIn
For a professional presence for your brand and to leverage on formal business inquiries, a LinkedIn presence is mandatory. With considerable investment of time and energy, you can establish yourself and your brand as industry leaders on LinkedIn to drum up business. LinkedIn ads unlock numerous possibilities too.
Other popular options to explore, due to the possibility of going viral:
Creating viral content doesn’t follow a formula but these are the three apps that have a possibility to allow your brand to have its viral moment in the spotlight.
4.YouTube
The video format on YouTube opened up the door to career opportunities and doors to marketing via these platforms- through influencers or advertisements.
5.TikTok
If you can manage to capture your audience’s attention within a limited time frame, TikTok may be the place for you. Catering to a younger demographic, this app is an up and coming option for viral marketing.
6.Twitter
With a restriction of 280 characters, Twitter is a social media platform of a few, but impactful, words. If this is a style that suits your brand, Twitter success is a given.
Others to consider:
7.Quora
8.Snapchat
9.Pinterest
10Reddit
11.Medium
12.Tumblr

Social Media Marketing Types

Here are some of the marketing options you could explore to garner attention and drum up business for your brand:
Free strategies-

• Creating a content calendar with marketing content to generate an awareness and interest in who you are and what you do; eventually building a following
  Community management on social media to engage with audience
  Participating and contributing to forums and groups in your industry
  Collecting reviews from previous customers

Paid marketing strategies-

• Approaching influencers with a considerable following to promote your product or service
  Advertising your product or service to a niche audience using targeted ads
  Sponsorship is another collaborative paid approach to consider to promote your brand

How you measure success on the social media marketing front after employing these different marketing strategies varies greatly based on the network you choose.

Leveraging Social Media Marketing through Ads

The reasons why social media marketing is such a favourite amongst digital marketers today is the ease it offers to choose the right target audience for your product or service, to create a one-stop network of potential audiences and the ability to easily estimate the Return on Investment (RoI) of social media spend.

Leverage your business with the use of targeted social media advertisements to drive up revenue. Requiring a smaller investment than traditional advertising, social media marketing has emerged as a favourite in marketing circles.

The experts at Dinero Tech Labs can help you achieve your marketing goals by unlocking the power of social media marketing. Social media marketing is a universe of marketing opportunities, constantly improving and evolving- and it can be said with a degree of assurance, that this is only just the beginning.