Everything You Need To Know About Social Media Marketing

So, you're scrolling through your Instagram and reached a company's profile. This company did not just focus on advertising their products but made sure that their contents are aesthetically pleasing. By using innovative ideas to enhance the use of various features like putting up a story ad, reels and IGTV, they have increased their engagement rate with the audience. While browsing on their account, you witnessed, they have introduced their hashtag which compels people to post their product and get featured. Also, they are genuinely supporting sustainable development to show social relevance while promoting their product. 

Now, you must be wondering, why does a company need to invest their time and money to establish an efficient social media marketing campaign? Let us consider this, on an average an individual is spending 142 minutes per day being active on social media networking sites and messaging apps. It gives you the golden opportunity to increase your exposure and reach out to your target audience in such platforms.

We have explored five advantages of using social media to advertise your products and a step-by-step guide to formulate an effective social media marketing campaign. 

• Advantages Of Social Media Advertisements

Although there is an ample number of reasons for you to promote your product via social media networks but let's dive into the five most beneficial ones for your company in today's world.

1. Improves Brand Awareness

Every business knows the importance of social media, as it is a crucial factor in creating brand awareness. By posting advertisements in your profile, you will not only engage the existing customers but also stand a chance to drive in three times more traffic. The concept of likes, shares, comments and stories, makes the platform an exciting arena to pique your audience's interest and compel them to transform into a buyer. With every content that has been shared, your brand gets introduced to a vast network of individuals. Thereby allowing you to connect with people outside the cycle of your loyal customers. It increases the exposure of your brand by 91%, as most marketers have claimed. 

2. Builds Relationship With Customers

By expressing the intent of your brand while interacting with your social media followers, you will be successful in forging long term relationships between them and your company. You may respond to them on your posts, feature them in your account, have weekly Q/A series and try to include them in the community of your brand. Further, create surveys, polls or ask them to review your products and assist them with their problems. Provide discounts, offers or even giveaways to show them that you appreciate their effort and support. It will allow you to humanise your brand, ultimately leading to a point where the loyal customers tell their friends and family about you.

3. Boosts Conversion Rates

Social media advertisements provide a 100% higher lead-to-close rate because of its ability to be interactive. By looking into the conversion rates, you gain insight into what is working for your social profile. Since you have the opportunity to filter down to the most appropriate audience, you post relevant contents in hopes of turning them into a buyer. Allow them to have an exciting and engaging experience with your brand because people would much rather do business with people, not a company. So, don't be sceptical of posting live video contents, organising a contest, or manifesting your brand's product in an innovative ad. Create an authentic buzz around your company via appropriate advertisements and skyrocket your conversion rates.

4. Provides Valuable Customer Insights

Tell me any other effective method that would help you to gain actual insight on the preferences and needs of the consumers other than social media? You may use it as a research tool to gain additional information about your industry. By directly interacting with your consumers, you will know what kinds of advertisements should be relevant for them, their expectations and reactions, their problems and how you may assist them and even exploit their reviews for product optimisation. Another insightful element would be the theme-based segmentation which caters to the ability to produce contents with the most impacts. You will get multiple opportunities to analyse your data throughout the journey, make sure to suit your company's offer with the trend. 

5. Cost Effectiveness

Social media advertising allows you to reduce much of the investments while extracting prime benefits from the contents. An essential part is to invest your time to create exciting and innovative advertisements for your product and show effort to appreciate your customers. Almost 84% of the marketers spend at least six hours on their social profile to increase their traffic rate. We know that signing into a social media site is free but what you should cherish is the fact that even paid ads on such platforms are cost-effective. So even if you have a minimum budget, you can still pin your faith on your social reach and refine your strategies to meet the demands. 

•  How To Create A Social Media Marketing Campaign

• DEFINE YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE
• CHOOSE THE APPROPRIATE PLATFORM
• CREATE ENGAGING CONTENT
• ANALYSE YOUR IMPACT

Let's explore these steps in detail to employ an efficient social media marketing campaign for your company. 

1. Define Your Target Audience

A target audience is a group of people who are likely to buy your products because they fit in the demographic and geographic profile. You must ensure that you are utilising your time and money for these specific people to gain the most out of your advertisements. Create the buyer's persona and analyse the needs of your audience. Individuals must relate to your contents, understand the motives of your company and know why your products fit as their solution; only then will you be able to convert them into leads. You have a better chance in appealing to your target audience when you personalise your messages and conversate in their tone. Just for a heads up, marketers witnessed a 20% increase in sales when they personalise contents as per the preferences of the audience. 

2. Choose The Appropriate Platform

While marketing on social media, you need to estimate on which channel you should post contents based on the availability of your target audience. To be ahead of the curve, your company must determine the needs of the audience and know on which platform are they active. 

Do consider this brief overview of the major social media platforms which will aid you in locating the potential audience. 

• Facebook

People use Facebook to reconnect with their friends and family and forge a relationship. It is an excellent platform if you are trying to keep in touch with your dedicated customers who fall into the group of Generation X and millennials. 

• Instagram

This platform shows confidence among millennials and generation Z. To reach them, you need to acquire an in-depth knowledge of what they care about while keeping it natural. For instance, try aligning your advertisement contents with social values because the audience is growing more conscious.

• YouTube

The fundamental rule on YouTube should be to educate while entertaining your audience. It attracts users of all age because the demand for video content is on a spike, especially the "how-to" videos. 

• Twitter

Leverage the power of Twitter to build brand awareness. Since it provides current updates to the audience, you can post details or reports about an event of the company. The approach should be in the sectors of public relations and customer service. 

3. Create Engaging Content

"Show, don't tell."

You must unleash the creativity for your brand while making the content relevant for your audience. Try to display your information via infographics, charts, graphs, pictures and videos. People tend to remember visual content 65% more than the generic text. Keep track of what your competitors are posting and then consider how effectively you can promote your brand. Most people are attracted to user-generated contents with catchy captions, so don't lose this opportunity. Allow your loyal customers to interact with you and share their testimonials and reviews on your profile. 

4. Analyse Your Impact

You will strike a balance if you curate content that has a meaning and is relevant for you and your customer. However, your primary motive is not just to create a hype for your product but also generate leads transforming into customers. Your hard work and persistence efforts must bear value to your products and its engagement rate. Social media metrics serve to give an estimate of the success of your social profile and its influence on the audience. Here are the five social media metrics you should keep track of:

• Followers - The number of people following your account who expects high-quality contents. 

• Views - You must analyse the number of views your video content receives on the different social media platform. Then, use this insight to optimise your content.

• Shares - If your posts struck a chord with your consumers, they are most likely to share it within their network. It increases your exposure. 

• Engagement - This displays information on how many likes, shares, comments you are getting on your social media post. 

• Impression - People who scrolled past your feed without engaging with it. 

Now, you can exploit these metrics to improve your overall connection by knowing what is creating the most impact. It would ultimately aid in increasing your leads and boosts in conversion. 

• What's Next?

You have understood the benefits of social media advertising and the tactics to curate an effective social media marketing campaign. By now, it must be clear why most businesses in every niche are opting to promote their brand in such platforms. It might seem daunting to understand the course of action, but when you work with an agency like Haarway, you can continue to prosper without being overwhelmed. Your social media strategy and conversion rates will rest in the hands of experienced experts who will assist you with everything from scratch at an affordable rate.