Social media marketing is a very powerful weapon for businesses of all sizes to reach prospects and customers. People discover, learn about, follow, and shop from brands on social media, so if you’re not on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, you’re missing out! Great marketing on social media can bring remarkable success to your business, creating devoted brand advocates and even driving leads and sales.
Social media marketing also includes paid social media advertising, where you can pay to have your business appear in front of large volumes of highly targeted users.
Benefits of social media marketing
- Increase your brand awareness
Due to the sheer number of people on social media, you’re missing out on the potential to reach thousands, and even millions, if you don’t have a presence.
Social media has proven to boost brand awareness by driving up engagement, including things like comments, likes, shares, reposts, and saves. It also helps you increase brand awareness by directing traffic straight to your site. You can do this by including links to your website and other offers in your profile, bio, and posts.
- Foster relationships with your customers.
Connecting and engaging with your social media followers can build lasting relationships between them and your business. You can do this by interacting with them on your posts, responding to their questions and comments, and providing them with any help they may need.
You can also ask your followers questions about your products and their pain points or create giveaways to help you build trust and show them how much you value their input and support.
3. Impact sales and conversion rates
Successfully marketing your brand or a specific product on social media should have a positive impact on sales and conversion. Ultimately, of course, that’s the goal of spending on any type of marketing.
While many of the leads gained from social media are considered top-of-funnel, industry research has found that the average person spends 147 minutes — or nearly two and a half hours — on social media each day. This means your content will be seen widely and if effective, it can compel viewers to become customers.
4. Study the competition
You can gain insight into where you need to improve and what not to do by looking through your competitors’ social media posts. This can help you get a sense of how they position a product within the market or which trends they’re keying in on.
For example, say you own a coffee company and the holiday season is approaching. You’ve noticed your sales have been slower than usual. You can check social media and see that similar companies are serving coffee in festive cups for all of December. You can borrow from strategies you see on social media and add your own unique twist. Because so many social media metrics are easily seen — how many likes, shares, and views a post gets — you’ll be able to quickly get an idea of what’s working for competitors and what isn’t.
How does social media marketing work?
In a nutshell, social media marketing works by promoting your brand to social media audiences. Businesses get a platform to say who they are, what they do, and why you should buy from them, and customers get to see a wide range of products, services and offers all from the comfort of their phone or computer. There are many ways you can promote your business using social media, from creating hilarious video content that shows your audience your relatable side, to crafting high-quality data-driven reports to show your expertise in your industry.
Social media marketing activities can include:
Content planning and creation. This is the most visible component of social media marketing. It’s the art of creating appropriate types of content for each platform to connect with the audience there.
Content scheduling and publishing. This is the task of actually getting your content onto the appropriate platforms at the appropriate time.
Social media analytics. Using analytics tools to track how content performs, report on progress towards social media goals, and plan ways to improve overall response.
Social listening. Using social media marketing tools to keep a virtual ear to the ground, learning what’s being said about your brand and your industry. This is also a powerful tool for competitor research.
Community management. Connecting with followers to build a community online, then working to keep that community active and healthy by responding to messages and creating ongoing opportunities for engagement.
Social media advertising. Using paid tools on social networks to get your content in front of a larger audience. This may include working with influencers or external content creators.
Why is marketing through social media so effective?
Marketing through social media is effective because it’s a place where more than half the global population hangs out. Not to mention, a whopping 76% of social media users have purchased something because they saw it on social media.
Here’s a quick breakdown by platform:
- Snapchat users have $4.4 trillion in global spending power
- 68% of users watched YouTube to help them make a purchase decision
- 50% of Instagram users say that they’ve visited a brand’s website after viewing their Stories
- Brands see 1.7x more product discovery on TikTok than on other platforms
- 50% of Pinterest users see the platform as a shopping destination
Before social media, brands relied on more traditional advertising routes to get their message to their customers. TV ads, billboards, radio ads, flyers, magazine spots, and more offered brands a way to serve up content that (hopefully) got customers thinking about buying their products. But, with the rise of social media, brands no longer need to wait around for someone to turn on the TV or open a magazine. Today, people spend approximately 2 hours and 23 minutes daily on social media. That accounts for 35.8% of total daily online activities.