Social media marketing has become a norm in businesses and marketing with majority of small businesses and big organisations creating a separate budget for social media marketing. Social media helps to create brand awareness, engagement with consumers and prospects, and offer platforms for businesses to market directly to their target audience at little cost. It has been found that humans thrive on connecting around mutual interests, engagement, and networking, and studies have shown that the people on social networks regularly check them, even when they are in the toilet.
Therefore, to not have social media marketing in an organisation’s marketing strategy would be depriving the business an opportunity to grow. With all the benefits of social media marketing, it still can be disastrous if used carelessly without careful planning and consideration. Below are a few things to consider when using social media for marketing;
What are the functions of each social media platform? Before creating a business page on any social media platform, it would be beneficial to find out what they are used for.
Listed below is a brief introduction on how some social media channels can be used.
- Facebook can be used for brand awareness, reply to customer queries, and promote seasonal sales.
- Twitter can be used also for those, and much more on driving fan engagement, online customer service, and creating sharable hashtags.
- YouTube can be used to create a face for the brand, and short and viral videos.
- Vine to share videos under six seconds, this can be used to share looping videos, tips, funny behind the scene moments and announce sales.
- LinkedIn to create a company profile and display the expertise of the company and its employees.
• Where are your target audience? Like any kind of marketing, a business has to consider where its target audiences are before creating a business page on any social media platform. If the target audiences are teenagers for instance, it would be wise to have a social presence on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Vine for instance.
• Set up goals and key performance indicators [KPIs], KPIs are simply ways to measure how close you are to getting to your goals. For instance, a business could set up a business goal such as to create a brand awareness on Facebook, and the KPI could be the amount of followers/ likers the business page has, or set up an engagement goal on Facebook or twitter, and the KPI be how many retweets, comments or shares you get.
• Beware of ‘the like cycle’, i.e. those who just like your page but are not really fans of your brand. Recently, business insider had a report on how a successful small business man became a victim of the liker trolls. He had a $600,000 campaign on Facebook which he now believes were a waste of time and money because his Facebook page had been polluted and he could no longer tell the difference between the real and fake fans, the full report can be read here. Find the genuine fans and keep them engaged, don’ just advertise and promote your products to them, rather offer the advises, keep them informed about your product or services, and once in a while just because you love them, send them something to brighten their days, like a funny video or picture you and your employees made.
• Be careful when introducing a topic for conversation and engagement with consumers.
• Finally, do not forget to use the social media platforms that best suit your brand personality.
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Written by Elizabeth @SwoopStudios
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