Social media marketing is a powerful way for businesses of all sizes to reach prospects and customers. People discover, learn about, follow, and shop from brands on social media, so if you’re not on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, you’re missing out! Great marketing on social media can bring remarkable success to your business, creating devoted brand advocates and even driving leads and sales.
WHAT IS SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING?
Social media marketing is a form of digital marketing that leverages the power of popular social media networks to achieve your marketing and branding goals. But it’s not just about creating business accounts and posting when you feel like it. Social media marketing requires an evolving strategy with measurable goals and includes:
Maintaining and optimizing your profiles.
Posting pictures, videos, stories, and live videos that represent your brand and attract a relevant audience.
Responding to comments, shares, and likes and monitoring your reputation.
Following and engaging with followers, customers, and influencers to build a community around your brand.
BENEFITS OF SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING
With such widespread usage and versatility, social media is one of the most effective free channels for marketing your business today. Here are some of the specific benefits of social media marketing:
Humanize your business: Social media enables you to turn your business into an active participant in your market. Your profile, posts, and interactions with users form an approachable persona that your audience can familiarize and connect with, and come to trust.
Drive traffic: Between the link in your profile, blog post links in your posts, and your ads, social media is a top channel for increasing traffic to your website where you can convert visitors into customers. Plus, social signals are an indirect SEO factor.
Generate leads and customers: You can also generate leads and conversions directly on these platforms, through features like Instagram/Facebook shops, direct messaging, call to action buttons on profiles, and appointment booking capabilities.
Increase brand awareness: The visual nature of social media platforms allows you to build your visual identity across vast audiences and improve brand awareness. And better brand awareness means better results with all your other campaigns.
Build relationships: These platforms open up both direct and indirect lines of communication with your followers through which you can network, gather feedback, hold discussions, and connect directly with individuals.
The bigger and more engaged your audience is on social media networks, the easier it will be for you to achieve your marketing goals.
SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING STATISTICS
With regard to the benefits above, don’t just take our word for it. Let’s take a look at some social media marketing statistics that prove its power:
The average US adult spends 2.25 hours on social media every day.
Over 70% of people who have a positive experience with a business on social media will recommend that business to their networks.
Facebook users click on 12 Facebook ads on average every month.
81% of people use Instagram to research products and services.
Nearly 80% of Twitter users feel more positive about a business when they get a response to their tweet.
4 out of 5 people on LinkedIn drive business decisions.
46% of TikTok users engage in the app without any other distractions.
SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING SERVICES
As free and easy as each platform may be, a solid social media marketing strategy requires multiple platforms and often a mix of organic and paid methods. This can be resource-heavy, and while it’s a good problem to have, the more you grow your audience using social media, the harder it will be to keep up. Social media marketing services come in all kinds of shapes and sizes to help businesses get the most out of social media. For example:
Social media management software: Social media management platforms like Hoot Suite and Sprout Social use proprietary technology to help more experienced social media marketers streamline their processes and get advanced analytics.
Social media marketing agencies: Some agencies specialize in social media marketing only, like Akvertise or even just paid social advertising only.
Digital marketing agencies: Just as one platform doesn’t do it for social media marketing, one channel doesn’t do it for overall marketing. Digital marketing agencies can help you to incorporate social media marketing into your broader strategy that includes email, website, SEO, and more.
Hybrid services: Some offer a mix of the above. For example, LOCALiQ’s social advertising offerings use proprietary technology to manage your strategy and allow you to focus on social alone or as part of a broader plan.