Essential Guide to Social Media Marketing

  • Date: 16 May 2019
  • reading time: 7 Minutes
  • Blogger: Gurby Bulo

But What Is Social Media Marketing?

Hootsuite defined social media marketing as the use of social media by marketers in their quest to increase brand awareness, in their identification of key audiences, generation of leads, and in building of meaningful relationships with customers. Social media marketing should involve, incorporate and include social customer service, community management, and social selling activities in creating good and lasting relationships with customers.

Girl in social media

Some of the Most Effective Social Media Marketing Programs are Linked to Multi-channel Strategies.

Why is it important?

If social media was beneficial to you on a personal level, like being able to connect with loved ones who are far away, think about. It could help from a business perspective. Some benefits are:

Social media statistic is a picture of why social media marketing is important in today's business. Based on Social Media Examiner's data, 92% or marketers on social media say that social media plays an important role in their businesses. 84% of marketers have integrated their social media strategies with their traditional strategies. 64% use social media for six hours or more a week, while 41% use it for 11 or more hours per week, 19% use it for about 20 hours per week. 90% of businesses say that it has increased the exposure of their brand. 77% say that it increased site traffic. More than 50% say it directly increased sales. 69% of marketers say it has helped developed loyal fans.

Based on Forbes reports, 3 out of 4 consumers say that it has created an impact on their buying decisions. 70% or senior professionals say it helps make their companies seem like better places to work in. 66% of marketers are on lead generation on social media within 6 hours of use per week or even less. McKinsey researchers estimate, that 1.3 trillion in value stands to be unlocked by companies who can figure out social media technologies for their businesses for the coming years ahead.

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The Social Media Marketing Plan

A social media marketing plan is like your map towards reaching your desired destination. It is the summary of everything you want to do on social media for your brand and hope to work with different social networks. It should be an audit of where you are today, where you want to be in the future.

Below Are Some Suggestions on How You Can Craft a Social Media Plan.

When setting goals for social media marketing strategies, it is better to use the SMART principle. Set goals that are S-specific, M-measurable, A- attainable, R- relevant and T-time bound . Setting clear goals based on this principle will help you achieve them well.

Your goals as a social media marketing professional should go beyond retweets or likes. You should favor lead generation, sentiment, or website traffic.

Social Media Strategy

A social media plan includes your social media strategy. This may include tactics, timelines, budget, doable items, next steps, definable roles, and responsibilities. A social media strategy will help you in:

Making use of analytics to track the progress of your strategy or adjust it if needed.

To increase your knowledge and your capacity in building a social media strategy, refer to this "5-step Guide to Developing Your Social Media Presence."

Social Media Tools

Having the proper tools in social media marketing is very important in achieving your social media plans and goals. According to Hootsuite's "10 Essential Social Media Tools for Social Media Managers," the tools below are a must have:

Social Media Templates

Hootsuite has created social media templates that can be easily adapted to your brand. This could help you create plans and strategies

Social Media Marketing Tips and Tactics

Core tactics and social media marketing tips to use for a successful social media marketing plan include:

  1. The use of hashtags for your virtual filing system. See what kind of hashtags your competitors use and create your own.
  2. Ask good questions to engage your audience in social interaction.
  3. Listen to your audience. Keep track of important conversations and online customers.
  4. Offer something valuable to your audience. This can help in building valuable relationships.
  5. Twitter chats can generate conversations about your brand and build connections. Build these relationships through Twitter.
  6. Be consistent with the frequency or your posts or content. Also, be consistent with timing, brand voice and engaging your audience online.
  7. Use images which engages the audience. Content with relevant images gets 94% more chance of views than content without any images.

You might also want to do these tips:

Hopefully, with all this information, you will be able to start your social media marketing plan and execute your desired strategies. Along the way, you will learn to use social media to your advantage in marketing your brand socially.

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  • Blogger: Gurby Bulo
  • E-mail: [email protected]
  • Online Marketing Strategy Expert at Social Media Gids
  • Internet entrepreneur Gurby Bulo is the Founder of Social Media Gids and host of @SMG Hangout. With his virtual team, they follow the latest online marketing developments because they like it ;-) and to provide you with information, strategies and support necessary to increase your online marketing knowledge, sales and growth on your way to (financial) freedom.
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