With multiple social media sites demanding attention from billions of users 24/7, it’s easy to see why utilizing social media marketing can be a powerful marketing tactic. Social media can do a lot more than just get people to buy your products or services – it also serves as a way to boost your overall reputation and authority within your industry.
What is Social Media Marketing?
Social media marketing is exactly what it sounds like: using social media platforms to connect your business with your target audience. There are two separate tactics you can utilize: organic posting and paid advertising. Organic posting is simply posting quality, relevant content to your business’s social media profiles. But a successful posting campaign isn’t about promoting your products and services every day; instead, you should follow what is called the 80/20 rule. This means that at least 80 percent of your posts should be informative or entertaining in order to engage your audience. Then, a maximum of 20 percent should be used to directly promote your business. And, of course, paid advertising entails paying to have your ads displayed on the social media platform to potential customers.
What Can Social Media Marketing Do?
While adding another facet to your digital marketing tactics may feel overwhelming, the benefits of social media marketing for businesses are huge. It is unique in that it doesn’t just work to increase sales; instead, social media marketing can have a big impact on many other, equally important aspects of growing your business. Some of these benefits can include:
- Build Brand Awareness
Social media marketing helps to increase brand awareness by spreading the word about your products and services in a way that isn’t too sales-y or gimmick-y.
- Increase Brand Authority & Trust
When you are posting consistent, trustworthy information on your social media profile, you are telling customers that you know what you’re talking about. This helps increase trust by establishing your business as an expert in your field.
- Drive Traffic to Your Blog or Website
When you post on your business social media accounts, you can add links to relevant pages on your website, such as your blog or a product listing. When people click on them, they end up right at the source of the information, increasing website traffic and encouraging customers to spend more time learning about your products or services.
- Tell Your Brand Story
Many consumers are drawn to a brand with a story to tell, whether it’s about their journey or about the things they may do for the community. Telling your brand story helps make customers build an affinity with your business, increasing the likelihood of them remaining loyal customers for years to come.
- Gather Audience Data to Improve Ad Targeting
One of the most important things about digital advertising is making sure that your ads are displaying to the most relevant audience possible. As you build a social following, you are also building audience data that can be utilized in digital marketing campaigns down the road, increasing your audience relevance and your return on investment.
- Create Conversations Around Your Brand
One of the most effective ways to turn an audience into paying customers is by creating conversations around your brand. When someone talks about you, their audience hears what they have to say, which can spark an interest in what you are offering.
- Create Retargeting Options
Only an average of 2 percent of website visitors convert on their first visit. By retargeting previous website visitors with social media ads, you can greatly increase the chances of them converting in the future by keeping your brand fresh in their minds.
- Boost Your SEO
Every bit of information that you post on social media becomes a part of the information that search engines use to display search results. This is especially true for tweets, which are often displayed for relevant searches.
- Promote Your Products/Services
Of course the ultimate goal of all marketing is to increase your sales, and a solid social media marketing campaign helps achieve this.
What Social Media Platforms Are Best For Marketing?
Just as not all marketing tactics are right for every business, not all social media platforms may be an effective use of time. It really depends on your target audience, and figuring out which platforms they are the most active on. Facebook is the most popular, and most varied in their users. This makes it a good choice for nearly all businesses, especially since they have a very robust advertising platform with many options. They are also the least expensive social media platform to advertise on. Instagram is another solid option, especially if your business is best displayed visually. Because Facebook owns Instagram, you can run ads on both platforms simultaneously within the same budget. YouTube is another great option to appeal to a wide range of demographics. It is a very effective way to advertise, even if you do not have a YouTube channel for your business. For B2B businesses, LinkedIn is a great option in order to target a very relevant audience.
Twitter is an option best reserved for businesses with a strong brand voice. It is also important to dedicate time every day to engaging, sharing, and posting. Without a fair amount of activity, you are unlikely to build a robust audience. If you are looking to target the under-30 audience, platforms like Snapchat and TikTok are going to be more effective. They also, however, require you to have someone on staff who can make and post your videos. If you are looking to target this younger audience but do not have the capability to make videos, you can still opt to do SnapAds, a service that we can assist you with. They tend to be a bit more expensive than Facebook ads, but they are a great way to appeal to a younger audience that may be more active on Snapchat.
We hope that this article has helped you to learn more about social media marketing, and how it can help your business. If you’re looking for a social media marketing agency in the Gulfport, MS area, you’ve come to the right place. Gulf Coast Web has years of experience in managing social media marketing campaigns. No matter what your budget, we can help you integrate social media marketing into your business’s digital marketing plan. Contact us today to book a consultation with our team. We look forward to outlining exactly how we can help you grow your business with our social media marketing agency services.