What is Social Media Marketing? What are Major Elements of it?

What is Social Media Marketing?

Social media marketing refers to the use of social networks to promote a certain product, skill or service. Social media marketing uses an assortment of different strategies, tactics and media types to promote a whole range of different things, from brands and businesses selling products to those who are hoping to promote a specific skill or service that they offer. While social media has, in previous years, been used for more personal reasons, it is slowly making its way up the marketing ladder and is looking to be one of the top types of marketing tools to use! 

The importance of social media marketing apps should not be undersold, and many brands and businesses are starting to learn how to take advantage of both the free and paid-for elements and marketing tools! From Instagram to Tiktok, the world of social media is constantly growing and changing, and with it, the definition of social media marketing and the different facets of this growing industry is also developing. One of the main reasons why social media has grown over the years is thanks to the different types of media and formats that each of the different social media networks offers. From video content to GIFS, the possibilities are endless and the different formats are always growing. 

What Are the Major Elements Of Social Media Marketing?

Decide Your Strategy

For this form of marketing to be an effective tool it is important that you come up with a strategy that outlines your projections and social media marketing goals. Every single post, interaction or giveaway needs to be centred around certain social media marketing objectives for your social media page or account. Whether you are hoping to gain a certain number of subscribers or followers or are hoping that the link from your social media page to your website increases traffic, having an outline and strategy is important. 

So why is this so important? Even though we may not know it, every single post, video or image that is released onto social media by a social media page has been thought through with the desired action being the end goal. When designing these different strategies, an important element to consider is timing and how long or how quickly a goal is achieved can tell you whether or not your strategy is working. These different dates by which certain goals should be achieved should be attainable and they should be thought through carefully. 

Be Careful Of Publishing Without Planning

A social media marketing plan should be thought through, and posts that are delivered with no forethought or clear direction can damage a marketing strategy. Social media marketing is like any type of marketing tool and each time that the public comes into contact with information or a type of media format, it should be thought out and deliberately done. Publishing work without planning the direction that it is meant to take and what it is meant to do is a sure way to lose followers and customers. 

Use Listening And Engagement Tools

One of the reasons why social media marketing has become such a vital marketing tool is die to the fact that it is one of the most engaging types of media to use. Being able to interact directly with your customer base ensures that you are able to form connections and are able to relate to your audience far better than you have before! 

To make full use out of this close interaction with your user base, it is recommended that social media pages use listening and engagement tools to better interact with their client base. There are many different kinds of tools and apps that are used across each of the different types of social media platforms to ensure that there is something for every brand or business to use. 

Social listening tools are used to monitor mentions and certain keywords or phrases across multiple social media platforms. These types of tools make sure that you are aware of what is happening within your industry and how your market is reacting to these changes. Engagement tools monitor how many people and who is engaging directly with your account, monitoring the various interactions between you and your community. Both of these tools are important to use and understand when developing and maintaining a social media marketing campaign. 

Check Your Analytics

Social media analytics involves the finding and compiling of meaningful information that can contribute to your social media marketing campaign. Having meaningful data that can help a brand or business better function and interact with their network is incredibly important and having a proper team of analytics experts and tools to make sense of the data found can make all the difference when it comes to social media campaigns. One of the first steps in creating a meaningful social media marketing strategy is to get information that can help one to understand and comprehend the analytical information found by these different tools. From here, this information can be used to spot different trends, understand the target audience, identify which features on the platform are the most well-received and much more! 

Do The Advertising Campaign For Your Website

Many companies use social media as a way to promote their website. Using social media to draw customers in and redirect them to a webpage is a good way to generate traffic and this tactic has been known to be very effective. Social media platforms are a way for you to interact with your audience and drive organic traffic to your website which results in sales. Advertising for your website through your social media is a fantastic way to grow your audience and increase revenue quickly. Whether you are using paid tactics or are looking to drive up sales through organic interactions, social media is a great way to implement and promote an advertising campaign for a brand or businesses website.  

How To Create Social Media Marketing Strategy?

Start By Knowing Your Target Audience

There are different types of social media marketing strategies that involve analysing and focusing on different elements. Identifying who your target audience is and what kinds of posts and elements that are best received on social media platforms within this specific group is a key element in creating a social media strategy. Who your audience is goes a long way in defining the type of information, graphics and platforms that should be used to draw in potential followers or customers and there is information that is necessary to make up this description. Your target audiences age, location, interests and even gender are important to highlight first and foremost before beginning to create a strategy. Knowing this information ensures that you are equipped with the relevant information to know how to draw in your audience. Getting information about your target audience is where social media analytics comes in and having a tool that is able to decipher trends and find out relevant information about your target audience will go a long way in improving your social media marketing strategy.  

Tell True Stories About Your Brand

What better way to form relationships and ties with your audience than to engage with them through telling stories about your brand? One sure-fire way to form a connection with your audience is to engage with them on a personal level, telling true stories about your brand and how you came to be. This not only creates a personal connection with customers but can also go a long way in maintaining how your final goals are impacting your strategy today. Whether you started out your business through working in your garage or had to put yourself through years of school while being a single mother, engaging your audience with true and inspiring stories will go a long way in ensuring you have a customer for life! When structuring your social media marketing campaign, do not be afraid to include a few different stories about who you are, how you came to be and what your goals are! Customers always appreciate a brand that is honest and open about why they are doing what they are doing and how they plan to achieve their lifelong goals. 

What Are The Channels For Social Media Marketing?

Twitter Marketing 

Twitter is a popular social media platform that can be used to promote a brand or business. Along with being a popular personal platform, there are many different companies and brands that are jumping on the bandwagon and creating Twitter accounts to promote a specific good or service! Twitter marketing can either be paid for or free, depending on the type of promoting one is planning to do. Using paid ads is a good way to grow an audience and drive traffic to your website, and even if a person does not follow your page or your social media marketing hashtags, they still come across your products or services. There are different paid media ads on Twitter ranging from promoted tweets to promoted trends, the prices increasing depending on what is being promoted. Twitter is slowly becoming one of the more favoured kinds of marketing tools and with the ability to reach thousands of potential customers at the drop of a hat, it’s not hard to see why!

Instagram Marketing 

Instagram marketing is the process of growing a brand or business through the social media app, Instagram. While Instagram was previously used with a focus mainly on images, it is now one of the top social media marketing platforms for all kinds of different media, from pictures to videos! One of the main reasons why Instagram is popular with brands and businesses looking to advertise their products or services is due to how interactive this social media app is. Through the use of elements like stories and polls, brands and businesses are able to directly interact with their target audience and find out what exactly this audience is hoping to see from their page.  Many enjoy using this channel as a kind of social media marketing blog where brands and businesses can actively interact with their user base to find out more about them, their wants, and their needs. These target posts are both engaging and they help to determine what an audience is looking for and who they are, ensuring that this social media channel is a good marketing platform.

Facebook Marketing 

One of the most effective platforms to use thanks to the wide range of users, is Facebook! One of the first kinds of social media, it’s safe to say that this platform is a pioneer when it comes to social media and marketing. This platform is popular for both paid and organic targeted campaigns, offering high success rates when it comes to engaging user audiences and getting more traffic. One of the reasons why Facebook is the more preferred social media marketing app is due to the fact that it has a massive number of users, with over 2 billion visits to the app every month! These users are from all over the globe, inspiring ties between people from different countries and allowing for the sharing of resources and information. With global reach and many different formats, Facebook is becoming one of the top marketing tools to use and its social media marketing effectiveness has been the reason why many brands and businesses have grown and developed quickly within today’s market. 

Linkedin Marketing 

Linkedin is a top tool that is specifically used to promote job offers, make important connections and interact with a customer base in a professional way. It is becoming increasingly more important for businesses to have a LinkedIn account and promote their brand and business from here. Linkedin marketing involves using this business platform to promote your company in a way that leads to higher sales and more organic traffic to a web page! this is done through promoting the company organically and through paid advertisements. Both of these types of advertisements are an effective way for marketing to be done and they can lead to growth in client base and a growth in sales! Things like social media marketing podcasts and social media marketing articles are popular types of data and information that is shared on this platform, but the options are limitless in what you can do and how you can portray yourself or your brand. 

Reddit Marketing

While Reddit may not be one of the most popular kinds of marketing apps, it is still an effective resource to use to drive traffic to your web page. For those who are looking at cultivating relationships with their user base while sharing inspiring stories about who they are and why they are in the business they are in, Reddit may be the perfect social media channel to engage on. Though Reddit is also used for more traditional forms of marketing such as paid and organic marketing, it is most well-known as being a platform that cultivates existing relationships and allows for a space where both a brand and its customer base are able to interact with one another. 

YouTube Marketing 

For brands and businesses that are hoping to use video content, where better to promote your company than on the top video content platform, YouTube! YouTube has an extensive database of users and whether you are generating growth organically on your own YouTube account or are paying for advertisements, this platform is a brilliant way to gain followers and increase your sales. YouTube marketing focuses on video content which is known to be one of the most interactive forms of social media, inspiring relationships and cultivating your client base faster than other forms of social media content. YouTube marketing is a brilliant way to gain new clients as well as provide content that keeps existing clients wanting more! 

Tiktok marketing

New to the world of marketing is the social media channel called Tiktok! The content that comes from Tiktok has been on the rise and it is slowly becoming a more favoured platform to use for marketing campaigns. With over 800 million monthly active viewers and users, this platform provides a fun and easy way to reach a wider audience. Like YouTube, Tiktok focuses on video content that can either be produced for organic reasons and shared on an account or one can purchase an advertisement space where the video will be shared and viewed by many different people across a wide variety of accounts. Both forms of advertising offer a good way to reach and interact with your customer base, but for those brands and businesses who are hoping to grow their presence, paid advertisement ensures that you reach many new potential customers or subscribers. 

What Are The Benefits Of Social Media Marketing?

The benefits of social media marketing are increasing every day as social media becomes the more preferred way of communicating and interacting with clients. Social media marketing offers brands and businesses the opportunity to interact either organically or through paid advertisement with a larger client base! The following are just a few of the main benefits that one gets out of actively campaigning and partaking in social media marketing. 

• Social media creates a community: As someone likes your brand’s post or joins your Facebook group, they are immediately placed in a group with similarly minded people who enjoy interacting within a certain space. Social media fosters development and interaction between people of a certain community and allows not only interaction between you and them, but they are also able to form relationships with one another. Being at the centre of a new fostered community that is grown around your own business and goals can go a long way in creating a group of clients who are aligned with your goals and want to see you achieve them. Virtual communities have become such an important part of our lives and being able to interact on social media platforms has become a new form of social interaction! 

• An increase in sales: It has been proven that brands and businesses that have social media accounts and create good social media campaigns and plans will have an increase in sales. Both organically driven and paid for advertisements lead to a growth in access to websites and web pages and there are many different places where potential clients or customers are able to find these pages. This growth in client base and an increase in sales is becoming more and more important as the competition grows and good SERP results are no longer all you need to drive traffic to a web page. 

• Better customer service: Social media apps create a space where clients and brand owners are able to interact and communicate quickly and easily. Having the chance to answer questions immediately and follow up with queries as they come through ensures that customers will remain happy. Better customer service goes a long way in ensuring that customers will remain active participants on social media platforms and continue to purchase your products and services from your website. Having social media accounts that are actively interacting with clients and making sure that customers are happy goes a long way in solidifying relationships and cultivating a long term customer base. Better customer service is therefore an extremely important benefit of social media marketing. 

Why is Social Media Marketing Important?

As social media becomes a more prominent fixture in our world today, it is becoming increasingly more important that brands and businesses join the world of social media marketing. The social media marketing business is growing and changing every day, with new additions to current platforms and other new and exciting channels coming out all the time. One of the most important social media marketing tips to remember is that one needs to keep up with these changes in order to stay relevant within today’s age. Social media marketing is important because it allows for one to become connected to their target audience and interact on a more personal level. 

Older forms of marketing are situated around the idea that a brand or business will tell you what they offer and leave it up to you to decide whether or not that product or service is worth the cost. Today, this form of marketing can lead to a decrease in sales and customers as there is so much choice and so many different products and services from many different brands. It is becoming more important than ever that one interacts with their clients and understands not only what they want but why they want it, and this form of marketing is done effectively over social media channels! 

What Are The Best Social Media Marketing Tools?

SocialPilot

When it comes to social media marketing tools, SocialPilot is one of the best in the business for brands and businesses who are looking to automate their social media marketing. From scheduling when posts should be published to analytics reports that detail the progress you are making and where you could improve on, this tool is a must-have when it comes social media marketing! This tool works across a number of different social media platforms and is always evolving and developing how they function to match the changes and improvements that individual social media platforms make. 

Buffer

Buffer is a social media marketing tool that is able to schedule posts across an assortment of platforms, analyse performance and display these measurements in an easy to read and analyse graph! Buffer is an exceptional tool that offers users the chance to explore how they can improve on their social media tactics and campaigns to increase revenue and organic sales! 

Hootsuite

Hootsuite is a great social media management tool that offers a large amount of support to brands and businesses who are hoping to grow their social media platforms. For brands and businesses who are looking for social media marketing ideas, Hootsuite offers a look into a wide range of different resources and also offers classes so you can understand and better your abilities when it comes to using social media platforms. The social media marketing training can go a long way to ensure you stay ahead of the competition and so this tool is a very valuable addition! 

Sprout Social

Sprout Social is a tool that is all about gaining insight into your target audience and looking for social media marketing trends that could impact how your target audience interacts with your content. This tool uses social media marketing statistics to gain better insight into what your audience is looking for and how your brand can reach these goals. 

Agorapulse

Agorapulse is another amazing social media marketing tool that can be used to manage your social media marketing. With reporting, monitoring and publishing tools, it’s easy to see why this tool is favoured among social media managers. Along with the above tools, Agorapulse has a uniquely designed team collaboration tool that allows members across a team to be involved in the process! With Agropulse behind you, you can be sure that you will be a social media marketing expert in no time at all! 

Tailwind

When it comes to social media marketing tools that are focused on design, Tailwind is the best of the best. This tool has a ton of ready-made designs that can be implemented on any photo or poster that you have designed and be ready in seconds! This handy creation tool can be resized and redesigned to add a bit of a unique flair to any social media post. You do not have to have social media marketing skills or a background in design to use this app and the automated designs ensure that anyone is able to easily use and create with this tool. 

CoSchedule

For one of the best social media marketing organisation tools, CoSchedule allows for users to manage and organise their social media, across multiple platforms and channels, from anywhere in the world! With a social media marketing guide that helps you to manage and organise your social media platforms, you are able to focus on the important task of making sure your content is absolutely perfect! 

Simpliers Lottery Tool

One of the most popular ways to gain attention on social media is through having a competition! Many brands and businesses partner up and have a giveaway that can lead to a large increase in the number of followers on a page. To decide on a winner and to make sure there is no favouritism in the choice, an app like the Simpliers Lottery Tool is the perfect tool to use. 

How Should You Choose Social Media Marketing Tools?

Choosing the correct social media marketing tools is very important as these tools are what help you reach your goals when it comes to increasing revenue and organic traffic. When considering which tools to use, it is important to analyse what your goals are, both in the short term and in the long term. When choosing a marketing tool it is important that a brand or business keep up to date with the latest social media marketing news

Why is content production on social media important?

Content production is extremely important as this is what your client and user base interacts directly with. It is therefore very important that this content be aligned with certain goals and with a certain perspective. For the best content that is not only enjoyable for the reader, but that also contributes to the SEO of your webpage, you may want to consider aligning with a professional team to take control of the content and help your vision come to life. Here at Markethinkers, our  SEO copywriting has an extensive social media marketing portfolio that aligns with helping each of our clients achieve both their short and long term goals. Our team of SEO and social media marketing specialists are on hand and able to help any time!