The nuts and bolts of Social Media Marketing

Today we live in what is called the ‘Social era’ which is a very significant phase of the information age. The social era came into emergence post the dip in the interest of the dotcom bust in 2004. Coincidentally the social media giant Facebook was founded in the same year which, at that time, didn’t have much to do with the social era’s emergence.

But today, social media has considerably overthrown the dominance of search engines in effectively marketing the businesses and large companies. Social Media Marketing has caught up with over 60% of the business community and is being witnessed as the go-to tool for getting their businesses to their customers.

What is SMM’s significance for businesses?

Social Media Marketing, as the name suggests, involves the process and strategies used in social media platforms to market a business or its products/services. The strategies include driving relevant content, running ad campaigns, conducting events, polls, etc. to gain visibility.

The explosive growth of social media usage has paved the way for businesses to reach the hands of potential customers in a more social way. Apart from marketing, social media allows them to engage and interact with customers before making it a tool. Multiple studies and stats suggest that social media is more influential in gaining traffic to one’s website than conventional marketing methods.

Nuts and bolts of Social Media Marketing

Businesses considering to explore Social media marketing need to be familiar with some nuts and bolts of SMM to harness the full potential of social media. And they are

Define yourselves

Defining the core aspects of your business and your image to project in social media is the first step in SMM. Answer the following questions to get a clear cut idea of how you are going to define yourselves

1. Who are you?

2. Who is your target audience?

3. How are you going to project yourself on social media?

4. What are the platforms that you are going to use to market your business?

5. Are these platforms relevant to your business marketing?

Answer these questions by yourself and evaluate them. If you think the answers are right on point, then go ahead and showcase yourself to the digital world.

Clear SMM strategy

Once you have answered the above questions, you need to draft a clear marketing strategy for social media. If you have little exposure to SMM, assess the SMM strategies of your competitors and allied businesses in your industry to get a hold of how this works for your business.

Then build a marketing strategy that includes

· What are you going to post in the accounts?

· Deciding on the content to be driven

· Aligning your content with your business objectives

· Posting frequently in each social media handle

· Your short term and long term plan to gain followers

· Gauging your social media success based on the metrics

And anything that’s relevant to your business.

Getting the help of an expert social media agency will help you design an apt social media strategy for your business in line with your business objectives.

Building trust

Even before the days of social media, businesses believed that building trust for a brand is the key to keeping their customers happy. Today, the power of social media enables you to build trust and goodwill amongst your customers with higher visibility. You can build trust by

· Engaging with your customers in an interesting manner

· Make them feel more valued with personalization

· Build campaigns that encourage your customers to participate in your social media events

· Encourage customer reviews and address their issues

· Own your responsibilities and makeup to it

Social relevance

Social media addresses and brings out the most recent and sometimes the most informal events as news to its users. That’s one of the reasons why it’s a big hit. In order to stay in the limelight, brands need to be relevant by posting about the latest happenings and hot news to their target audience. Besides that, brands need to adopt agility in capturing the trending instances and fusing them with the social media campaigns for improved visibility amongst your target audience.

Content is still the key

Content is still the King for effective SMM execution. Brands need to remember that social media is only a medium to promote content and it cannot singlehandedly bring success. A perfect content strategy with agility and relevance that suits your target audience and that allies with your business objectives will bring in the desired outcomes.

RankStrikers is a pioneering digital marketing agency that excels in drafting the best in class social media and content marketing strategies for its clients. Partner with us at +020 3287 5761 or email us at info@rankstrikers.com for building interesting and engaging social media marketing strategies to improve your business visibility and increase your reach