Get started on Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing provides companies with a way to promote their business and products on various social media platforms. It also helps businesses connect with their audience to build their brand, drive traffic to their website, and increase sales.  

Social media marketing is important for the growth of a business. Plus, many social media platforms have inbuilt data analytics that allow businesses to track their engagement and sales. Social media has a broad reach, and it’s the fastest way to connect and engage with customers. In just a click of a button, you can quickly distribute information to people all around the world. Facebook and Instagram alone have around 2.7 billion daily users worldwide.  

If you’re looking to build a brand, or promote your business, social media marketing is vital. It increases brand awareness, improves lead generation, and fosters relationships with customers. It’s also useful for keeping tabs on competitors and upcoming trends.  

So, if you’re a beginner who’s looking to start social media marketing, how do you go about it? Firstly, why not check out our 10904NAT Diploma of Social Media Marketing? It’s designed to take you from social media beginner to expert, and it’s been created in consultation with several Forbes’ Top 50 global social media experts. 

For now, let’s take a look at some of the most important social media marketing strategies to get you started.  

Determine which social platform you’ll market on

One of the most important social media marketing strategies is choosing the right platform for your business. Each platform is different and attracts their own unique set of users, and it’s important to match the platform with your audience. Choosing the wrong platform can negatively impact your marketing efforts. Choosing the right platform can connect you with the intended target audience, boost brand visibility and sales.  

Firstly, have a think about your target audience. Consider the nature of your business, the client demographic, (are they males, female, older, younger), and make sure to research your competitors and check their social media platforms. Once you’ve narrowed down your core target audience, it’s time to connect with them! Perhaps you’ve identified that your core audience are women aged 25 and over. Great! The best platforms to connect with millennial age groups are Instagram and Facebook, as the peak usage of both Facebook and Instagram is in the key 25-34 age group.  

So, you’ve identified your core audience. What’s next?  

Optimise social media profiles

Social media optimisation benefits your business by increasing your online presence and making your brand more well-known. It can also help improve your sales and generate more qualified leads. 

So, how do we do that? The first thing to do is understand your brand. Branding is critical because it sets expectations, builds trust, and attracts the right customers to your company. Once you’ve identified your branding, it’s important to create a consistent social media presence. To optimise your social media profiles, make sure to remain consistent with your business description across all your social media platforms. Keep your business handle as close to your company name as possible, fill out the profiles in their entirety, and make sure your profile pictures are consistent across all platforms and easily recognisable. Bright, vivid, high-resolution images make a great first impression and really draw the eye. But make sure that each photo is optimised for each social media platform by using the correct sized images.  

Connect your website with your social media pages

Once your social media profiles are ready, it’s important to connect your website, or blog, to your profile pages. Make sure they’re visible in the header or footer. It’s also worth putting them in the About or Contact pages for easier accessibility. This helps your audience engage and interact with your brand, and gives you more opportunities to promote your products and services.  

Add social media buttons

Social media buttons make it easy for the reader to share your content on their social media platforms. It’s a great way to get your content out there quickly. Buttons also help increase your website’s traffic, and make it easier for readers to follow you on all social media platforms. Plus, it’s a very simple and quick way to expand your reach. All readers need to do is click a button to share your content with their friends and family. 

Share interesting content

Content is king in social media marketing. It plays a crucial role in lead generation, audience engagement, and brand recognition. With so much content available on social media, it’s important that your content is well planned, useful, and interesting. A combination of high-resolution images and videos, articles, hashtags, research studies and light-hearted content, are key in getting customers engaged and coming back to your platform.  

Don’t overpost

Another important social media marketing strategy is posting frequency. If you post too frequently, you might overcrowd your feed and gain an unwanted reputation for annoying your audience. If you post too infrequently, your audience may forget you entirely. It’s important to post often enough to remain relevant, but not so often that you overwhelm your audience. According to a study from Hubspot.com, if you have a smaller following on Facebook, posting twice a day will result in fewer clicks per post. But three tweets per day on Twitter, seems to be the magic number for optimal posting. And once per day is enough for LinkedIn. Research is key here. Read up on your preferred social media platform to find out the optimal number of times to post per day.  

Keep a balance between follower and following ratio

Your follower/following ratio can say a lot about your account. Customers use this ratio to judge the quality of your business. A high follower/following ratio demonstrates to customers that your product/brand is popular and influential. A low follower/following ratio shows that your brand is low-quality and unpopular. A strong profile has more followers than following. It increases trust in your brand and has a major influence on how your audience perceives your business. 

If you want to become a social media marketing whiz, enrol in our 10904NAT Diploma of Social Media Marketing today. Or feel free to speak to one of our Enrolment Consultants.