Marketing is an essential part of any business. However, a new form of marketing emerged in today’s digital age and the internet world. Instead of traditional marketing tactics such as newspaper ads and billboards, businesses turned to digital marketing to promote, sell, and advertise their products or services. 

According to the latest reports, social media networking sites have more than 4.62 billion users globally. This is equivalent to nearly 60% of the world’s total population. In addition to this, the average social media usage ranges from 2 to 3 hours per day. The multitude of people using different social media sites makes it ideal for businesses to advertise to a larger audience online.

Today, social media is more than just about connecting people. Whether it’s for the better or for the worse, social media has its influence and has been integral in the lives of many. In the business industry, sites such as Facebook, Tiktok, and Instagram have integrated marketing into their platforms through ads, ecommerce, and more. However, social media marketing may not be as easy as some deem it to be. With that, here’s a quick introduction to the world of digital marketing through social media platforms.

 

What is Social Media Marketing?

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In order to best grasp the intricacies of social media marketing, it’s important to know what it is and how it works.

Social media marketing is a type of marketing campaign that uses social media networking sites in order to find and connect with potential customers and their target audience. Businesses aim to utilize the structure and features of social media in order to build their brand, establish a community, connect with customers, drive traffic, generate leads, and boost sales. 

Social media marketing uses a wide variety of tools and content in order to reach the most people. Aside from that, different types of content work best for particular social media platforms. Much like any other campaign, social media marketing requires strategy and tactics in order to bring the most value to the business. 

 

Important Social Media Marketing Concepts

Social media marketing is a lot more complex than just posting updates and advertisements on your business page. There are factors that you need to consider in order to create a good digital marketing strategy and start achieving your goals. With that, here are some important concepts in social media marketing that everyone should know:

 

Content

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In digital marketing, content is anything that you publish or upload online. In social media, this can be in a form of a Facebook status post, a Tiktok video, an Instagram post, or even a Youtube vlog. 

 

Context

Different social media platforms cater to different types of content. For example, Tiktok and Youtube are popular video content-sharing sites while Instagram is more focused on photographs and images. This is where the concept of context comes into play. 

Let’s say that you ventured into video content creation. You created a 5-minute long video introducing your product. You decided to put it on Tiktok since the site is popular with teens and young adults. However, you did not consider that Tiktok caters to short-form video content which caused your video campaign to fail. In this context, the suitable website for a 5-minute long video would be the likes of YouTube and Facebook to get the best possible community engagement. 

Some content types don’t do as well as others and it’s because of the social media platform it’s on. Therefore, it’s important for marketers to understand the context of different social media platforms in relation to their strategy and target audience. 

 

Engagement

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Engagement is one of the most important aspects of social media marketing. It is a general term used to describe the way people interact with your content. Depending on the platform, audience engagement can be in a form of likes/hearts, shares, comments, or other reactions. 

Facebook is a unique platform that introduced different react options to use. Not only does this help users express their emotions better, but it also allows the marketers to know exactly how their content is received. It shows what kind of emotion their content is getting from their target audience instead of a simple like or dislike.

Aside from reactions, shares also is an important indicator of a successful marketing campaign. It is through shares that content is broadcasted to a growing audience with the chance of going viral. 

 

Advantages of Starting a Social Media Marketing Campaign

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Social media marketing is popular in business worldwide. The latest data reports that more than 90% of marketers use social media in their marketing strategies. But why do marketers choose to advertise on social media? Here are some of the benefits social media marketing can bring to businesses all over the world:

 

Effective way to increase brand awareness

Many marketers believe that social media is one of the most effective and cost-efficient ways to reach a large number of people. Millions of people use social media every day. So as long as you diligently publish valuable content, there is a high possibility that people will see and interact with it. Through this, you can slowly start increasing your online visibility.

 

Establish community and brand loyalty

In relation to brand awareness, social media is also an effective tool to connect with a specific group of people or target audience. Producing content relevant or significant to a target audience allows them to connect and relate to your brand. As you nurture this relationship, you can build a loyal customer base that you can expect to support your brand and future endeavors.

 

Better customer service and satisfaction

The primary purpose of social media is to connect people faster and easier. Taking this into consideration, using social media for business allows entrepreneurs to communicate with their potential customers better. 

Businesses can provide customer service both publicly and privately. Public comments allow the spread of information faster. It can also be seen as a way to make customers feel recognized and valued. Aside from that, it creates a brand reputation of approachability and trustworthiness. 

On the other hand, businesses can also open their direct messages (DMs) to cater to specific customer inquiries. To keep customers satisfied, the ideal response time is within an hour or two. While it’s possible to personally handle the DMs of a startup or small business, this can be nearly impossible as you continue growing your business and reach.

To deal with this, businesses either outsource customer service teams to keep their direct customer service line open. The use of chatbot AIs is also becoming increasingly popular as it automates the process of customer support and service.

 

Want to know more about effective marketing strategies? Sidekicks is an on-demand virtual company and we’re eager to help visionaries and entrepreneurs like you. Get a free ebook and learn more about how we can help you by signing up for our newsletter. We also offer a free 30-minute consultation if you prefer something more personal.

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