Social media shouldn’t be your whole marketing plan, but it does play a valuable role. Think of it as a necessary tool, but not the entire toolbox. Your business’s plan should be composed of a variety of marketing channels that you use effectively – and we’re here to explain how to use social media to its fullest potential.
Social Media’s Role
In today’s digital age, social media is unavoidable. It’s where people get their news, connect with friends, shop, learn about brands, and so much more. It’s absolutely imperative that your business has a presence there!
Social media is a place where your brand can make itself known and communicate/interact with your customers. Trust is a major player in a consumer’s choice to do business with you, and that trust comes from understanding who you are. Social media is the perfect medium to help that happen.
Where Does Social Media Fit?
Here’s how social media can fit into every aspect of your marketing plan:
Direct Marketing
Social media is the platform where your customers can communicate directly with you through messaging, offers, and promotions. It’s where you deliver content tailored to your target audience and serve them content that they relate to.
Personalization is huge for customer connection. As you call out customers’ pain points and promise to solve them, you will nurture leads and drive conversions like crazy.
Advertising
Speaking of target audiences, social media ads allow you to target exactly who you want to when it comes to demographics, behaviors, and interests. The people who are most likely to be interested in your product or service will be the ones who see it once you know how to use social media correctly – and using it correctly is easy! Meta and LinkedIn offer great targeting options and analytics so you can control exactly who sees your content.
Keep in mind that social media advertising is different than social media content. Your ads can promote products, services and sales. Your content should be focused on starting conversations with your audience.
Sales
When it comes to hosting sweepstakes and giveaways, social media is the place to be. These incentivize purchases with your customers and drive engagement, which does the work in getting your brand seen by more people. The immediate action that sweepstakes and giveaways calls for creates necessary buzz on social media, which then creates buzz for your business (and increases sales!).
This is even more powerful if you are using radio ads to promote your sweepstakes as well. Radio creates the theater of the mind and generates buzz. If a consumer hears your radio ad but isn’t able to enter the contest right away (perhaps because they are driving), they are more likely to enter it when they see the link posted on social media later that day.
Public Relations
Reputation is everything for your brand, and social media is the ideal place for reputation management. On your pages, you can utilize storytelling and create relationships with your customers and, on your Facebook and Google My Business profiles, you can receive feedback from customers and cultivate your online reputation.
Remember that every review is valuable, even the not-so-stellar ones. Of course, we all love receiving glowing reviews, but negative reviews give you the chance to publicly make things right with a customer. If your brand is known for caring about the customer 100% of the time and making sure their experience is positive, your online reputation will thrive.
Digital Marketing
Your social media platforms complement the rest of your presence online. They go hand-in-hand with your website, blogs, and email marketing to create an all-powerful force. When you use social media, you can extend your reach by a considerable degree and make the most of your online presence.
What’s Your Plan?
Having a business presence on social media is integral to staying relevant in today’s marketing atmosphere. Social media encourages interaction and, therefore, meaningful connections with your audience, which creates loyal customers that help you achieve your marketing goals.
Federated Media can help you stay on top of the ever-changing social media landscape, as we’re clued into the constant advancement of technology and how to remain relevant with consumers. Reach out to our team today to chat about weaving social media into your marketing plan!
