Social Media Marketing (SMM)

What Is Social Media Marketing (SMM)

The term social media marketing (SMM) refers to the use of?social media?and?social networks?to market a company’s products and services. Social media?marketing?provides companies with a way to engage with existing customers and reach new ones while allowing them to promote their desired culture, mission, or tone. Social media marketing has purpose-built?data analytics tools that allow marketers to track the success of their efforts.

How Social Media Marketing (SMM) Works

Social media has changed the way we function as a society, including the way we connect with one another. As platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram took off,?businesses?also took notice. They began to use these sites to further their interests through social media marketing. That's because these sites are able to change consumer behavior. Social media websites allow marketers to employ a broad range of tactics and strategies to promote content and have people engage with it. Many social networks allow users to provide detailed geographical,?demographic, and personal information, which enables marketers to tailor their messages to what is most likely to resonate with?users.

According to Buffer, there are five key pillars of social media marketing:

• Strategy:?This step involves determining goals, the social media channels to be used, and the type of content that will be shared.
• Planning and Publishing:?Businesses should draft plans of what their content will look like (i.e. will there be videos? Photos? How much script?) and decide when it will be put out on the platform.
• Listening and Engagement:?Monitoring what users, customers, and others are saying?about the posts, brands, and any other business assets. This may require the adoption of a social media engagement tool.
• Analytics and Reporting:?Part of being on social media is knowing how far posts are going, so reports of engagement and reach are very important
• Advertising:?Purchasing ads on social media is a great way to promote and further develop a brand.

Because audiences can be better segmented than more traditional marketing channels, companies can ensure they focus their resources on the audience that they want to target using social media marketing. Some of the metrics used to measure the success of social media marketing (which is also known as?digital marketing?and e-marketing) include:

• Website reports, such as Google Analytics
• Return on investment (ROI)
• Customer response rates or the number of times customers post about a company
• A campaign's reach and/or virality or how much customers share content

Social Media Usage Statistics 2022

Over the recent years, the growth of social media has made it clear that these modern communication platforms should be part of any brand's primary marketing channels. As we look ahead to 2022, let's dive into how social media usage has changed since the previous years. Keep these social media statistics in mind as you create your social media plan this year!

• More than?half?of the world's population uses social media now.
• Around the world, there are 4.88 billion internet users now, which equates to almost 62% of the world's population.
• Over the past 12 months, the number of active social media users increased by more than 400 million, an addition of 9.9% for the total number to reach 4.55 billion.
• More than two-thirds of the world's population have access to mobile devices contributing to 5.29 billion unique mobile users.
• TikTok passed the 1 billion monthly active user mark at the end of September 2021. This makes the platform seventh on the list to join the exclusive billion-user club of social media platforms.
• The average daily usage of social media is 2 hours and 27 minutes.
• 6 out of every 10 people?on the planet have a social network account.
• 85% of marketers?rate short-form videos as the most effective type of social media content.
• Almost?45% of internet users?research products on social media.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Social Media Marketing (SMM)

Advantages of Social Media Marketing

• Social networks are the soul of every marketing strategy, about 92% of the online businesses gets the results through social media platforms which are enriching very fast.?The benefits of?social media marketing?for business is really great, if someone is not using this phenomenal strategy then he/she is loosing the ways to make opportunities.

Here are some advantages of social media marketing in Business-

To increase Brand awareness:?The best way to create cost-efficient digital marketing is to syndicate your content and increase its business visibility.

• More traffic:?Business without marketing is nothing, so start social media marketing and reach a wider audience than usual customers, who hit your ranked keyword again and again.
• More usage of Infographics: The more creatively your post has been made either it is image post, carousel, slide show, and branding video in a better way it grabs customers’ attention.
• Improvement in?search engine ranking:?Regular posting on social media might get some increased numbers of visitors, which may help to get some significant success. SEO is very important for achieving a ranking in top pages and obtain customers for the business.
• Higher conversion rates:?As the website is more visible to the audiences, now the business gets the opportunity and turn into a conversion. When the brand keeps on engaging the customers by responding to them, it personifies them in a better way and hence this increases the number of sales.
• Better customer satisfaction:?Social media is networking and communicating platform virtually. Customers love the response from the company side rather than an automated message. When you interact with the customer on one to one basis, brands prove to be more loyal.

Disadvantages of using Social Media Marketing

Whilst Social Media Marketing is a great tool to use, there are a number of risks with it. Although it is a great way to reach a considerable audience and receive engagement, it needs to be used correctly. For this to be done, enough?research?should be carried out in order to determine the correct target audience. This can be achieved by studying demographics and with the use of social media analytics tools.

Moreover, specific platforms need to be used to attract different audiences because everyone uses different platforms. For example, millennials have shorter?attention spans, meaning they like shorter, to-the-point content. Therefore, platforms that have stories like Instagram and TikTok may be appropriate to use to capture the attention of these individuals. By understanding the importance of using specific platforms for different audiences, this will attract more relevant potential customers, resulting in more engagement.

Dealing with negative feedback:

One of the most important things to remember with Social Media Marketing is that not all feedback will be positive. As the engagement spreads instantaneously and rapidly, it will be impossible to keep track of and control any feedback that can give a negative reputation. Once a negative review is visible, it stays visible to all customers.

For example, when?Netflix?announced that they were changing their pricing structure, customers were not happy. 82,000 negative comments surfaced on Facebook and Twitter.

This, causing the company to lose 800,000 customers and two-thirds of its market value. This shows how vulnerable businesses can be once one negative review is posted and then shared by others.

Management of social media efforts:

Additionally, it is important that the social media efforts carried out are?managed well?as it involves two-way communication. A consistent amount of content should be produced to keep customers interested and to see what they like, as well as regular interaction with them. Having a lack of engagement could detract potential customers from wanting to engage in conversation with a company and ultimately, poor service overall can lead to customers’ word of mouth negatively impacting their reputation.

For the last not the least, although Social Media Marketing is advantageous, it requires high maintenance. For Social Media Marketing to be used effectively, ensure enough research is carried out to understand your target audience and what they want. More importantly, remember that not all feedback will be positive so it is essential that the consequences are managed professionally, and finally, having consistent engagement with potential customers is a must.??