At this time, there are nearly 2 billion people that actively use social media every day. That is 25 percent of the entire world population, give or take a few million. Imagine being able to market your product or service and have the potential to reach one out of four people in the world.
Social media has become that large. You have the potential to reach a quarter of the entire world population through one platform. When you add in the fact that there are several platforms that are widely used for social media, the reach of your marketing campaign for these sites is phenomenal.
Steps to take for a Successful Social Media Marketing Campaign
With so much potential for success, many people want to jump right into marketing on all social media platforms. They start investing time and money into their marketing campaigns and then feel disappointed when the ROI is not as high as they anticipated. To avoid this disappointment, you are encouraged to use the following steps for a successful social media marketing campaign.
1- Choose Your Platforms
There are too many social media platforms to promote your product on all of them at once. Pick two or three that you believe will give your company the best chance to interact with clients and potential customers. Once you have selected these, they will be your only focus for social media marketing.
By focusing your time and money on social media marketing on a limited number of platforms, you will see the best results for your investment.
2- Plan Your Strategy
You have to be consistent with your postings to social media so that you can gain a following. It will take a little testing to see when the best possible times are to make your posts. It is probably wise to sit and create posts once a week and load them into a program that uploads the posts to your social media accounts on a set schedule.
Planning out your content ahead of time also helps you keep your posts on track instead of just putting random things out there whenever you remember to post. Customers like consistency.
3- Listen and Engage
making posts to your social media is more than just putting up a post and hoping that someone will be inspired to make a purchase or share it with another person. It is about giving your clients a chance to engage with your brand. They will comment on posts, ask questions, or just strike up a conversation. You need to be ready to interact and engage your clients so that they build a relationship with your brand and services.
4- Monitor The Analytics
You need to monitor the data from your posts to see how people are responding. Ultimately you want to see that your posts are being shared – that’s marketing gold. However, any interaction is good news. You need to watch times, types of posts, and target audiences to see which are getting the best responses so that you can improve each new listing to drive the most traffic to your social media page or website.
5- Consider Additional Marketing Strategies
As your marketing system for social media starts to perform well, it will be time to consider some of the social media site’s advertising systems. You can pay to have your posts pushed to a targeted audience that may not have been reached using your other marketing methods, or you can contact a social media influencer to promote your product. There are many options, and just like your original marketing strategy, you will have to try them to see which is most effective.
6- Monitor Trends
Trends change quickly on social media. You will need to make sure that you “stay in the loop” of what is trending on social media sites and what people are looking for in content. It will also be very beneficial if you keep up on the changes that the site may have to its content.
Social media sites often change their requirements for posts on their site so that they can keep the new posts fresh and interesting. These changes may not prohibit you from posting your current content scheme. Still, they may prevent you from getting the visibility that you desire because you are not meeting site recommendations.
The Important Things To Remember About Social Media Marketing
No one could have ever anticipated the popularity and exponential growth of social media sites. Social media has gained more users in a shorter period of time than any other industry in the world. In fact, social media gained more users faster than the Internet itself when it first became available to the public.
Because social media is ever-growing and ever-changing, your marketing campaign cannot get stale. Things that work this year may not work next year. Things that worked this month may not work next month. Things that did not work in the past may now be perfect for today’s trends. Your marketing strategies must be evolving just like the sites.
Your social media marketing campaigns will require a lot of dedication to make them work. Consumers look to social media to make a connection with products and services that they are interested in buying. They want to feel like an important customer to your business. They want that small-town shopping feels on the world wide web.
If your business does not allow you the time to dedicate to your social media marketing campaign, it may be in your best interest to have a professional manage this task. Your business cannot afford to not have a social media presence. However, your business really cannot afford to have a poor social media presence. If you are going to market on social media, you need to make it worth your time as well as the end consumers’ time.
Marketing on social media, when done right, can significantly improve your brand recognition and drive people to your site or business, where you can convert them to customers.
