Everyone is familiar with the term social media and we are consuming content daily on different social media channels. Each individual is spending at least 30mins on social media channel every day and the content consuming is increasing day by day. Effective usage of social media can help you to connect with your audience and increase your business!
So What is Social Media?
Social Media is the usage of channels or websites or apps that allows users to create and share content on Social Channels.
Few well known social media channels include:
Facebook is one of the popular social media channels in the world, which allows users to create profiles, upload content and connect with friends and families.
Facebook has got the highest active users compared to any other social media platform, it has 2.3 billion monthly active users
YouTube
YouTube is by Google, it’s a social media channel which allows users to upload videos, share videos and view videos.
It is a free platform where you can create your own profile which is called as a YouTube channel and start uploading videos to showcase your work. People can also like, comment and share these videos on other social media sites.
Youtube has around 1.9 billion monthly active users worldwide. Users can also earn from their youtube content basis the views they are generating on YouTube, this can be done by connecting your channels to a Google Adsense account.
Twitter is a social media channel which is a free microblogging site, which allows users to post short message posts called tweets.
Users can create free twitter account, which is called as twitter handle. They can then start following other handles/profiles and also start posting tweets on Twitter. You can also use hashtags and get them trending on Twitter
Twitter has around 326 Million active users worldwide.
Instagram is a social media platform which allows users to share photos and videos on the channel. It is a platform, now owned by Facebook.
Instagram is all about visuals with different filters to add to your photos and videos. Instagram has become popular because of Insta Stories. Insta Stories is a feature on Instagram which allows users to share videos and photos in a form of a slideshow, these stories then can have different filters, you can tag users, checkin, add text on stories etc.
Instagram has around 1 billion monthly active users worldwide. It is largely used with a mobile application and is very popular with millennials.
LinkedIn is a social networking site which caters to professional networking. It helps you to connect with professionals across different industry verticals through a single platform.
Users can create profiles and update their experience summary on their profiles. Employers can also hunt professionals through LinkedIn easily as it allows the usage of different filters within the platform to find relevant professionals basis job profile.
LinkedIn has 630 Million monthly active users world wide. Most of the companies create their profiles on LinkedIn to keep their audience engaged, share their content related to business and industry news.
Apart from these popular channels other popular social media channels include Snapchat, Whatsapp, Pinterest, WeChat, Tik Tok etc.
So What is Social Media Marketing?
Social Media Marketing is the usage of social media channels to reach out to your audience, create awareness about your business, engage with your audience and convert them into sales or leads.
Social Media helps to connect with your audience effectively and engage with them, it also helps you to communicate your message effectively which can go viral on social media. But to make you content viral, the content has to be impactful and engaging.
In today’s scenario, it is important for every business to be on Social Media, as the audience is highly active on social media and you can effectively connect with your audience by making a high impact.
Advantages of Social Media Marketing
Social Media Marketing is highly effective and it’s one of the key domains of Digital Marketing which will help you to connect with your audience and grow your business.
Below are the advantages of Social Media Marketing
Reach
One of the important aspects of marketing is that you want to reach to your audience through different channels including online and offline. As the audience is high on social network basis the product you are marketing, you can reach out to your users with various targeting parameters including interest, behaviour, demographics etc.
Awareness
When a business is new or has launched a new product/service in the market, it is important for the brand to promote the same so that people know about it. Social Media helps to do that, it helps to create awareness within TG and engage with them with different forms of content including text and video.
After reaching out to the users, Awareness is the first stage in the marketing funnel.
Traffic Generation
One of the key advantages of social media marketing is that, it helps you to generate traffic. When you are marketing your brand online, the first step is to build traffic. There are various channels to build traffic including search, display, email, seo etc. Social also helps you to build traffic by sharing content or promoting content on social networking sites.
Engagement
One of the key benefits of social media marketing is that it helps you to connect with your users and engage with them. Engagement could be any interaction including a like, comment or a share.
If the users are engaged with your content, then will also act as brand advocates and promote your brand. Social Media is a powerful channel to increase the shareability quotient of brand content.
Conversions
Yes, social media marketing is also helping brands to generate leads and drive purchases on business websites. As users are highly active on social media, social media is considered as one of the effective channels to grow your business.
Many brands have monthly advertising spends defined on social media to drive conversions. You can set up marketing campaigns to generate leads, sales on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn etc.
Key Aspects of Social Media Marketing
Social Media channel is one of the effective channels in Digital Media, the focus of a business needs to be on all aspects of Social Media Marketing, to make sure it adds value to your marketing efforts on Digital.
Below are the key aspects of Social Media Marketing
- Social Media Strategy
- Content Buckets
- Social Listening
- Social Media Advertising
- Social Media Analytics
1. Social Media Strategy
One of the important aspects of Social Media Marketing is Social Media Strategy. Social Media Strategy is the key communication theme on which you would like to build your conversations on Social Media.
For Eg: Kit Kat has their key communication thought as Have a Break, Have a Kit Kat. Basis this theme all their communication pieces on Social Media are related to the same thought, whether it’s video, it’s an image post or any form of content. Here the brand plays with this thought on social and communicates with their audience with different content buckets.
2. Content Buckets
Content buckets are different kinds of content pieces which are considered while creating content for Social Media. As you need to create content regularly, you can’t talk only about one topic or one element of the brand, you need to have different content pieces to communicate with your audience.
Content Buckets includes different types of content pieces as below
Let’s understand each one of them with a few examples from a brand we manage called Japfa, which is into feed production
Brand Posts
Brand posts are those content pieces which talk about the brand, their products/services, process etc. Any content related to brand will be termed as brand posts. Here is an example of Brand post for Japfa
Topical Posts / Event Posts
Topical posts are those content pieces which talk about different topics or events or festivals in the country. Here is an example of topical post during elections 2019 in India
Humor Posts
Humor based post will depend from brand to brand. Not every brand would like to come up with humor based content. Eg: Hospitals or brands into medical category, might not want to do humor based content. So you need to think if you want your brand to communicate humor based content, if you are okay, you may go ahead with.
Humor based content has high engagement and also the shareability quotient is also high, there is a potential that it might go viral as well. So the brand is okay with going humor based content, you should definitely add it in your content bucket.
Here is an example of humor based content piece for Japfa
Contest Posts
Contest posts are very common content pieces used by brands, which increases interactions on the page of the brand. You can create different types of contest and ask users to participate and gratify them.
Most of the common contest which are run by brands include selfie contest, upload your videos with xyz hashtag, answer and win etc.
You can also run contest and ask users to participate but the contest has to be interesting and easy to participate. If the process is time consuming, you will see less participation for your contest.
Testimonials / Customer Related
Testimonials or reviews are another form of content pieces created by Brands on social channels. This helps to build trust and credibility factor for the brand.
Brands do create testimonials in a form of a backstory which gives a perspective of the customer’s first touch point to post associating with the brand.
UGC Content
UGC content is user generated content which is created by users, you can leverage this content piece in you content buckets to gain maximum traction for your brand.
Customers acts as brand advocates, so you should always highlight customer content on you social channels, which also encourages other users to share content.
UGC content can also include any videos, images etc shared by customers during an event, seminars, with the product etc. One should regularly do activities so that user generated content increases which further increases the engagement of the brand social profile.
CSR Content
CSR content is a type of content piece which talks about the CSR activities the brand is doing. These activities should be regularly highlighted on your social channels so that users know what all social activities you are doing towards the betterment of the society.
Every brand has yearly budgets defined for CSR activity, these activities also can be communicated through live feeds, video content, stories etc
Informational Posts
Informational content pieces are content themes which give more important about the product, service, best practices, did you know aspects etc.
As it says informational posts, it is giving more information to users educating them on different topics within the industry. These content pieces are very important as they educate users at every level of the communication journey.
Here is an example of informational post for Japfa
These are few important content pieces which should be a part of your content bucket strategy. Apart from these you can also have listicals, webinars, live streaming content etc as your content buckets.
3. Social Listening
Next key aspect in social media marketing is social listening.
So What is Social Listening?
Social Listening is monitoring & tracking conversations of your brand on social media in terms of feedback, customer support, mentions, topics, keywords, competitors, hashtags etc.
Social listening helps you to know what customers are talking about you, it helps you to also study about your competitors, it helps you to know how people are reacting to your business etc, which further helps you to define your content strategy and engagement strategy with your customers.
Social listening has become one of the important aspects in social media marketing and brands have separate departments for social listening within their company. As social media has high reach, and within minutes your content can reach to any part of the country, it is important for a brand to react for any complaints received from customers immediately.
Social listening is usually done through different tools as it’s difficult to monitor conversations manually. Few of the common tools in social listening are Radian6, Sprinklr, Sprout Social etc.
4. Social Media Advertising
Social Media advertising is another key aspect of Social Media Marketing. Social Media advertising stands for paid ads on social media including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Linkedin etc.
Advertising on social media is used to create awareness and increase conversions for business. Many brands choose social media ads for lead generation for their business including brands from industries like Real Estate, Education, HealthCare etc.
In order to reach out to users on social and grow your business, it is important to define right targeting with a mix of effective communication strategy. There are different types of ads which you can run on social media which includes lead generation, sales, app installs, traffic generation, engagement ads, remarketing ads etc.
Basis objective of your business, you can select the right goal for your advertising strategy and start advertising on social media. Every social media channel has their individual advertising platform to advertise.
Quick links to social media advertising platforms
5. Social Media Analytics
Social Media analytics is the measurement aspect about your brand page or social profile. Once you have executed your social strategy, content buckets and advertising strategy, it is important for you to understand how each post has performed and how effective you strategy has been. Social Media analytics helps you to understand each and every aspect of your social media profile, which then further helps your to define your strategy further.
Every social media platform has their own analytics dashboard through which you can explore insights about your profile/page. In order to view analytics of any page, you need to have the access of the page, which you can ask the admin to share with.
When you are measuring the performance of your social media strategy through analytics, you need to look at the following important metrics of your page/profile/handle.
So Let’s Understand Important Social Media Metrics!
Reach
Reach is the no of people to whom the content has reached, on that particular social media channel. Reach helps you to understand how many people you reach from your strategy, also if you are advertising, you understand how much reach paid advertising method is adding to your entire social media marketing process.
Impressions
Impressions is the no of times your post has been visible in the news feed of the users, irrespective of the users clicking on it. A particular user can see your post multiple times, so each time the user is shown the post it’s an impression.
Engagement
Engagement is one of the important metrics in social media. It is the no of users liking, sharing and commenting on your posts. You can view each and every post engagement through their analytics section
Engagement Rate
Engagement rate is the percentage of users engaged with your brand from your community size.
Here is the formula to calculate engagement rate
Video Views
The total no of views generated on a particular video content piece. Different social media channels calculate views in different ways. Views are important for video, but if you have published a video do check it’s engagement including like, comment and share because that’s more important than just views.
Mentions
This metric is more important if you are using twitter. Mentions are basically, no of times your handle has been tag in a particular comment or a tweet. The higher the mentions, the higher the engagement with the handle.
Marketers use different strategies to increase mentions for their brands, Eg: Answer this question and mention our handle to win.
Conclusion
Social Media Marketing is one of the effective channels of marketing on Digital. The key success of the marketing campaigns will depend on the content strategy and the targeting parameters used in the campaigns. Always define content strategy in such a way that it connects with users, which then builds engagement and helps to grow your business. Define your social media marketing strategy and let me know how it is performing!
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