How To Get Started With Social Media Marketing

I think everyone should be aware of how big the social media is. You can connect with millions of people on social media, people you have met before, people you have not even meet and even people you will never meet in person, that’s how powerful social media is.

Facebook, the largest social media platform now has over 2 billion active users as at Q2 of 2017, that’s over 10 times the population of my country and it also surpasses the total population in China which is the most populous country. It is also generating 1.3 billion daily active users which means you have the opportunity to interact with 1.3 billion people daily just on facebook.

LinkedIn which is a platform mainly for professionals now has over 500 million active users, this platform has proved to be more productive for b2b marketers over the years. 

Twitter, on the other hand has really grown faster than anyone predicted, the microblogging platform now boasts of 328 million active monthly users. It took me a long time to discover how powerful this platform is.

Instagram now has 600 million monthly active users. It is projected that by 2018, the network will have 106 million plus users in the U.S. alone.

If you have not been using social media marketing as part of your marketing strategy I think you have to rethink and adapt it into your marketing strategy.

The strategy for each social media platform is quite similar, so in this post, I will be talking about how you can get the best from your social media marketing campaigns in general.

Before we get started, we should look out for some definitions of social media marketing. Hootsuite nailed it with their definition, “ social media marketing is the use of social media by marketers to increase brand awareness, identify key audiences, generate leads, and build meaningful relationships with customers”.

The most important thing you should hold on to in that definition is “build meaningful relationship” because that is the goal of social media itself. Social media is meant for interaction and if you are going to succeed in social media marketing you shouldn’t drift far from the goal of social media itself. You build relationships with people so that they can trust you and do business with you, that is the goal.

For you to be successful in social media marketing, the first you have to do is to identify your potential customers, you have to do this so as to save yourself some stress of advertising to the wrong people, because if you have a business that sells men’s suit and most people that follow you on social media are female I doubt if you will ever make a sale.

After identifying who your target audience is then you have to build a relationship with them, anyone that follow you on social media definitely wants to hear from you and so you don't have to disappoint them. It is important you communicate with your audience on regular basis.

You have to understand what works best on each social media platform.What is driving engagement for you on Facebook might definitely not work on Twitter or Instagram. Instagram is mainly for visuals as people do not interact with text on the platform. Twitter allows to hit the nail with just 140 words, Facebook gives you a better chance of expressing yourself, but that doesn't mean you should get your audience bored with long posts.

What next? It is left to you to convince them to become your customer, that is the goal of every marketer. After building a sustainable relationship and trust with your audience then you have to tell them about your products and services, use some specific call to actions to drive them your website.

Extra Tip: Also look at your competitors. Follow your competitors online and see what works for them, and maybe it will work for you too. Don’t copy their ideas or content, but do find inspiration for your own content.

CONCLUSION

In social media marketing and generally all marketing strategy, you have to discover what works best for you. You do not overload yourself with thousands of social media websites, just stick with what is working for you. Use your Social Media to build relationships and trust with your audience.