Social media has become a staple of marketing, as much as it has ingrained its way into our society. However, it has demonstrated itself as a complicated and fickle tool for marketers, as it puts your business at the whims of various currents outside your control. While social media is an important tool for companies to connect and engage with their target customers, it cannot be the only marketing resource companies utilize.
What is Social Media Marketing?
Social media management is a marketing service that uses unpaid methods of interacting with your target customers, like posting blog content, sharing information with followers, and commenting in social media groups, unlike advertising where you are buying ads on Twitter or Facebook. Its benefit as a marketing tool is that posting on social media is free, though you do have to pay for ads on these platforms.
Paid marketing on the platforms manifests as ads, which appear on the platforms and target relevant and personalized content to many people. They can effectively reach multiple people with little cost, making it a highly cost-effective way to amplify your reach, drive traffic to your website or stores, or improve sales of a specific product.
You can also “boost” posts, which is where companies pay to have posts appear longer than their time limit usually allows. Boosted posts highlight well-performing posts, keeping them visible for longer and to more people. The more you pay, the more it will stay visible. While not an ad outright, boosted posts are valuable marketing tools.
Assist Your Other Marketing with Social Media
For all the value social media provides, its biggest benefit is in how well it assists your other forms of marketing. Because it reaches customers so well and can be shared easily, it forms a fantastic distribution channel for your content marketing. You can post links to blogs, video content, or eBooks, which your followers can share or comment on, allowing you to engage and discuss with people. These can work alongside your email marketing or display ads by helping to reach customers differently or to post quick updates regarding store changes to keep customers informed.
A significant portion of your success depends on how often you post to social media and how well you engage with your audience. Creating content regularly gives you a steady volume of topics to present to your audience. For further help developing a longer-term strategy, you may want to work with a media partner to help you target your audience and build an effective following.
