WHAT IS SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING?
Anyone who’s ever been on the internet will most probably have an idea of what social media platforms do. The internet and the rise of social media have become ingrained in our modern culture. It has found itself as a part of a marketer’s tool due to its global popularity in both young and old. There are currently 2.31 billion people around the world who are active social media users and 1.97 billion who are active mobile social media users. With this growing popularity, social media surely won’t need to be introduced anymore.
Aside from the social media platforms that we are most familiar with like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, marketers should also branch out and seek out other platforms that are on the internet. There are so many opportunities to explore and try different platforms to reach the target audience, converse with them and maybe even build a lasting relationship with your buyers.
Social media marketing can be done organically or through the help of paid advertising.
When done organically, the posts displayed to your audiences are based on algorithms while paid advertisements displays are shown to the audiences by boosting the posts by a platform’s ad capabilities, this way it could reach more of your target audience.
WHY IS SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING IMPORTANT?
The growth of social media has affected the way buyers purchase products vastly. As a marketer, you will need to keep abreast of the trends to participate and engage in a meaningful way to increase customer loyalty and brand retention. And eventually, transform that relationship to an increase in revenue.
Discussing and sharing views on various topics have also been a significant part of being on social media. The convenience and ease of use of social media platforms to express opinions and ideas had paved the way for more buyers to express their thoughts about you on the internet. And with over 76% of adults who have one or more social media platforms according to Pew Research, active involvement in your audience’s conversation has become a requirement.
INCREASE BRAND AWARENESS AND INCLINATION
Social media greatly influences buyers on which products and services to purchase. Aside from seeking out brands that they already like to communicate and obtain excellent customer service, they will also look up products from other brands on social media. As a marketer, you should be able to utilize this pattern. Social media platforms offer the opportunity to drive recognition and develop awareness to a broad audience.
A good way to drive brand awareness is through influencers. They could be popular bloggers and social media personalities. Along with the rise of social media, these “social celebrities” have taken over the traditional marketing done by your PR team. They have become synonymous with the internet culture and are very popular with a huge chunk of people on social media platforms. Connecting and identifying with these online personalities will help you reach your target audience and maybe even consumers who follow them that are not yet familiar with your brand.
By engaging with these influencers along with creating content and building campaigns that encourage conversation between you and your buyers, you will be able to increase brand awareness and loyalty.
A BOOST IN DEMAND
Social media is more than just a tool to increase awareness of your brand. Aside from posting new content, it’s also a good way to gather information about customers and new marketable contacts. Social listening is also conducive to develop offers, promotions, and contests that will drive people to buy a product or a service. All of this could be done by actively communicating on your brand’s social media page.
Social Selling
Social selling is defined as a way for salespeople to interact directly with potential buyers through social media. Your social media marketing team can directly reach out and talk to people on a 1 to 1 level. They can inform them about your product or service and offer special deals.
SEO AND ITS BENEFITS
Getting visitors to visit your website is the first step in making a sale. It is a place where marketers can engage and eventually convert visitors. But how to do you draw these visitors into your website? Simple; you just have to rank higher in organic search results. Have you ever heard of SEO before? SEO stands for search engine optimisation; it is a method that marketers do to help boost the organic search rankings on popular search engines like Google. This is important because people who use search engines usually only click on the results showed only on the first page. So it’s critical for your company’s website to be in the top results. But how does it work? Search engines look at the keywords on websites and then determines how relevant your content is based on the number of backlinks it has. The more backlinks it has, the more relevant the content is around your pool of keywords. These backlinks can come from a number of activities that marketers can do on social media by creating relevant content that your followers that they will share and link back to their site.
OMNI-CHANNEL ACTIVITIES
Social media works in an open manner and an enclosed form. It a medium used by many reputable brands because is a vital component of marketing and communications, but you must get the fact that marketing through social media can only have an impact if the content and messages are in line and reinforce those placed on other channels. For marketers to maintain a constant conversation with their target population for a long time, there must be coordination in the messages across all channels.
WORD-OF-MOUTH MARKETING
Loyal customers are gained when they are satisfied with the product or service you provide. They will also be more likely to recommend you to their peers. This increases your brand visibility without any added cost. As a matter of fact, word-of-mouth marketing and peer recommendations prove to be more efficient than a branded campaign. Based on a recent Nielsen Survey, only 33% of buyers believe ad campaigns that are run by companies while 92% of consumers believe their peer’s opinion about a brand.
Compared to paid advertising, Word-of-mouth marketing also generates twice the sales. Customers also have a 37% higher retention rate. With all this said, influencer marketing has become a huge topic among marketers.
SOCIAL MEDIA DRIVES VALUE ACROSS THE CUSTOMER LIFECYCLE
Are you worried that you won’t be able to track down the revenue attributed to your social media marketing activities? Thanks to marketing automation and social media management platform you will be able to trace down the income earned from your social media marketing activities. With the help of recent innovations on social media platforms, marketers now can quickly try new strategies to reach and communicate with their target market. Long gone are the days when influencer engagements and brand awareness were considered soft metrics-only channels.
Need more help? Don’t be afraid to give us a call or drop by our website at blitzmarketing.com.au
