“Marketing is no longer about the stuff you make, but about the stories you tell”. – Seth Godin
There is no doubt that social media has changed the way people “socialize” , especially how companies reach out to their customers. From the big multinational companies to even small businesses like your mom’s bakeshop, the ballgame has changed. Unlike before when ads are placed on TV, radio, and newspapers, social media marketing has enabled even small businesses to reach out to a more precise market. This was further amplified during the early months of the pandemic when people were not able to move about and relied on their mobile devices while at home.
Research has shown that it has brought an increase of 35% in screen time. And even with the relaxation of social distancing guidelines worldwide, marketing analysts don’t see the trend changing anytime soon, and it is here to stay.
In simple terms, social media marketing is the use of digital technology like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and just recently Tiktok to reach out to your potential market. More than just sharing a viral post about cats, social media marketing has evolved from it’s early days and is a very powerful tool to make your business grow.
But to help you navigate through all the noise, allow us to elaborate in the simplest of terms on how to leverage social media marketing.
How to use Social Media Marketing?
Like anything else, social media marketing requires important aspects that must be taken into consideration.
Creating Accounts For Your Target Market
With so many platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc.), it will simply be unrealistic to use all of them to reach your market. New players in the game make the mistake of not understanding that each platform is different and not finding out which one suits them best. Like traditional marketing strategy, you will have to recognize what demographics your product or service suits you, and from there you will be able to strategize which platform(s) will be the best to use.
Create Branding
Like the foundation of a building, this is an important step in the beginning of the process. Branding involves creating or using your logo, picking color scheme, fonts, templates, and other aspects that will be used consistently to maintain the company’s image. This will enable viewers to easily recognize your posts as they scroll through the hundreds if not thousands that are posted every day.
Create Custom Content
Content is more than just sharing viral posts or memes. For the business environment, these need to be custom designed where the content tells the audience who you are. Graphic- rich content is highly recommended to attract the viewer and a link should be provided to guide them to more information. This is called Click Bait.
Video content has been growing in popularity and has shown to add screen time. It can be in short form (3-5 min) or long form (10-20 mins).
Find the Right Keywords
With so much information in the consumer’s fingertips, it’s critical that you use the proper keywords or hashtags to make it easy for your audience to find you. Imagine social media as expansive as the ocean yet as accessible as a library. Just by using the right keywords, consumers will be able to see the list of options amongst the immeasurable listings. Have you tried searching for your competition by using a hashtag? Try typing the industry you are in and even include the general location, you’ll be surprised at what you’ll find.
Improve Your Engagements
One thing that businesses take for granted is engagements. Creating your brand and posting daily is not enough. Remember that social media is about creating a more humane and intimate relationship with your audience. Engagements can come in the forms of replying to their messages, them sharing your content with their friends, or even just by replying to their simple comments on your posts. Improving your content will actually improve the algorithm and hereby increase your followers, this is called traction.
Study Your Analytics
Like any business, analyzing the data or metrics is key to finding out your strengths and weaknesses. Unlike before, nowadays you can acquire more data on the performance of your marketing strategy by looking at the analytics provided by each platform. This will give you the demographic information like the age group, gender, country of origin, and even how many times your content has been viewed, shared, and engaged. This is like the Nielsen TV Ratings on steroids. Most of all, you can determine what is the best time to post content depending on the location. Because you want your post to come out on top as soon as the consumer opens their mobile device.
These are simply the basics, and posting ads is another aspect, which we will tackle in the future.
OceanClick has scaled up its social media marketing services since the company’s creation a year ago. From its early vision of primarily offering Real Estate Virtual Assistants and Executive Virtual Assistants to steering more towards the demand of this fast-growing market. Feel free to get in touch with us if you want to jump into this exciting and ever-changing marketing strategy.
