Social media is probably one of the most fascinating human activities of the 21st century. According to statistics, in 2024, the number of users of social networks reached 3.6 billion people, and it will increase to 4.4 billion in 2025. Meanwhile, everyone spends an average of 2.5 hours a day on social media. Social networks are simply a paradise for marketers, and it is indeed a fact because successful full-fledged marketing without using social media for business is already unthinkable.
Specific Features of Marketing in Social Media
Social Media Marketing (SMM) is a series of online activities that use social media as the channel to promote brands and companies. More specifically, SMM is Social Media Promotion (SMP) through communication with potential consumers.
The main point is to create messages that network users can distribute without the participation of the initiators. It has been proven that this is the kind of content that generates the most trust because it uses a referential scheme of relationships.
Marketing on social media has a point-by-point effect on the target audience, providing the opportunity to choose the platforms where it is most widely represented. At the same time, the selectivity of advertising is ensured, allowing the rejection of it by uninterested participants.
The main objectives of SMM are promotion, increasing brand loyalty, and raising website traffic. The tools by which this is done are blogs, informational messages in groups, comments, participation in forums, monitoring positive and negative backgrounds.
The following recommendations from Wiser Brand will help you choose the right platform and expand the representation of your business in the media space.
Why Social Media Is Important for Marketing
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Social media is an integral part of a business’ marketing strategy because it allows you to communicate with customers, raise brand awareness, and increase potential product users. SMM facilitates several vital tasks:
- traffic attraction;
- sales growth;
- increasing awareness and building brand image;
- Optimization of interaction with target audiences.
The wider the reach, the easier it is to fill the sales funnel with traffic and therefore increase sales. Social networks offer enormous potential because consumers usually use them daily. It’s challenging to keep up with evolving trends, so you’ll need a well-thought-out strategy.
SMM: A Clear Plan of Action
Before you plan your marketing campaigns, clarify your business goals. When defining your SMM objectives, answer the following questions:
- What do you plan to get?
- What is the target audience, and how does it operate?
- What information do you plan to convey?
Ultimately, a business must actively manage its marketing strategy rather than being an amorphous source of information.
SMM Tips
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Below are recommendations to help you create effective social media marketing.
1. Do Your Research
Recognize how social media works and figure out how you can use it for your business. First, utilize as much content and free resources as possible. Take the time to research your target audience. Draw up a portrait of your ideal customer. You need to know exactly who you are creating content for and how these people differ from others. This will guide you to their interests, and you will offer them material that is in high demand.
2. Study the Competition
Subscribing to your major competitors’ pages can make it easier to identify promising marketing trends and techniques. Research the promotional strategies of other successful companies in your industry. You should know what, how often, at what time, where they publish their content, and how and what opinion leaders they attract. Carefully analyze all the nuances and use the most successful tactics that work for you. Furthermore, make sure that you niche down your social media marketing services if at all possible. This means hiring an automotive-based social media marketing company if you have an automotive-based business.
3. Stick To The Plan
There is no point in publishing irrelevant content. Especially too often. There should be a 1-2 week plan in the first place, clearly stating what should be published, when, and where. Implement unique content, including images, infographics, audio and video files, guides, and links.
Use only verified, compelling and valuable information. Customers will appreciate your candor and honesty. Project a consistent brand image across different media platforms. Automate processes for consistency, but no spam.
4. Listen To Your Customers
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To make social media a platform for growing customer service, you need to communicate with them, find key influential followers, and learn to hear their opinions. Increase their loyalty. Customers follow and interact with brands. If you establish and maintain strong contacts, customers will favor you over your competitors and improve your traffic.
Make sure your loyal audience is engaged and satisfied. Offer subscribers promo codes, give away stickers, patches, and inexpensive items to make a lasting impression. Ask open-ended questions that allow your audience to answer them honestly.
5. Increase Your Website’s Traffic
Direct referral traffic to your site or blog will be rewarding. It’s unlikely that all of your traffic will come through search engines. Social media channels allow for more diverse inbound traffic streams if you stick to a fixed schedule for publishing content.
Use link shortening services (such as bit.ly) to place them in posts and profiles conveniently. Shortened links will save space and not seem excessive to your audience.
6. Check the KPIs at All Times
Tracking data will establish the effectiveness of SMM strategies, allow for quick insight into what’s working, and assess trends and growth opportunities. Do this as often as possible for each social platform. Choose the most critical metrics that align with your goals and analyze them regularly.
7. Don’t Be Afraid to Experiment
Look more broadly at processes, implement and test new approaches in business. Analyze metrics, successes, and failures, and do only what truly works.
Which Platform to Choose?
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Social networks vary – they have different popularity and marketing opportunities.
1. Facebook
Despite the inherent friendliness, more active promotion is required on this platform. There are more people here, but the organic reach is limited, and the competition is intense. It is worth focusing on paid advertising, which provides pinpoint targeting.
2. Instagram
The platform is growing at a tremendous rate. Hence the great reach, high involvement, as well as competition, and the need for a significant amount of content. There is an opportunity to work effectively with opinion leaders. An excellent option for retailers but not the greatest for B2B companies.
3. YouTube
This is the most popular platform for video marketing, characterized by the effectiveness of “viral” and the encouragement of solid video content with great organic reach. Here it makes sense to create valuable materials with practical recommendations. Thanks to SEO optimization, they will be able to attract traffic for many years.
4. Pinterest
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An up-and-coming SMM trend, ideal for e-commerce and brand promotion. Companies can visualize their offerings and enhance their brand appeal and personality with beautiful image boards. This platform provides high traffic conversion rates and organic reach. On the other hand, the very nature of Pinterest suggests a vast number of publications.
5. Twitter
This is an SMM tool that allows you to announce any information in a concise form. It’s all about proactive dialogue. You can quickly promote products by diluting messages about special offers, discounts, and news with funny tweets reflecting the tone of your brand. The platform provides a straightforward and user-friendly format but will require the frequent posting of quality content.
6. LinkedIn
It is a social network for professionals who exchange contacts, information, and personal opinions on various topics. The platform is well suited for internal employee communication and job posting. It will help gain credibility in your industry. It’s a good choice for B2B. But they hardly read the news feed here, so it’s hard to get a lot of organic reach.
Conclusion
No living man can do all things, so don’t impose yourself on all the social networks. It is enough to choose the ones that work best for you and your business. It is best to concentrate on one, achieve success, and only then switch to the next. If you set actionable goals and follow the recommendations above, consider that you are already several steps ahead of your competition!
