Social Media Marketing 101, The Ultimate Guide For Beginners

By Imeru Wambui

WHAT IS SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

• Social media marketing is the process of creating content that you have tailored to the context of each individual social media platform in order to drive user engagement and sharing.

• It is the use of social media platforms to connect with your audience to perform the following

1. Build Your Brand

2. Increase Sales

3. Drive Website Traffic

SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING INVOLVES

Publishing great content on your social media profiles/platform

1. Listening and engaging your followers or audience

2. Analyze results

3. Running social media advertisements

5 CORE PILLARS OF SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

1. Strategy

2. Planning and publishing

3. Listening and engagement

4. Analytics and reports

5. Advertising

TYPES OF SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

There are two types of social media marketing: organic social and paid social and the difference between the two primarily has to do with the budget.

1. Organic social is when users take advantage of the free elements of social media, such as post sharing on Facebook or two-way conversations with users on Twitter.

2. Paid social involves sponsored, or paid, advertising content delivered on social networks in the form of images, videos, and carousel ads. Depending on the platform, ads can be targeted to users based on location, buying habits, or personal interests.

Unlike organic, paid social directly puts your content in front of users who will most likely show interest.

BENEFITS OF SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

About 40% of the world’s population, or nearly 3 billion people, are active on social media networks. Marketing via these networks is naturally critical for any brand or business selling products or services, either locally, regionally, nationally, or across the globe.

Because the Internet audiences can be better segmented than more traditional marketing channels, for businesses or brands social media presents vast opportunities to promote their product or service now brands can ensure that they are focusing their resources on the audience that they want to target.

Benefits of social media marketing for your business or brand

1. Social media marketing gives you a broad range of tactics and strategies to promote content and have people engage with it.

2. Social media marketing provides brands with a way to reach new customers, engage with existing customers, and promote their desired culture, mission, or tone.

3. Integrate with other channels. Because social media integrates so well with other channels, it gives you the ability to boost campaigns in ways that were not possible in traditional marketing.

4. Control the message. When crisis strikes, brands can serve as their own newsroom by publishing releases that control their side of any story.

5. Create new leads. Brands can raise awareness and generate traffic among general users, and some of that buzz can develop into tangible leads.

6. Engage their audience. Engagement is a great way to establish trust with customers and build a relationship that can develop over time.

7. Foster brand loyalty. Engagement leads to loyalty to the brand. Users can get to know the brand more intimately through news updates, informational and entertaining videos, etc.

SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING STATISTICS

Social media marketing statistics can show you the state of the business world today such as

1. Where it might be going

2. How you can ensure your business is continuously meeting customers where they want to be met.

3. To help you understand what you need to do to effectively use social media for your business or brand.