Social media marketing, also known as SMM, is a branch of online marketing that primarily consists of creating and sharing various types of contents on the major social media networks. Most platforms allow virtually any type of content from simple text updates and announcements as well as images, audio and video clips and a variety of paid advertising.
There are many advantages to using this type of strategy, but some of the main ones are creating more awareness for your brand, as well as building trust and authority with your prospects and customers.
It also has the unique ability to really connect and engage with your market in ways that are not available on most other platforms because of the inherent social nature.
There are a variety of tools available to measure the extent of reach you have within the social networks, as well as the types of messages (sentiment) people are posting about your brand.
You can also engage with them directly in a public forum environment which gives visitors a chance to get to know your brand better and what it offers. Since most people tend to buy from those companies they know, like, and trust, this can be a powerful strategy. However, it does take a reasonable amount of time for creating, publishing and monitoring.
Many smaller companies may not have the resources or time to devote to these activities, so it may be best to consider hiring a professional agency that focuses primarily on those types of strategies. That way, you as the business owner, can focus on making more sales and adequately serving your new and current customers.
There are a large variety of options and numerous strategies that could be employed using social media. Therefore, it is important to devote a good amount of time to planning so that the right strategies on the correct platforms are implemented.
You first need to determine your goals. These can be things such as generating more engagement and awareness for your brand, creating a community or following, developing a convenient support channel for your customers, driving leads and sales, introducing and marketing new and upcoming products or services, and many others.
Determining the desired outcomes will help you create better strategies. It will also make it easier to determine the best platforms to use, since they all have distinct characteristics, as far as visitor types and which strategies work better.
There are a number of up-and-coming social media platforms that often cater to specific demographics. However, the most relevant ones to start with would be Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter, YouTube and Messenger.
It is recommended to choose just a few platforms where you can start to get some exposure and traction rather than attempting to become popular on all of them. Choosing the latter may dilute the effectiveness of your strategy, and you will most likely find some platforms that perform better than others.
Having fewer platforms to monitor and evaluate will allow you to tweak and refine your campaigns more easily for better results. It is better to have good results on a few platforms rather than mediocre results on all of them.
If you would like to discuss your company’s goals, and how these marketing techniques can help you reach your desired outcomes, please give us a call today. We would love to can learn more about your business and what you would like to achieve so we can make the best recommendations.
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