By Ross Young
Lots of businesses employ social media as a marketing strategy. But what exactly does it entail? And how does it work?
This article explains social media marketing, how you can implement it into your business in five simple steps, and how Magic Word Media can help you improve your online engagement. Ready to go? Let’s dive in!
What is social media marketing?
Social media marketing uses platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and TikTok to grow your business, promote your brand, and sell your products and services.
Some business owners incorporate social media into their broader marketing strategy. In contrast, others focus primarily (or even exclusively) on marketing their goods and services through social media, such is the prominence of e-commerce and online retail in the digital age.
To successfully implement social media as a marketing strategy, it’s crucial to optimise your socials to the needs of your business. For instance, some companies benefit from communicating via TikTok, while others are better suited to LinkedIn. You need to decide on the best platform for your tone of voice and which offers you the best route into your targeted client base.
There are many tools to help you manage and improve your social media marketing, and it’s not as daunting as it may first appear. But now that we’ve covered the basics, it’s time to walk you through how to make a social media marketing strategy work for you and your business.
And remember, if this sounds like too much for someone in your business to take care of, speak to us, and we’ll do it for you.
How to implement effective social media marketing: 5 Steps
To employ social media as an effective marketing strategy, you need to think carefully about what you post, when you post, and where you post it to. You can follow these straightforward steps to effectively implement social media marketing for your business:
Step 1: Set social media goals
Some business owners fall into the trap of posting on social media because they think they must. This results in poor-quality content that doesn’t tap into the desired audience.
Therefore, your first job is to set clear and specific goals as to why you want to use social media as a marketing strategy in the first place. Some examples could include the following:
- Increase brand awareness through posts that emphasise your business’s values, ethos, and personality.
- Generate leads and sales through product promotions and special offers.
- Grow your brand’s audience via the use of relevant hashtags and by jumping on trends.
- Boost community engagement with user-generated content.
- Drive traffic to your website via informative posts.
The reality is that most businesses will pursue several of these goals at once, meaning you need to tailor content to share on your socials that helps you achieve them.
Step 2: Select your networks
Choosing the right platform to post on can make or break your success in social media marketing.
It’s important to remember that different platforms attract different audiences, so you must think carefully about whom you’re sharing your content with. Some important things to consider include the following:
- Instagram and YouTube are the top social networks among Gen Z and Millennials.
- US-based consumers spend more time on TikTok than any other social media platform.
- LinkedIn is the most appropriate platform for informed and educated content.
- Facebook has the broadest appeal – with more than 2.85 billion users worldwide. But how long will it last?
Of course, you don’t need to restrict yourself to one platform, but we wouldn’t recommend spreading yourself too thin. Choose 1-3 platforms that will enable you to communicate with your audience and begin planning content for each.
Also, stay on top of trends and news so you know if and when the platform algorithms change, which impacts your reach.
Step 3: Establish your most important metrics
To succeed with social media marketing, you need to ensure that your approach is data-driven. In other words, you want to see the fruits of your labour, and you need to have a way to track how well you’re doing.
Helpfully, there are lots of ways to monitor your success on social media, including:
- Reach: The number of users who see your posts.
- Clicks: The number of users who click on your content.
- Follows: The number of people who follow your account.
- Engagement: The number of social interactions divided by the number of impressions.
- Likes (organic and paid): The number of likes each post receives.
- Views: The number of people that watched a video you shared.
If you engage Magic Word Media, you get a monthly data report to see what’s working and what’s not.
You don’t have to track every metric available on social media, but you need to establish which are essential for you. For instance, if your goal is to increase brand awareness, reach and followers are two key metrics you need to track over the long term to measure your success.
Step 4: Create bespoke content
The quality of your content on social media couldn’t be more important. Not only will it determine whether or not people engage with you, but it is a reflection of your brand's ethos, values, and principles.
If you get your content wrong, you risk losing clients. An important step toward quality content creation is finding your brand voice and sticking to content themes. You also need to realise that different platforms call for different types of content. Short-form videos are the most engaging content, but they might not be relevant to your audience.
So, consider what you’re going to put out into the world. It helps to put together a content plan that you can stick to throughout the year to help you achieve your goals.
Step 5: Call in the experts
For social media to work as a marketing strategy, you must put a plan in place and work through things methodically.
Simply creating a Facebook page and hoping for the best isn’t going to deliver tangible results for your business growth or development. If this all seems a little daunting to you, we’d be delighted to help you.
We help our clients implement social media marketing strategies at Magic Word Media to grow their brands and engage with their audiences.
We can help you with everything from setting up your socials to developing and sharing comprehensive, bespoke content strategies. All you need to do is say the magic word, and we’d be delighted to work with you.
Get in touch with us today or give us a call on 01473 526424 to discuss your social media goals.