Putting your business out there for the world to see can be intimidating, but to be successful, you’ll need to connect with your target audience effectively. Social media is the best way to do this, and setting your social media marketing initiatives is an essential part of that process. But where do you begin?
There are countless social media marketing platforms to consider, each offering unique ways of connecting with different audiences. Current marketing tactics can quickly spin your head into oblivion between the modern-day lingo and the ever-changing consumer landscape. How can you even think about navigating the complicated world of social media marketing when you don’t know the first thing about how to use it effectively?
This post will discuss social media marketing fundamentals and offer insights into what each type of social media marketing platform brings to your small business. We’ll also look at the role of social influencers, helping you see why social media is one of the most beneficial tools a business can use to grow its brand. All you need is a plan and a willingness to learn. Are you ready to learn about the compelling world of social media marketing?
What Is Social Media Marketing?
Social media marketing, often referred to as SMM, uses various types of social media marketing to market services and products to the target audience. Utilizing social media as a marketing tool often targets more potential clients and customers who would otherwise be unreachable.
Some examples of types of social media marketing include:
- Social networking
- Video and photo sharing
- Blog posting
Making connections with people and sharing information has never been easier than it is today with this type of social media marketing.
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What Are the Benefits of Social Media Marketing?
Social media marketing allows the user to achieve a farther reach than has ever been possible. Not only can one instantly communicate with the target audience, but businesses have the ability to market to potential new audience members in a convincing, strategic way.
Each type of social media marketing platform offers a unique way to market the business and is an incredible opportunity to pull in new clients who may otherwise be unavailable. You can also quickly respond to customers’ questions and concerns.
Social influencers make it easy to grab viewers’ attention in a new and exciting way. In fact, 44% of Generation Z have made purchases based on recommendations from social influencers, in contrast to 26% of the broader population. They can help you gain honest reviews from real users to boost your brand quicker than ever! A few other essential benefits include:
- Boosting brand awareness
- Generating leads and driving traffic to your website
- Building relationships with customers and clients
- Studying and learning from competitors
Let’s take a closer look at how each element plays into an effective social media marketing campaign.
Boost Your Brand Awareness
A great way to increase brand awareness when advertising through social media is to make your posts pop! Choose a color scheme that wows and create posts that grab the attention of the audience you are trying to attract. Pay attention to similar brands and their colors, and ask yourself what these colors convey to target audience members.
Use trending hashtags, which some platforms even display for you (X, TikTok, etc.), or google “trending hashtags” that pertain to your brand if you are unsure where to start.
Partnering with influencers to review your brand or create content for your pages is another great way to increase brand awareness and reach new audience members. You can easily reach out directly via Twitter, TikTok, or Instagram to offer partnerships with influencers. These personalities can have millions of viewers or cater to a certain type of viewer you are also trying to reach.
People are more likely to use your skincare line or purchase your cleaning product if they see their favorite “celebrities” raving about it.
Social media platforms offer paid ad plans to help you get your name out there. Posting your digital fliers or photos to places like Facebook or TikTok can help pull in sales that will far outweigh the cost of the advertising.
Make Your Social Campaigns Stand Out and Build Authority in Your Industry.
Generate Leads and Drive Traffic to Your Website
The first step in generating leads and increasing traffic is to decide who your target audience will be. What are you trying to promote or sell to? Research what these people are looking for by paying attention to competitors with the same target audience and looking up sales statistics for this specific product type.
Create ads and promotions that target these people. A great idea when launching is to hold events that draw people in for the first time! Come up with a compelling offer or two that will be hard for a first-time customer to refuse. This will create positive reviews from first-time customers and allow you to use those testimonials in future campaigns.
Social media sponsorships can be a great tool for increasing website traffic and generating new leads. TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube are great platforms for your products to be video-reviewed and praised. Drawing in new leads via Facebook ads is also a great option, especially for small businesses and boutiques looking to target people outside their local area.
Build Relationships With Customers and Clients
Building relationships with customers and clients is important in any type of social media marketing. Luckily, it is a reasonably straightforward process. The easiest thing you can do to make your audience feel heard and communicated with is to be active on social media by responding to comments, concerns, and e-mails promptly.
Ensure your tone is friendly, relatable, and professional when dealing with concerns or unhappy customers. Having a social media manager can be helpful in this department.
Finding an influencer to promote your brand or review your products is a great way to make customers and clients feel heard. When people see their favorite person promoting their favorite product, they are more likely to feel a sense of familiarity with it.
Another great way to build relationships and gain trust with your target audience is to utilize social media to host giveaways and contests!
People are more likely to interact with your page if you have something to offer them, and in turn, you are more likely to show up on their feeds regularly. If they interact with you and your brand frequently, you are bringing in frequent customers and building a relationship with them that makes them feel special and keeps them coming back.
The atmosphere is just as important as the product you provide, so make sure to make people feel you value them when building relationships!
Study and Learn From Competitors
Learning from competitors is another way to learn which type of social media marketing will work best for you. By studying how a similar company draws its audience, you can model how to do the same while putting your own twist on it.
Figure out what it is that sets you apart from them and make that your focal point so as not to be completely making a copy of their marketing strategy. Pay attention to what does and does not work for competitors.
If you see another brand make a mistake first, you can avoid doing the same. Read comments and reviews to see how the audience responds to certain strategies, even if the business is different from yours! If your target audience does not respond well to how a business communicates with them, you know to change your tone or approach.
Ensure you are paying attention to the types of influencers who are successfully drawing in the clientele you would like to see switch over to your product or service. Consider hiring them or someone similar to review your brand or product to do the same.
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Put Your Social Media Marketing Plan Into Action
Creating a plan is important when marketing yourself or your brand on social media. Calendars, pre-planned posts, and hiring a social media manager are great ways to ensure success in any type of social media marketing.
Here’s a step-by-step breakdown of how to get started:
Step 1 — Research Your Target Audience
Researching your target audience is a great way to begin setting up a plan for how you will approach this type of social media marketing. Reading comments and reviews and learning how to respond to competitors’ social media marketing initiatives can go a long way.
You can avoid making the same mistakes if you pay attention to what others have done before you! Researching what is popular and trending within your target audience and using keywords can help broaden your reach.
For example, if you are trying to market a fitness clothing brand to a specific audience of people, be mindful of who is purchasing these types of products from other companies and research what they want to see.
What models do they want to see wearing your clothes before purchasing them? What color palette is coming into style for the next season? Who is a popular influencer this target audience watches, and are they willing to review your clothing on their page?
Pay attention to what the target audience is asking for and appease them.
Step 2 — Decide Which Social Platforms To Target
Deciding what posts correlate with which social media platforms is crucial in any type of social media marketing. For example, Instagram reels are short and often captioned video clips that can be the perfect tool to grab the attention of Instagram users scrolling through the feed.
However, captioned video clips might not go over as well on Facebook or TikTok, where you will have to click a link or go outside of your typical scrolling pattern to view the video.
Ads that are simple pictures or digital fliers will do better on Instagram than on Facebook.
X is a great way to communicate with hashtags that might not be as successful on Facebook.
Research what makes each social media platform unique, and tailor your posts to correlate with those features.
Step 3 — Understand and Get To Know Your Competitors
Once you have researched your competitors and done a little social media marketing planning, it is always a good idea to revisit and try to understand better what works for them and what doesn’t.
Knowing your competition and what they stand for is essential in any type of social media marketing. Focus on what can set you apart while still noting what works for the brand. You can translate their successes to your business but always be sure to make yourself and your brand unique.
Step 4 — Create Authentic and Appealing Content
Creating appealing content goes hand in hand with ensuring you set yourself apart and focus on what makes you unique in this type of social media marketing. Appealing ideas can come from those before you or similar to you, but make sure you have your own twist!
Starting with a template can help kick off your creative journey (for example, when creating posts in Canva), but try to change as much as possible so that your posts come off as uniquely yours. Ensure your brand’s content has its own color scheme, fonts, and graphics, and use a consistent tone when communicating with your audience so that you always appear authentic.
Step 5 — Develop a Posting Schedule
Having a posting schedule is essential in any type of social media marketing venture you undertake. At first, you might have time to create content every day, but when you get big on social media and become busy, having a posting schedule to fall back on can save the day.
Posting schedules are easy to create via Canva or other platforms. You can set them up like a calendar to help you maintain regularity and consistency with your posts.
Deciding which platforms you will post to on which days is very important. Understanding the best times to post is essential to achieving the best responses and drawing in the most traffic!
You can set up a pre-scheduled post via the platform and have it go out without clicking send. Pre-scheduled posts are very helpful in staying organized and detailed, especially when you don’t have a social media manager to do the work for you.
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What Social Media Platform Is Right for Your Small Business?
Deciding which social media platforms you want to use and which will gain the most reach for your business is crucial. On average, people engage with seven different social networks each month. So, it’s important for your brand to carefully choose the social media channels that best align with its target audience.
Create a page for yourself and experiment with paid advertising. Build your campaign based on what works best for the type of social media marketing you engage with and your brand’s ultimate goals.
Facebook is a great place to establish a presence for your business via “Pages.” Most businesses familiar in our communities have a Facebook Page, which allows users to “like” and follow what they are up to in day-to-day activities.
Facebook is also a great place to utilize paid advertisements and organic posts, simultaneously reaching many of your target audience! With the “events” feature, you can advertise to your community regarding upcoming events, whether in-person or online. This allows people to say whether or not they will be attending and makes planning more manageable for you.
Customers or clients can message your business via Facebook, making communication a breeze. Facebook is a wonderful platform to communicate with users of all ages, as it has been around a long time and many internet users have an active Facebook page.
In one survey, 73% of Boomers reported making a purchase through Facebook.
Best For: Product-based businesses such as clothing, fashion accessories, self-care products, electronic devices, pet accessories, baby products, home furnishings, and health & fitness products.
Instagram is another incredibly popular platform and a great place to post videos and photos. Visually appealing ads are easier to see on Instagram because wordy posts are not as prevalent.
However, Reels are a good place to add text, such as short captions. You can also create polls where your audience can vote on things, making it easier to collect opinions. Instagram is also a great place to have influencers rate, review, and promote your product.
Best For: Graphics, images, visually appealing digital fliers, service-based businesses, and new businesses looking to grow their audience.
X (Formerly Known As Twitter)
X is a wonderful platform for almost instant communication. Use hashtags, and they can go viral very quickly! Getting a message out there is easy via X, as it is one of the most highly used mobile apps.
You can also easily add links, which is great for redirecting users to your products!
Best For: Businesses that want to quickly and directly communicate with their target audience.
TikTok
TikTok is one of the most highly utilized video platforms and is very beneficial if you are looking to have influencers review your products or services. Gen Z considers TikTok the most reliable platform for social shopping.
Companies often send influencers free products in exchange for their reviews or promotions. Unboxing videos are a popular part of the platform, where users watch their favorite “celebrity” influencers try on or demonstrate what is sent to them.
TikTok also utilizes hashtags, so researching what is popular and including these hashtags in your captions can help your videos gain traction. This is a great place to form community connections and get your brand out there, as it is newer and very popular.
Best For: Businesses looking for influencers to rate or review their products.
Pinterest has been around a while and shows no signs of slowing down! It is a great place to advertise because users can save “pins” and come back and look at them for years to come.
The user’s ability to save and reference pins make Pinterest a great place to increase brand awareness on a large scale. The platform is also a great way to drive traffic to your website, as clicking on pins redirects users wherever your link leads.
People on Pinterest usually have high intent to purchase, so this platform is essential if you are trying to get people to buy your product.
Best For: Crafty businesses looking to drive website traffic and sell their products.
Knowing your target audience is important regarding social media marketing via LinkedIn. Having an active company page and sharing engaging, helpful content can drive traffic to your brand and make it appealing to potential clients, customers, and employees. This is not the place for sales pitches but rather the platform to use to drive leads and increase traffic.
Best For: Business professionals, freelancers, and networking.
YouTube
YouTube is unique in that it is the most popular place for people to come to watch videos that are longer than a quick minute. This allows brands to dive into what they want to promote or sell on a larger scale.
Creating videos alongside blog posts or reviews is a great way to add something to your website. The ability to comment on videos is another great way to connect customers with your company or brand, making communication easier.
Best For: Businesses that want to make more detailed videos for their clients or customers.
Snapchat
Snapchat ads are another option when it comes to marketing via social media. Videos are temporary and short but can provide a fun, engaging way to communicate with your target audience.
Snapchat ads can benefit localized campaigns. This app provides geo-filters and lets you see who is watching your snaps, making it easy to connect with the audience in real-time.
Best For: Businesses that want to learn who is engaging with their ad campaigns.
What Type of Social Media Marketing Will Your Business Choose?
To set up your social media marketing initiatives, always remember to prioritize organic content and consistent communication with your audience!
Remember to do your research and learn from others’ mistakes. It’s also essential to consider quality tips offered by those who walked the path before you.
Have any of these social media strategies worked for your business? What tactics were less effective? We would love for you to share your experience in the comments below!
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Chris Karl
Content Strategist, Writer, & Editor
Chris is a seasoned content strategist, writer, and editor dedicated to eliminating bland and boring content from the internet one word at a time. His extensive experience has led to working with top-tier digital platforms like Monkeybox Media, WordAgents, Screen Rant, Wealth of Geeks, and MSN.