What is Social Media Marketing?

Social media marketing is the act of creating content; think images, videos, reels, tweets, blogs, and so on. You en use that content across various social media platforms to promote your small business, products, and services. If you want to help your business improve conversions and brand recognition, your unique content needs to be customized to the particular platform it's being shared on.

Social media marketing is about getting social with your target market where they are socializing and engaging them with your brand while they are engaging with their community, a community that you can access with a successful social media strategy.

There is zero doubt social media marketing is an incredibly valuable and powerful tool to help grow your business however, it’s not a black and white system to navigate. Social media strategies for small businesses will differ depending on which platforms your target market is spending the most of their time on. You want to be at the same party as your customers.

Key Social Platforms for Digital Marketing and how to select the one that’s right for your business

There are new social media platforms on the rise everyday. Remember MySpace, have you heard of Clubhouse yet? Do the younger people in your life ask you if you are even on tik tok? It can be overwhelming to think of keeping up with it all, but the good news is not every small business needs to be active across every platform. Remember, you want to be at the same party as your customers, not one down the street full of somebody else’s target audience.

To help you find out which platforms your target audience are using, here is a quick overview of the top social media platforms across the web. Depending on how much time or money you can spend on your social media strategy, pick 1 - 3 platforms that suit your target audience best and focus on those. 

**This overview is everywhere across the web - unknown original source to cite.

Facebook

Users: 1.79 billion daily active users worldwide

Audience: Generation X and millennials

Industry impact: B2C

Best for: Brand awareness; advertising

Twitter

Users: 186 million daily active users worldwide

Audience: Primarily millennials

Industry impact: B2B and B2C

Best for: Public relations; customer service

Instagram

Users: 1 billion monthly active users

Audience: Primarily millennials

Industry impact: B2C

Best for: Natural-looking media, behind-the-scenes, and user-generated content; advertising

LinkedIn

Users: 675 million monthly active users worldwide

Audience: Baby boomers, Generation X, and millennials

Industry impact: B2B

Best for: B2B relationships, business development, and employment marketing

YouTube

Users: Over 2 billion logged-in monthly users worldwide

Audience: Millennials, closely followed by Generation Z

Industry impact: B2C

Best for: Brand awareness; entertainment, and how-to videos

Snapchat

Users: 249 million daily active users worldwide

Audience: Primarily Generation Z

Industry impact: B2C

Best for: Brand awareness; advertising

Pinterest

Users: 416 million monthly active users worldwide

Audience: Primarily older millennials and younger baby boomers

Industry impact: B2C

Best for: Visual advertising; inspiration

Benefits of Social Media Marketing

Most small businesses owners know how important social media marketing is, but maybe you aren’t sure exactly why it’s so important. Let’s talk about the impactful benefits social media marketing can have on the growth and success of your small business.

1. Increase Brand Awareness
   According to statista.com, as of January 2021, there were 4.2 billion active social media users worldwide. That’s almost 60% of the global population, and of all the internet users in the world, 90% of them are active social media users. There’s no arguing that’s a huge potential audience, and being able to target your preferred market is undoubtedly a desirable feature in your social media strategy. 

   
   Social media marketing has been proven to be effective time and time again, not only by big brands, but by numerous small businesses. How is this accomplished? You must engage your community. Posts, likes, shares, comments, saves and re-posts are all examples of social engagement. There are many low cost ways to engage with your audience, and if you do it consistently; you will increase your brand awareness.

2. Generate Traffic and Leads and Boost Conversion
   When you are promoting and sharing your products and services on social media you are at a huge advantage because you are marketing directly to consumers who have already chosen to engage with your small business by following your account. This is a simple and low-cost way to increase lead generation. You can also easily direct traffic straight to your website or ecommerce store if you include direct links to your website in your profile, bio, blogs, posts and tweets. 

   
   Here are some examples of things you could implement into your social media strategy to generate traffic and leads and ultimately boost your sales.

   
   Collaborate with other accounts who have a similar target audience as yours, but not your direct competition. For example if you own a cake shop, you could collaborate with other party planners or wedding vendors and create a contest or giveaway for your followers to participate in on your social profiles. This is a great way for your small business to get in front of your preferred audience. It doesn’t hurt to also engage in meaningful dialogue with these accounts and their audiences because you know they have similar interests to what you offer. 

   
   Link - Make sure to include links to your website and offers in the bio sections of your profiles and in your posts and captions. There are many opportunities here to drive traffic directly to your ecommerce store or website.

   
   Use Video - Host live videos or make short clips or reels to make announcements about products and provide updates or details about exciting news at your company. Short videos are proven to be a great way to increase engagement.

   
   Turn your social profiles into an ecommerce shop. For example, you can enable Facebook’s Shop Section on Instagram's Shopping feature on your profiles. These powerful features help your visitors and followers to arrive on your products and view the price, descriptions and then convert the sale right then and there directly from your small business.

3. Increase Search Engine Ranking
   This is where a strategy is really important because posting without one isn’t going to provide anyone value, which means Google won’t put you on display to your audience. It’s important to understand that increasing your search engine ranking isn’t the same as increasing your social engagement, although both are important in your social media marketing strategy. Google can’t keep up with the rapid creation of posts and changes to profiles on social media, so the key here is to use your social posts as a way to drive traffic to your website, ecommerce store, or blog. Once a user lands on your page they will spend time reading your content. The more engaging and valuable your content is; the more time they will spend on your site which will then signal to Google that your site is valuable, and Google’s main goal is to provide the user with valuable information. We will dive in deeper here in module 7 and 8 when we talk about content marketing and search engine optimization (SEO).

 

4. Build a Relationship with your Target Customer
   When you connect and engage with your social media followers, you’ll forge a long lasting relation between them and your small business. You do this by interacting with your audience on your posts, responding to their questions and comments and showing up for them when they are directly asking for you. You can also engage your audience by asking them questions about your products or services and get valuable feedback or create giveaways to help you build trust and demonstrate how much you value your audience. 

 

5. Increase Customer Loyalty to your Small Business
   When you show your audience how much you value them and when they feel a personal connection to your business, they will become loyal to your brand and even better, they will become advocates.

 

6. Improve Your Customer Service
   While the thought of an upset customer turning to social media and tweeting or posting publicly about their less than positive experience can be a stressful scenario, it’s also a great opportunity to publicly react and do some crisis management. Your audience might also love that you are accessible and easy to reach on your social platforms which translates to them as great customer service.

   
   Social Media Marketing, in today’s world is an absolute must. 

   
   We know all of this information can seem overwhelming but Real Local Partners

   make establishing, stabilizing and leveraging your online presence easier!