Super Social Media Marketing Basics

Managing a brand’s social presence may be daunting whether you’re a seasoned or novice social media manager. After all, you’re in charge of every post and possible user interaction, so the pressure is on. Understanding social media marketing basics can relieve some of that pressure.

You may reach out to your audience by utilizing social media to contact them where they are.

However, what makes for a successful social media campaign? What measures should you take to get your social media up and running?

This article will cover the basics of social media marketing and provide a social media checklist to get you started.

What is Social Media Marketing?

Social media marketing uses platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn to build relationships and interact with potential and current customers.

It encompasses everything from creating and sharing content to engaging with users to increase brand awareness, drive website traffic, or generate sales leads.

In other words, a successful social media strategy is all about building relationships with your customers through online platforms.

The most important part of social media marketing efforts is creating engaging, valuable, and shareable content.

If you can create content that resonates with your ideal audience, they’re more likely to share it with their friends and followers, which will help you reach a larger audience.

What is a Social Media Strategy

A social media strategy is the overall plan for using social media to reach and engage your target audience. The goal of a social media strategy is to create a platform where your brand can share messages, learn from customers, and build relationships with potential customers. There are a number of factors to consider when creating a strategy, including:

• Target Audience: Who are you trying to reach with your messages? Are you targeting people who use the same platforms as you (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram), people who use specific platforms more often (LinkedIn, Pinterest), or people who live in certain areas (Google)?
• Platforms: What platforms do you want to use? Do you want to focus on one platform exclusively (Facebook), or do you want to be active across several platforms (Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook Messenger)? Finding out which platform your audience spends the most time on is extremely helpful.
• Timing: How long do you want your messages to stay up? Do you want to post frequently throughout the day or just once per week? Are there specific times of the year when engagement rates are higher for your brand?
• Content Strategy: What topics will you cover on your platform? When designing a social media strategy, it is important to consider what topics you want to cover to ensure you post high-quality content, how you will curate and share content, and how you will measure the success of your strategy.

Why Use Social Media For Marketing?

You must be aware of new trends in your industry in order to compete. So, how can you break free from the pack and do everything possible to succeed? Of course, using social media! Below are some benefits of social media marketing:

Helps you reach a larger audience

With over 3.5 billion active social media profiles, it’s hard to ignore that your audience is probably using one or more platforms. By creating and sharing content on these platforms, you can reach a larger audience than you would through traditional marketing methods.

Increases brand awareness and recognition.

Social media is a great way of increasing brand awareness and recognition. When people see your brand name and logo in their newsfeeds or on their favorite platform, they’re more likely to remember it when they’re ready to make a purchase.

Helps you connect with potential and current customers

Social media provides a unique opportunity to connect with potential and existing customers. You can interact with them in a more informal setting, which can help build relationships and trust.

Can lead to increased website traffic

You can drive traffic back to your site if you include links to your website in your social media posts. Social media is one of the most effective sources of referral traffic.

Can generate leads and sales

You can use your online activity to generate leads and sales. For example, you can run social media ads on Facebook or LinkedIn that target people in the market for your product or service.

Helps you build relationships with influencers

Another benefit of social media digital marketing is that it helps you build relationships with influencers. These people have a large following and can help promote your product or service to their audience.

Helps Understand Your Target Customers’ Interests, Needs, and Wants

Each platform has different features that can be leveraged to understand your target customer’s interests.

For example, Facebook has an Insights feature that shows you the demographics of your page likers and the types of content they engage with the most.

This information can be used to create content that appeals to their interests and needs.

Provides Platforms to Tell Your Brand’s Story

People want to do business with brands they can trust. And one of the best ways to build trust is by telling your brand’s story.

Social media provides platforms where you can share your brand’s history and the stories of the people who work for you.

This helps humanize your brand and make it more relatable to your target audience.

Helps Provide Responsive Customer Service

It is a great way to provide responsive customer service.

For example, if you have a Facebook page, you can use it to resolve customer complaints or answer questions promptly.

This shows your target audience that you care about their needs and are willing to go the extra mile to help them.

Assessing the Competition

By keeping an eye on your competition’s online activity, you can better understand what’s working for them and what isn’t.

You can then use this information to adjust your own social media strategy.

For example, if you see that they’re getting a lot of engagement on a specific type of post, you can create similar content for your audience.

As you can see, there are many benefits of social media marketing. If you’re not using social media to market your business, you’re missing out on an excellent opportunity to reach your audience.

Start today, and you’ll soon see the benefits for yourself!

Social Media Marketing Basics To Help You Get Started

Not sure how to get started with social media marketing? Use this checklist to make sure you’re on the right track.

1. Pick your social channels

The first step is to pick the social media channels that will work best for your business. There are many options out there, so it’s important to choose the ones that will be most effective for you.

Examining your target audience is the ideal approach when choosing which platforms to utilize. Look into which audiences tend to dominate each social media platform and then aim for the ones that are most popular among your target groups. You may only need to use one network at first, or you could use a few.

For example, if your target audience is mainly on Facebook, you’ll want to focus your efforts there. Those will be better choices if they’re more active on Twitter or Instagram.

2. Set up your profiles

Once you’ve chosen which social media platforms to use, it’s time to set up your profiles. Ensure you include information about your business, such as your website and contact information.

You should also add a profile photo and cover photo representing your brand. These images should be high quality and professional-looking.

3. Develop a content strategy

After your profiles are set up, it’s time to start creating content. This is where you’ll need to put some thought into what kind of content you want to post.

Think about the goals you want to achieve with your social media marketing and what kind of content will help you reach those goals.

For example, if you’re trying to increase brand awareness, you’ll want to post shareable and informative content. If you’re trying to drive traffic to your website, you’ll want to post links to your blog posts or landing pages.

Content strategy also involves planning how often you post and what time of day. You don’t want to overload your followers with too much content, so finding a balance is crucial.

4. Create a social media calendar

Once you have a plan for your content, it’s time to start creating it. A social media calendar can help you stay organized and on track.

A social media calendar is simply a document that outlines the content you’ll be posting and when you’ll be posting it. This can be as simple as a Google Doc or Excel spreadsheet.

A social media calendar can also be more complex with tools like feedalpha!

5. Start creating content

Now it’s time to start creating the actual content. This could involve writing blog posts, taking photos, shooting videos, or anything else that will help you achieve your goals.

Remember to keep your target audience in mind when you’re creating content. The goal is to create something they will find interesting, useful, or both.

Content is the most essential part of social media marketing, so make sure you’re putting out high-quality stuff.

Need some content ideas? Click here

6. Post your content

Once you have some great content created, it’s time to start posting it. Begin by posting on your chosen social media platforms according to your schedule.

Ensure you monitor your social media channels and engage with any comments, likes, or shares you receive.

Posting great content is only half the battle. You also need to ensure you’re promoting your content to reach as many people as possible.

Social media management tools like feedalpha and Buffer can be a great way to save time on social media marketing.

They allow you to pre-schedule your posts to automatically be published at the best times.

Scheduling tools can also help you keep track of your posts and ensure you’re sticking to your posting schedule.

7. Promote your content

There are a few different ways you can promote your content. The first is to simply share it on your social media accounts.

This can help boost your content and get it in front of more people.

Another way to promote your content is to use paid ads. This can be done on most social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Paid advertising allows you to specifically target your audience with your content, which can help to improve its reach.

8. Follow fellow businesses, brands, and prospects

Make sure you follow other businesses, brands, and prospects on social media. This can help you get noticed by them and give you an idea of the kind of content they’re posting.

You can also engage with them directly by liking, commenting, or sharing their posts.

Fellow businesses, brands, and prospects can also be a great source of content ideas.

9. Keep a close eye on your mentions

It’s important to keep an eye on your mentions to see what people are saying about you online. You can do this by setting up Google Alerts or using a social media management tool like Hootsuite Insights.

If you see any negative mentions, respond quickly and resolve the issue.

10. Social Media Audit

Once you’ve been doing social media marketing for a while, it’s essential to take a step back and analyze your results. This will help you to see what’s working and what isn’t.

You can look at a few different metrics, including social media engagement rate, reach, and clicks.

A social media audit is an important step in any marketing campaign. It can help identify how well your social media platforms are performing, and help you adjust your strategy as needed. There are a few key steps to conducting a social media audit:

1. Identify your target audience.

2. Evaluate the reach and engagement of your posts and pages.

3. Assess the effectiveness of your paid advertising campaigns on social media platforms.

4. Determine which channels are most effective for driving traffic to your site or landing page.

5. Make changes to your strategy as necessary based on the results of the audit

11. Make adjustments

Once you’ve analyzed your results, it’s time to make adjustments. This could involve changing your content strategy, posting schedule, or anything else you think could be improved.

Remember to keep track of your results so that you can see how your changes are affecting them.

12. Keep a consistent brand image across the platform

Make sure your social media accounts all have a consistent look and feel. This includes your profile picture, cover photo, and any other images you use.

Your posts should also be consistent with each other in terms of tone and style.

Keeping a consistent brand image will help people to recognize your business more easily and make it more memorable.

13. Take advantage of social media trends

One way to stand out on social media is to take advantage of current trends. This could involve using popular hashtags, posting about hot topics, or anything relevant to what’s happening in the world.

Of course, you should only use trends that make sense for your business.

For example, you might post about the latest fashion trends if you’re a clothing company.

14. Partner with Influencers

Influencers are people with a large following on social media. They can help to promote your business by sharing your content with their followers.

You can find influencers in your industry by using a tool like BuzzSumo.

Once you’ve found some potential influencers, reach out to them and see if they’re interested in working with you.

15. Use social media tools

There are several social media tools available that can help you to improve your social media marketing plan and management.

Some of these tools include feedalpha, Sprout Social and Hootsuite.

These tools can help you schedule posts, analyze your results, and manage multiple accounts.

Social Media Daily Checklist

Now that you know what to do, it’s time to create a daily social media checklist. This will help you ensure you’re doing everything you need to succeed.

Social Media Monthly Checklist

In addition to your daily checklist, there are also some monthly tasks you should be doing to stay on top of your social media.

Final Thoughts!

There you have it! A social media marketing basics guide to get you started and social media daily and monthly checklist to help you stay organised!

Remember, consistency is vital when it comes to digital marketing. By following these checklists, you’ll be sure to stay consistent and see the results you want.