Social Media Marketing

Social Media Marketing

What is social media marketing (SMM)?

- SMM is about increasing website traffic, engagement, brand awareness and product awareness. Through platforms used as Social Media. 

Social Media provides several benefits to a business;

- We have traditional goals such as Increasing Website Traffic and new engagement goals such as likes, followers, shares

- We can create a more personalised experience and engagement with user

- A range of rich media types.

- And immediacy, for example, real time engagement.

Social Media helps us create a positive view of our brand, this will help create better conversion rates (better customers). It will help with Search Engine rankings. It is very cost effective to promote and even advertise. Is an instant top-funnel traffic generator.

So what channels are there in SMM?

Let’s look at the top platforms: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter. There are actually over 200 platforms, but for the most part, a business will use the top ones and maybe a specific platform if they have the right niche. Platforms also tend differently at different times.

Facebook is the biggest platform with over 2 billion users. There are demographics to drill down to see who these people are. For example, 88% of the users are on Mobile and 66% of monthly users are Daily users. We can also see 60+% are 60+ age and also 35% below age of 25, we can also see 53% Female, 47% Male. we can see demographics on country and locality.

The other benefit is it’s a rich media platform so we can have text and also video as well. Many brands have their own pages fully engaging with users directly.

So as a business you can create a page for your business, create content relevant to your audience, take advantage of user generated content like sharing user experiences of your business. And many more…

We can create schedules for our posts, we can create adverts, and run a campaign just like on Google. There are also Insights and drill down on the data.

Instagram owned by Facebook, average monthly usage 1 billion and 59% of the user base in 18-29 so here we see a specific demographic. Instagram is best used with Images and videos.

Best practices for Instagram;

- An interesting bio, a good profile picture, a link to your web page, use emojis 

- Use plenty of relevant #hashtags 

- Use both video and image content

- Follow relevant accounts for your industry

- Give a shout out to other influencers

- Regularly update your stories

- Run Contests

- Run Adverts to boost posts

Facebook/Instagram is a cost per click platform.

LinkedIn (a B-2-B platform)

Averages 260 million users, 57% Male, 38% are Millenials. This is a B2B platform, so it is most effective at generating business leads and connections. Content that works is blogs, industry news, tips and best practices, Jobs, etc.

So what do we do?

- Create an engaging profile  

- Create a company business page

- Optimise your company for searches

- Increase the number of followers with reciprocal follows

You can use rich media, images videos, slideshow presentation. Boost content for a fee or set ups Ad Campaign. or Sponsor Content relevant.

LinkedIn provides an Advert Dashboard like Google or Facebook with similar set up and metrics reporting. The only difference is the Demographic type of the Audience being a B2B platform. And like the others is a Cost Per Click system.

YouTube

The second largest platform on the Internet average a 2 Billion monthly users. This is a video sharing platform, with free and monetised videos and a streaming service. 70% of users watch video via a smartphone. Unlike FB and LinkedIn, YouTube is purely a video platform, with many brands and industries utilising the power of videos and video targeting.

But it is also a popular influencer platform.

- You can optimise your video like SEO

- You can create an upload schedule

- Organise videos in to playlists   

- You can provide translations for the video

- You can use advertising (skip able, non skip able, bumpers, display ads)

- Collaborations with other Influencers.

Twitter

Considered a micro blogging platform, with an average number of users of 300 million. 80% millennials and 70% uses use it as a news source.

Content that works on twitter is text, video, infographics and articles. Many industries and brands using the platform promoting news and specific content. creating engagement though sharing feeds and posts building followers.

- Use Twitter Ads (Promote tweets,accounts,trends)

- Use appropriate #hastags

- Use Tweetchat to find new connections (who might be interested in your services)

What Tools are there for Social Media Marketing

Hootsuite, Buffer, MeetEdgar, Buzzzum, Sproutsocial, IFTTT, Meltwater

These sites and tools can help you manage and schedule your content. These can be free or paid for on a monthly basis. They also provide metric to see where and who is engaging with you and your content. They can help find more content, schedule posts, analyse the campaigns. They have some useful feature like social listening for more interaction with your user base.

How to be good at Social Media Marketing

- Set up a social media marketing plan (align your goals and KPIs with the platforms)

- Create informative and sharable content

- Create relevant actionable content

- Keep content visual and appealing

- Be active and responsive to your users

- Measure your metrics for clicks and conversions