What is social media marketing?
Social networking is an inescapable aspect in the lives of today’s consumers. The average internet user has over 5 social media accounts, which they check almost daily. Users also spend close to 2 hours a day across their social presence.
While these social platforms were founded on the idea of making it easier to connect and share life’s moments with friends, family members, and followers, they’ve quickly become an invaluable and necessary digital marketing tool for businesses looking to reach their target market.
As AdWeek reports, 91% of retail brands utilize at least 2 social media platforms to communicate and reach their customers, using social media as part of their online marketing strategies. To help you take full advantage of these powerful social media channels, this guide will outline how to run successful campaigns with tips for small businesses on major social media platforms, like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
We’ll take a look at:
- Why your business needs to be on social media
- Which social platforms make the most sense for you to use
- How to create social media goals
- When to post your social media content
Let’s begin:
Why social media marketing?
If the statistics above weren’t enough to persuade you that social media is right for your small business, here are a few other benefits to consider, that go beyond connecting with your community through social media followers and influencers.
A social media presence and campaign can help you to::
- Stimulate brand awareness and discovery
- Find new leads and customers and refer them to your website to improve sales and traffic with an advertising campaign.
- Build hype for upcoming events, product releases, sales, and more through influencer marketing.
- Collect reviews and give customers an accessible way to ask questions at any time
- Enhance your reputation and power in the market with valuable, helpful content
Besides these benefits of social media, it is also important to highlight how unique it is from other digital marketing channels because the value travels in both directions, meaning you and your customers will benefit from communicating and engaging with one another. Having these multiple touchpoints in a social media site can fuel a stronger, more loyal customer base.
What social media platforms are best for my business?
There are a lot of social media networks for you to choose from. Some businesses create accounts on as many platforms as possible in the hopes that they cover all bases.
But this can make it difficult to deliver great experiences on each platform, especially for smaller businesses with a limited marketing budget.
You need to think critically about how many social media accounts your business can properly manage and maintain, then choose the right networks where your target audiences and current customers are most active. It’s one thing to manage your resources, but you also need to make sure those resources are where your potential customers spend the most time, taking into consideration your business goals and types of content, as well as the potential for organic reach and budget for paid social.
3 Responses
Even though my project is still in the “parts scattered all over the shop floor” stage, I know that it will be that way for quite some time yet. And I’ll probably buy my first small piece of @Larry’s expertise long before a single line of prose is written.
I think that you’re already going in the wrong direction if you present a story for review the first time as a “draft.” You’ve done too much work by then. So, if you missed some important mark, you have too much to tear down and rebuild. There’s a reason why every municipality requires several different building inspections, and insists that the plumbing must be inspected -before- the drywall is put up.
When your nascent project -is- “still in pieces on the floor,” you realize just how many pieces there actually are. And, what it means to realize that “you’re making -all- of this stuff up.” Someday, I hope that millions of people will enjoy my story and that Steven Spielberg will love it, too. But (I hope that) none of them will see that, as the song said, “the art of making Art is putting it together.” After(!) “making the whole damned thing up.”
I agree with Harald. I’ve opted in for Larry’s Story coaching myself and have read a lot of past coaching that have been posted on SF—with the writer’s permission. It’s always a choice in terms of how the recipient to use Larry’s feedback to make their story work optimally. However, when it comes to the “course correction” aspects, Larry is always objective and correct in those areas that need attention. And you’ll have a much better idea of what lies at the heart of your story once you’ve pondered the questionnaire. It always hits the keynotes you may not realize your story is missing, and gives writers food for thought on how to address those things to broaden their story because it’s personalized. You won’t get that from a program, or even most editors for the price Larry is offering.
Folks, I’m here to tell you that Larry’s coaching works. I took advantage of his earlier iterations of the Premise Analysis, and it was VERY valuable. I’ve recently published my 578-page historical fiction saga, and I can honestly say that Larry’s analysis of my Concept-Premise was the essential first step. Like he says above, if you don’t nail the Premise (or understand how it differs from the Concept), you can waste a lot of time going in the wrong direction. Larry course-corrected me.