Social media marketing is not self-promotion. Social media marketing is all about telling your story and making a connection. Before you go off thinking you don’t have time for this and you just need to make a sale, you need to think twice and continue reading to learn why simply promoting your product online is not enough.
Your job is not done the moment you create your Facebook page or Instagram account. Effective social media marketing is all about building an engaged community of users and providing value. Here’s why you should be investing in your social media strategy to reap its benefits in the long term.
Table of Contents
1. Social media marketing builds brand awareness
Whatever platform you focus on (Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest), the key to success is consistency. You need to keep showing up every single day. Don’t get discouraged when you don’t see the followers growing. Instead, keep an eye on other important metrics like post impressions or engagement.
A strategy is important because social media marketing, in the long term, build brand awareness. It establishes your brand and imprints it on the minds of digital consumers.
The key to receiving the most engagement? Give the most value.
With the right team and strategy, you can churn out engaging and valuable content consistently. Remember to keep an 80-20 ratio when it comes to providing value vs self-promotion. Nobody wants to be sold off every single time. A lot of accounts already do that. Stand out from the crowd.
Take a look at this brand that sells hair coloring products. They provide consistent content inline with their brand. It is all about color and hair. You aren’t going to find anything else that is beyond their product and aesthetic. As a result, it leaves an imprint on the minds of consumers and aligns their brand name to what they are selling. So, the next time you hear overtonecolor, you know it is going to be about hair and color.
2. You can go viral (seriously)
Consistency beats everything. With the right social media marketing strategy, you can go viral overnight. But mind you, it will take a lot of time.
Planning a viral social media marketing campaign takes months. You either hit big or you land on a mention on the press. Either way, your team just had fun and you get the publicity you deserve.
If there is something people do on social media, that is talking. They post, share, and make comments. As a result, it is fairly easy for one topic to have widespread publicity. Before you know it, one thing can become viral. If it is your brand that generates conversations, you get attention and ultimately, a market for what you are selling.
Anything can turn into a conversation. A marketing ad that is intriguing, a song that captivates the hearts of many, or being congratulated or recognized by a celebrity. With the right opportunity, you can put your name out there. An opportunity that you can’t find anywhere else.
To emphasize on this point, take a look at the page of Humans of New York. You might have heard of it and its other variations. There is a high chance that the only reason you know them is through friends sharing their content. Why is that? They create something that is worth sharing. One story can resonate around a community, create conversations, and ultimately become viral.
3. When you have a strategy, you measure results and you improve
Let’s get more technical. You want to know if you are penetrating the right type of market. Are your marketing strategies working? Are you making an impact with all that you are doing? If there is one thing you don’t want, that is spending on something for nothing.
Gone are the days of television and radio marketing where you don’t have a way of quantifying impact. In social media marketing, you get to have that opportunity. You are able to track the reach of your social media pages, especially paid ads. If you know how many new visitors and the consistency of your page’s activity, you are able to understand what you are doing right and wrong. Therefore, you are only spending on things that actually matter and that exponentially plummets you to success.
4. You show your exceptional customer service and build loyal customers
Business is a two-way communication. You sell while they ask. Social media allows this to happen conveniently and it is a big deal. When your customers are able to reach out easily to a brand, it creates more trust. The more questions you answer and the better service you deliver, you create a more loyal customer.
While new customers are great, repeat ones are better. They are more susceptible to your products. When they need something, your brand becomes the first choice and the only choice in some cases. To say the least, you guarantee yourself that you will have customers.
Look at how JetBlue turned an angry customer into an opportunity. They addressed a concern and provided comfort. While the passenger may have had a bad experience, being heard and given attention gives them a sense of value. This makes up for the shortcoming and could even get this customer to come back for more.
5. Algorithms change so you need to keep track and adapt…fast
Social media marketing didn’t happen overnight. It was developed through the years as demand grew stronger. Now, we can see where all that development went to. It created a medium that is completely catered to marketing. What this means is that you can find a lot of tools and features in social media marketing.
For example, paid ads have the option to narrow down to whom they get to appear. You want it only to those within range of your location? No problem. There are flexible payment options to ensure that you only pay what benefits you the most. Not only that, you can find software and services for scheduling and managing posts to keep your pages active with the least amount of supervision.
To say the least, everything you need to do is simplified and made more effective with social media marketing. As a result, it is the most fool-proof and cost-efficient way to market your product and service. Whether your business has long been in the market or you are still starting, this is a benefit you are always going to want.
Have you heard about Buffer? It is a social media management tool that will make your marketing campaign a lot easier. You don’t have to manual post on every social media account you have. Use Buffer and make one post that goes out to every page you handle, regardless of what platform it is (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.). If that isn’t enough, you have the opportunity to have data and analytics.
What is the Future of Social Media Marketing?
If you are one of those people that are skeptical of the future of social media marketing, don’t worry, you are not alone. It is a logical concern to ask where all of this is going. Is it already too late? Will this all blow over in the near future? Will all your investments be short-lived?
You don’t have to worry though since there is a strong guarantee that social media marketing is the marketing of the future. So, it is not bound to disappear anytime soon. A strong indication is the growing population of internet and social media users. Every year, there is always an increase in that number.
As access to internet connection also increases, the more people find it more convenient to get into social media. Faster base internet speeds and more accessible wireless data connections are strong contributing factors.
That is enough to suggest that there is no sign of social media marketing rejection. If anything, everything is pointing to acceptance and further adoption.
What if your site’s traffic dropped tomorrow…where would that leave you?
Social media marketing is a long game. There are metrics and KPIs to keep track of that do not necessarily include only revenue. You can run ads to lure your customers to buy, but you can also build a consistent long-term strategy that will bring you organic sales.
Algorithms change, even your SEO rankings can drop zero anytime. But the community and connection you build with your audience is something you control with your own hands. Isn’t that a good enough reason to start investing in your social media marketing today?
If you’re looking for the best digital marketing agency to help you do just that, contact us today for a free strategy consultation. We are happy to help out small businesses and individuals.
