Marketing for Beginners: Social Media
Posted on September 7, 2018 by Matt Morelli
Social media has changed the way humans interact. Then marketers got a hold of it, and ruined everything. (Sorry y’all.)
For business owners, though, there is reason to rejoice. You are no longer burdened with the task of raising considerable funds in order to reach out to your current and prospective customers. With comparatively little resources, you can reach out to a large number of targeted people on social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc., and display your message en masse.
Social media marketing has given millions of businesses the capability to quickly reach out to their targeted customers with their best foot forward, and a perfectly targeted and refined message.
However, a lot of individuals and businesses are still a bit weary about having a social media presence, and how to do it properly. So — in this article, we will take a high level look at the basics of social media marketing and how you can utilize it to grow your business.
What is social media marketing?
According to Wikipedia, “Social-media marketing is the use of social media platforms and websites to promote a product or service.”
In other words, social media marketing involves using the social media channels to gain attention and create awareness about products or services. It’s a powerful medium through which businesses can reach out to customers and prospects by creating shareable and engaging content. Social media marketing aims to drive targeted traffic, to increase brand visibility, create interest, and generate sales.
Why social media?
It’s where the attention is. It’s where people’s eyes are. As of writing, according to a study by Mediakix, the average person will spend more than five years of their life on social media. If you are not placing your message, your logo, your slogan, your face, and your product(s) where the attention is — you’re missing out.
Here are some reasons every business needs social media marketing
How to get started
Starting a social media marketing campaign is easy. However, you need to determine what you intend to achieve and how to go about it. This means creating a marketing goal and strategy. Starting your advertising campaign without these two in place is like building a structure without foundations – it may last for a while but will collapse upon itself.
If you have already determined your goals, outstanding!
If not, you can ask yourself the following questions when trying to determine your social media marketing goals:
You should also create a marketing plan in line with your goals
Creating goals and strategy might be the most challenging part of content marketing. However, having them in place makes your social media marketing journey a lot easier. Measure twice, cut once if you know what I mean.
Always have in mind that your audience wants to be entertained and engaged, so all content should be created for the followers, with their desires in mind.
I feel like I need to dig a little deeper with this part, hence this awesome formatting.
Your audience wants to see, what it wants to see… not what you want to post.
Let me repeat that in another way — what you want to post is of no consequence. What they want to see, is what matters. You may think that your company is the coolest company on the planet, but if your customers only care about your #1 selling widget, then that is what you need to focus on. Without a near perfect understanding of your target audience, it’s very easy to put out messages that have little to do with things they care about. For example — this piece of content that you are reading, right now. We’re a shipping insurance company. U-PIC is not a marketing agency. We have nothing whatsoever to do with marketing. We just know our audience. If you are reading this, there is a decent chance that you’re in the eCommerce space, and you are looking for ways to expand your business. If I sat at my desk all day writing about shipping insurance, we never would have met! This article exists solely to help you learn a little more about marketing, so that you can increase your business. And if you are insuring your parcel with U-PIC, that’s an added bonus for us.
Know. Your. Audience.
How to select the best social media platforms for marketing
There are several social media platforms available, each unique in their design, which requires a varied approach. Below, you will find an overview on how to get started on the specific social media platforms that you may want to look into.
As of Q2 2018, Facebook had over 2.3 billion active users. Let’s put this to scale. There are 7.442 billion people on Earth. One in every three people on Earth, is on Facebook. If you want to talk about attention arbitrage, you absolutely cannot, without talking about Facebook. It’s a massive market where people relax with their friends and family. Share their thoughts on things like movies, food, and politics. Maybe a little too much politics, but I digress.
Its very easy to get started on Facebook. You will need to create a Facebook business page, then set up all the required sections, and you can begin creating content and putting it in front of your target audience. In future posts, we’ll detail the How-To for creating Facebook ads.
Marketing on Twitter revolves around building a broad base of followers, and engaging with them constantly. You need to tweet engaging and shareable content to your followers consistently. When your content is retweeted, you’ll likely gain more followers, so make sure what you tweet is valuable.
Twitter is an excellent tool for brand promotion and lead generation, but it’s built around dialog, so you need to interact with your audience on a regular basis. You can search for hashtagged words to find discussions to join. For example, if your company sells snow shoes, you can search #snowshoes on Twitter to find people talking about them, and join the conversation. But don’t be too pushy! Give, don’t ask.
YouTube
YouTube is the renowned platform for creating and sharing video content. Millions of people visit YouTube daily in search of solutions and entertainment, and you can use these videos to promote your business. Create videos that answer your customers questions, unveil new products, show how to use your products, show your company’s personality, etc.
LinkedIn is a platform for professionals. It provides an avenue to connect and share content with your business network. Here, you need to share relevant content and provide answers to questions to show your expertise. If your business provides B2B products or services, LinkedIn is a good place to focus some of your social media marketing efforts.
Perhaps the best platform for visuals, Instagram is a must for most businesses. Whether you sell products, commodities, or services — a properly curated, timely, and visually stunning Instagram account can take your business places. Instagram is owned by Facebook, and when you are creating Facebook ads, within the same architecture, you have the ability to run them on Instagram concurrently. Big time saver, and very effective!
Social Media Marketing Tips
Here are some easy ways you can get more out of social media marketing:
Social media marketing is a powerful tool if properly used and cared for. While this has been a very high level overview of social media marketing, I am happy to answer any questions you have. Email us at sales@u-pic.com with any questions.
Until next time!