In business, go where the people are, and people are in social media! Statistics show that there are about 3.8 billion people on social media to date. It has become the extension of our lives and because of this, entrepreneurs are realizing the importance of using social media in doing business. Regardless of business size, social media best fits any type of business if you are looking for a platform to drive traffic to your website, online business or start-up company. Plus, social media is the key if you want to reach more customers and let your brand be known.
What is Social Media Branding?
Social media branding is one of the main goals of any business using social media. Social media branding is consistently using the correct methodologies to spark engagement with your target market on social media platforms. This process builds business credibility and customer trust which are essential in turning social media audiences to loyal customers all done with the use of social media marketing.
Social media branding is one of the main goals of any business using social media. Social media branding is consistently using the correct methodologies to spark engagement with your target market on social media platforms. This process builds business credibility and customer trust which are essential in turning social media audiences to loyal customers all done with the use of social media marketing.
What is Social Media Marketing?
Integrating social media in your business is called social media marketing. Marketing by definition is all the set of activities a business makes to promote the buying and selling of their products or services and social media marketing is simply marketing using social media platforms.
Social media has made it possible for big or small and sole or start-up businesses to boost their brand and business. One great advantage of social media in the business industry is its low-cost creations and operation. It doesn’t take thousands of dollars to set up and maintain a social media presence for your business. This made social media suitable to any type and size of business out there. All you need to have is an effective social media strategy
Integrating social media in your business is called social media marketing. Marketing by definition is all the set of activities a business makes to promote the buying and selling of their products or services and social media marketing is simply marketing using social media platforms.
Social media has made it possible for big or small and sole or start-up businesses to boost their brand and business. One great advantage of social media in the business industry is its low-cost creations and operation. It doesn’t take thousands of dollars to set up and maintain a social media presence for your business. This made social media suitable to any type and size of business out there. All you need to have is an effective social media strategy.
What is Social Media Strategy?
A strategy is a long-term plan in reaching a goal. Social media strategy refers to everything you plan to do in social media to promote your business. It serves as a map that leads your actions to the goals you are trying to achieve. Just like a map, the more detailed and specific it is, the better the chances of finding the treasure, in this case, the goals of your business in using social media.
How to Create a Social Media Strategy?
- Set Smart Goals
It always starts with setting goals. Not just any goals, but smart goals. Your goals must be:
- S – smart
- M – measurable
- A – attainable
- R – relevant
- T – time specific
SMART is an effective tool in providing clean, focused and driven actions in achieving your goals. It is important to have SMART goals because it ensures that all your energy and effort are put into actions that lead to the correct path to achieve the goals.
- Profile Your Market
Business is all about people. Business that fails to clearly define their market is business without a market. Profiling is the attempt to define and predict the behavior, attitudes, preferences, and personality of a person or a group. Profiling your market in social media means identifying their demographics and understanding their wants, needs, likes, dislikes, interests or preferences by keenly observing their online behavior. You may conduct surveys, test post runs, polls, conversation forums in order to profile them.
In social media marketing, it is important to profile your market in order to create the most appropriate content and provide the best service for them. It is the key that would guarantee growth and engagement in social media.
- Check out Your Competitors
Play a spy game on your competitors that are already in social media. Play detectives in spotting the flaws of their strategy and build your social media strategy from their gaps. It is also wise to check out the competitor to find out what content is working well in the market or perhaps to check the new trends in your field in social media. This is most advantageous especially to newbies in social media marketing.
The key in standing out from the rest of your competitors in social media is finding that unique value that you can offer to your customers and you can only achieve this if you have effectively profiled your market and created that unique and exclusive market value for your business.
- Create Valuable Content
There are many types of contents you can make in social media. Contents can be anything from eBooks, images, webinars, memes or podcasts. The most popular to date is short videos. There are a lot of possibilities when it comes to social media content. However, in order to make it valuable, it must match your target market and social media platform.
Matching your content with your target is key in making your content likable, shareable and engaging. This is where the profiling of the market plays a vital role.
Matching your content to the most suitable social media platform is strategic. There is no one content that fits all social media platforms. The contents you put out on the different social media platforms must differ in goals depending on the nature of the platform. For example, twitter is a sharing of thought and idea type of a platform. You may use twitter for your customer support or flex your brand quality.
It does not matter how many social media platforms you use or contents you put out, it all boils down to creating valuable content that will make your social media strategy effective.
- Review Social Media Analytics
One of the perks in using social media is the analytics readily available to track, collect and analyze data from social media platforms. It is wise to review the analytics to find out which content works well and does not work well. You can also see the contents that have higher engagement; the platforms where your audience is most frequent or; the performance comparison with your competitors.
These data are a great help in improving your strategy.
- Be consistent
One of the earliest mistakes of business in social media branding is inconsistency whether it be on the content, customer service or even in the tiniest details like the graphics that you use. These may result in what we call as inconsistency branding. If your branding is inconsistent, your target market may get confused, lose confidence in you and taint your credibility which does not bode well for your business. Therefore, try your best to be consistent in your content and service across all social media platforms.
Social media has taken over the throne of marketing in this era. Social media has transformed marketing into a building-relationship era where the key to thrive in business today is building the right relationships with pyour target market which is best achieved by social media.
Regardless of business size, all must embrace social media marketing. It’s a trend here to stay in the next foreseeable years. Join the trend and make the most of social media.
What Can I Do to Start my Social Media Business Journey?
Start by learning. After all, learning is an endless process. You might as well invest in learning that will greatly benefit your business. WebsitesAdvice makes this learning possible and much easier with our comprehensive eBooks and presentations available on our website. Joining webinars and courses too are the new trend in knowing more about social media marketing and developing the necessary skills to manage it successfully. We offer free and paid webinars and online courses via our Facebook pages, WebsitesAdvice and WebsitesAdvice Plus and also in our Patreon Channel. Check it out and reap the power of social media today.
