Social Media Marketing

A RESEARCH PROJECT ON SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING BBA (BACHLER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION) OF

SESSION 2017-2019

SUBMITTED TO

SUBMITTED BY

MR. VIJAY BHUSHAN

ASHUTOSH KUMAR JHA

FACULTY OF ENGLISH DEPARTMENT OF KALINGA

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Certificate

This is certify that ASHUTOSH KUMAR JHA student of BBA 3RD SEMESTER Kalinga university,Naya Raipur (c.g) has completed her research on (COMPARISON OF MODERN EDUCATION SYSTEM WITH TRADITIONAL EDUCATION SYSTEM) under the guidance of MR.VIJAY BHUSAN (Faculty of English department of Kalinga university) for the academic year 2017-2019 as prescribed in curriculum.

Project guide MR. VIJAY BHUSHAN Faculty of English department Of Kalinga university, Naya Raipur (C.G) 2

DECLARATION

I hereby declare that the project work entitled (Social media marketing) is a genuine work done by me is submitted to communication skills subject Kalinga university,Naya Raipur(c.g) in partial fulfillment of the requirement for award of BBA degree during academic year 2017-2019. All collected information is authentic to the best of my knowledge, the work done by others is, has been properly acknowledge.

Project guide

ASHUTOSH KUMAR JHA BBA 3RD SEMESTER

MR. VIJAY BHUSHAN Faculty of English department Of Kalinga university, Naya Raipur (C.G)

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Acknowledgement As a first research work in my academic life which I tried my best to do something better it was not possible to do it alone without the help, support and encouragement of my respecter sir Mr. Vijay Bhushan assistant professor of English department Kalinga university, hereby I would like to take the occasion to thank god to help me to do my research successfully, secondly I would like to thank my respected sir and also those who supported me a lot to do this research work which was not easy and possible as my first research work. I am very lucky and I am so happy that at least do a research for those who are interested to read and take information from it. It will not be my last work I will try to do more and more in my life and for others.

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ABSTRACT

With the introduction of the Internet, consumers have been relying heavily on the media for content. The popularity of consumergenerated content (CGC) has captured the consumer (i.e., user) as the producer, which has caused a power shift in the market from companies to consumers. When technology is paired with culture, it is inevitable that consumers constantly change their attitudes toward consumption to adapt to current trends.Thus, marketers are meticulously looking for information to stay current with the consumer market in order to maintain their market share. CGC is closely related to electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) and is found on various online review sites, forums, blogs, company websites, and social media platforms.

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TABLE OF CONTENT          

Introduction…………………………………………………….………07 Definition…………………………………………………………………09 Research Methodology and Data Collection………………10 Social media marketing success factors………….………..13 7 Hard Truths About Social Media Marketing……………15 Background……………………………………………………………...20 Conclusion………………………………………………………….…….28 History of social media marketing…………………….………29 The Evolution of Social Media Marketing…………….….33 7 reasons why social media marketing is important for your business…………………………………………………………..42

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INTRODUCTION

Social media marketing is the use of social media platforms and websites to promote a product or service. Although the terms emarketing and digital marketing are still dominant in academia, social media marketing is becoming more popular for both practitioners and researchers.Most social media platforms have built-in data analytics tools, which enable companies to track the progress, success, and engagement of ad campaigns. Companies address a range of stakeholders through social media marketing, including current and potential customers, current and potential employees, journalists, bloggers, and the general public. On a strategic level, social media marketing includes the management of a marketing campaign, governance, setting the scope (e.g. more active or passive use) and the establishment of a firm's desired social media "culture" and "tone."

When using social media marketing, firms can allow customers and Internet users to post user-generated content (e.g., online comments, product reviews, etc.), also known as "earned media," rather than use marketer-prepared advertising copy. Social networking websites allow individuals, businesses and other organizations to interact with one another and build relationships and communities online. When companies join these social channels, consumers can interact with them directly.[3] That interaction can be more personal to users than traditional methods of outbound 7

marketing and advertising. Social networking sites act as word of mouth or more precisely, e-word of mouth. The Internet's ability to reach billions across the globe has given online word of mouth a powerful voice and far reach. The ability to rapidly change buying patterns and product or service acquisition and activity to a growing number of consumers is defined as an influence network. Social networking sites and blogs allow followers to "retweet" or "repost" comments made by others about a product being promoted, which occurs quite frequently on some social media sites. By repeating the message, the user's connections are able to see the message, therefore reaching more people. Because the information about the product is being put out there and is getting repeated, more traffic is brought to the product/company.[4] Social networking websites are based on building virtual communities that allow consumers to express their needs, wants and values, online. Social media marketing then connects these consumers and audiences to businesses that share the same needs, wants, and values. Through social networking sites, companies can keep in touch with individual followers. This personal interaction can instill a feeling of loyalty into followers and potential customers. Also, by choosing whom to follow on these sites, products can reach a very narrow target audience. Social networking sites also include much information about what products and services prospective clients might be interested in. Through the use of new semantic analysis technologies, marketers can detect buying signals, such as content shared by people and questions posted online. An understanding of buying signals can help sales people target relevant prospects and marketers run micro-targeted campaigns. In 2014, over 80% of business executives identified social media as an integral part of their business. Business retailers have seen 133% increases in their revenues from social media marketing.

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Definition Social media marketing (SMM) refers to techniques that target social networks and applications to spread brand awareness or promote particular products. Social media marketing campaigns usually center around: Establishing a social media presence on major platforms Creating shareable content and advertorials Cultivating customer feedback throughout the campaign through surveys and contests Social media marketing is perceived as a more targeted type of advertising and is therefore believed to be very effective in creating brand awareness. Social media presence is a necessity for many customer-driven enterprises as it gives the impression of a more immediate connection between the customer and the seller. Moreover, campaigns spread through social media are believed to have more resonance because they are usually discovered through links shared by trusted sources. The rich data available through social media can allow advertisers to target their message to very specific audiences, providing the potential for better results.

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Research Methodology and Data Collection

There are several different ways to conduct a research and the very first step is to decide which research approach to use. The approach can be decided between two different options: deductive reasoning and inductive reasoning. Deductive reasoning starts the research “topdown”, meaning that the researcher starts the study with a general knowledge following with more detailed information of the actual matter. The inductive reasoning starts with the other way around focusing first on the topic and developing the research into a more general theory at the end. When the idea of the research is clear, it is time to start thinking of how to collect the data needed and which methodology to use. The researcher will have to choose a methodology that will best suit her project and meet the goals of the research. There are several different research methodologies and contexts to use them, but only the most common ones qualitative and quantitative research methods are introduced here. Quantitative research focuses on measuring something, such as a part of population thinking or acting in a certain way. It often involves big number of people being part of the research and sub-groups formed by age or social status. As this method is all about measuring things, research questions starting with words such as “how many?” or “how much?” are common in a quantitative research. The other research method to be introduced here is a qualitative research method. It can be chosen to be the right method for the 10

research, if the research question starts with the questions what, why and how, rather than with questions concerning quantity. Qualitative research is all about understanding why people are behaving the way they are and how things could be done differently. This research method does not include big samples of people, but is more focused on some specific group of people. Even though these two methodologies differ from each other, both of them can be used in a same research. Often the answer to a research question cannot be found without using the mix of both methodologies. As in this research the goal is to find out how should the social media marketing of a case company be improved in order to achieve new customers from Finland, the qualitative research method is chosen. However, in order to be able to answer the question, a quantitative method must be implemented as well. For that reason both, qualitative and quantitative research methods will be carried out. After selecting the right methods for the research it is time to start collecting the data. In a research project the data means the information that will be gathered for the research project. The data will help the researcher to conduct the study and to build a clear picture of the matter being studied. In this research the primary data was collected from a web survey, concluded among the students of Lahti University of Applied Sciences. The purpose of the survey was to find out is Finnish youth is using social media when searching for information of accommodation options. Other source of primary data was an interview with a person working for the case hostel. The interview was done via email and questions were open end questions, allowing the person to answer freely. 11

Another important source of information for this thesis was secondary data, which was collected from literature, articles and from Internet based sources. The following figure represents the data collection methods of this research.

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Social media marketing success factors The success factors for developing social media marketing are summarised through the different parts of our 7 Steps to Social Media Success Guide:

1. Set business goals for your social media - it's best not to experiment without a clear idea of how social media will support your business goals.

2. Create a social media strategy. A strategy will help you to deploy social media in the best way to reach your goals by prioritising on the channels in our RADAR which are most effective.

3. Active social listening and reputation management. Most advice on social media marketing strategies advises to start by listening to your conversations. We prefer the term coined by Brian Solis in his book Engage of "Active Social Listening" since this shows the need for a feedback cycle within social media marketing.

4. Define content and engagement strategy. We've noted that encouraging engagement and participation are the biggest challenges

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to social media marketing, so clear strategies are needed to show how to achieve these.

5. Define communications strategy. In the social media era, a continuous communications strategy is necessary to engage your audience through the many channels available. Key issues here are defining the types of content value you offer through different social channels and the frequency. Integrating different digital channels including email marketing through a social media marketing hub is also a key issue here.

6. Deploy best practice approaches for the core social media platforms. Each social media platform such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube has unique characteristics and audience needs. There is also a bewildering array of tools to deploy and etiquette to follow so you won't be seen as a spammer.

7. Social media optimisation. You may have a presence established, but this is only the beginning in your journey to optimise your presence to deliver real value for your business.

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7 Hard Truths About Social Media Marketing You’ve likely heard that social media has the potential to help you multiply your revenue, far in excess of what you spent over the course of the campaign. A few years ago, there were reports of businesses seeing returns of 100, 200, or even 1,000 percent, and even today, most marketers will tell you it’s one of the highest-ROI online marketing strategies available, in part because of the low costs and nonexistent barriers to entry.

But social media marketing has become more competitive and commercially-saturated. Organic reach is declining precipitously. And that means that there are some hard truths we need to accept about social media marketing.

1. Not all marketers see a positive ROI.

Despite the fact that 77 percent of marketers are using at least one social media channel to market their business, only 48 percent of businesses claim to see any ROI whatsoever. There are many reasons for this discrepancy—most of which are accounted for in the following points. 15

2. It takes significant time and effort to be successful.

Social media isn’t something you can “turn on” and expect to start seeing an increase in revenue or conversions. It takes time and effort to build a successful social media presence; you need to have a thorough understanding of your target market, you need to carefully craft your messaging and time your posts adeptly, and on top of that, you need to be active consistently, engaging with your audience, sometimes for months or years, before you see a return on the investment. Chances are, you won’t break even your first month, both because it takes a long time to generate a significant following and because you’ll make lots of mistakes when you’re first starting out.

3. The definition of a “return on investment” may vary.

Let’s say one of your fellow business owners tells you they’re seeing a 500 percent ROI. That’s impressive, but where is it coming from? Are they measuring that based on the number of visitors they’re getting from social media? Based on an increase in sales that may or may not have come from the channel directly? To make things even more complicated, are they calculating costs accurately, including the time of the full-time employees working on the campaign? In most cases, ROI is self-reported, so it’s hard to ensure you’re getting an accurate account. 16

4. Social media ROI depends on other marketing channels.

In many cases, the strength of your social media campaign will be dependent on the strength of your efforts in other channels. For example, let’s say you have two companies essentially doing the same thing, Company A and Company B. Company A launches a social media campaign and starts paying $100 a week toward marketing. Company B spends $100 a week on traditional advertising, and starts building an initial client base. After a few months, Company A has made some progress and is breaking even on its social media spend. Company B has a thriving customer base, so they decide to start a social media presence. By the end of the month, both companies have 1,000 followers. By this point, Company A has invested more than $1,000, but Company B has only invested $100—yet their posts are getting a similar amount of reach. This example shows how the numbers can become skewed in favor of brands with big advertising budgets being spent on other marketing efforts, or those with an already-existing audience.

5. A positive ROI is getting harder to earn.

A positive social media marketing ROI is harder to earn today than it was a few years ago, in part because of an overall decline in the organic reach a brand can achieve on social media platforms. Social media apps have intentionally decreased the amount of visibility an organization or 17

company page can get without paying, in part to ensure that mainstream users have a less commercial experience when browsing their newsfeed, and in part to drive more necessity for paid advertising. At some point in the not-so-distant future, ads may be necessary to be seen on social media. Social media ads can yield a positive ROI in their own right, but they’re inherently costlier than purely organic strategies.

6. Some industries are naturally better suited for social media marketing than others.

I think it’s foolish to say that some industries can’t be successful on social media; almost any company has the potential to see a positive ROI using social media marketing. Yet, some industries are going to have an easier time than others. Those with strong visuals and interesting content topics, or those that are mass-marketed to a demographic that uses social media heavily will almost always outperform a business with sparse demographics, or one in a typically “boring” industry.

7. Explosive growth requires a bit of luck.

Just one piece of viral content can quickly scale your social media presence from “amateur” to “professional,” but the science on viral content is fairly limited. Even if you have all the “right” ingredients in place, there’s still an element of luck to your success. A competing 18

piece of content might see 10 times as many shares as yours just because it was timed differently, or because the right person happened to see it first.

These facts aren’t meant to discourage you from pursuing a social media marketing campaign, nor are they a criticism of the stats themselves. I’m a major proponent of social media marketing in my own right, and I stand by the idea that social media is still one of the best, most cost-efficient marketing strategies.

But if you want to be successful, you need to set realistic expectations, and that means thoroughly understanding the nature and potential of the strategy before jumping in.

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Background

Social Media is a relatively new form of marketing that just about every business today is at least aware of, if not already utilising it in some form or another.

The global fixation with social media, or social networking as it’s often referred to, can be easily compared to the hysteria of the Internet revolution in the 1990’s. As reported by Mangold and Faulds (2009), this marketing medium differentiates from the traditional communication channels in terms of reach, frequency and immediacy, with the most obvious difference being user-generated content.

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 Business Investment

It is perhaps not surprising why businesses across the world are investing in this new form of communication to reach their consumers and stakeholders. Searching on the term ‘social media sites’ or ‘social networking’ on any Internet search engine brings up dozens of networks including the popular Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube – the list appears endless.

Expenditure on social media by businesses is on the rise. A recent study by the IAB (Internet Advertising Bureau) shows that in the first half of 2014 in the UK alone, there has been a rise of 53% in the spend on social media by businesses, with a total contribution of £242.5 million (Somerville, 2014). Another study by IAB on FMGC sector, consisting of more than 4500 survey responses and 800 interviews, showed that 90% of customers would use social media to refer the brands to peers, four in five customers would buy products that have good social media coverage and 83% would be willing to try products that are popular in social media (Anon, 2012).

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 Consumer Choice and Motivation

A research study conducted by Mass Relevance that provides a social media curation platform to clients found that 59% of consumers will more likely trust a brand that has presence in social media and 64% of the consumers interviewed have already made purchases based on social media presence and reviews (Chaney, 2012). Appendix 1 shows the social media advertising effects on consumers (Source: Neilsen Survey: Anon, 2012)

A study for Harvard Business Review by Edelman (2010) discusses how the Internet and social marketing has changed not only the way businesses operate but also how consumers choose their products. It takes the reader through the funnel metaphor that was previously being used by marketers to understand how consumers select their products and how this has moved to a more open-ended approach whereby consumers no longer follow a methodical approach of selecting products. It stresses how important it is for brands to connect with consumers and it also studied the consumers’ decisions across five different industries, namely automobile, skincare, insurance, mobile telecommunications and electronics, across three different continents. Based on the results of the study, it proposed a four-stage model that focuses on today’s consumers using social media for advocating products and also purchasing based on the reviews and backing 22

received. The research takes the reader through the entire customer journey and informs businesses what they should not focus energy and resources on. Providing statistical information about various surveys enables organisations to identify the key areas they should concentrate on in order to build a solid brand image online.

From the above, it can be understood that social media has a profound impact on consumer choice in terms of brand and product selection and that it is key to engage effectively with customers. There is a lot of literature that discusses social media impact on consumers and why businesses should engage with customers, exploiting social media to provide value added etc. The main aim of this essay is to look into various key researches in this area and to provide an overview of effective social media marketing strategies for businesses.

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 Social Media Strategy

While social media has its benefits, it is important that businesses are acutely aware of their own social media strategies. One faux-pas might prove to be detrimental to brand image and performance. For example, an indepth study conducted by BusinessWeek (2009) discusses social media hype and the disadvantages it may have on a business. For instance, the potential risks social media marketing poses if employees waste their time on social networking sites instead of on productive tasks in the interests of the organisation. It also forewarns of blunders that could have a profound negative impact on the business itself. This statement is supported by providing evidence in the study that many social media campaigns fail and it sites the example of one such campaign by Saatchi & Saatchi’s campaign for Toyota Matrix, which led to a lawsuit of $10 million (Groth, 2011). If this happens with a small and medium enterprise, it may reap havoc on the business. The study by BusinessWeek (2009) also says that it is hard to quantify the outcomes that social media creates, such as trust and loyalty.

Hence it is important to have a good and well thought out social media strategy tailored to the organisation’s needs. For example, selecting which social networking sites to subscribe to and what kind of content should be posted, and how frequently, are a key areas of a social media strategy. 24

One global organisation that appears to have mastered its social media strategy is car manufacturer, Ford. In a recent case study the researcher explains how Ford has included the key success elements in its strategy including customised posts, user connectivity through tone of voice and perhaps most importantly, a social media team that reads and responds to every single comment made by followers (Ratcliff, 2014). However, it is worth noting that Ford has worked out what works for its own business, and this exact strategy may not necessarily drive the same achievement for different organisations.

Social media is not the responsibility of one single person within the organisation, rather a collective responsibility of all employees. Social media policies and ‘etiquette’ guidelines need to be developed and strictly adhered to, in order to prevent the risk of employees wasting time and also to clearly define who owns the communication/conversation, the level of transparency in communications, the tone and frequency of messages, building trusting and long-lasting customer relationships etc. The social media strategy should also specifically define the outcomes, the ways in which to measure these outcomes and the total spend on social media activities along with dedicated resources.

For a social media strategy to work, it is important that the communication is two-way and that customer opinion is valued. Similarly, it is pivotal to integrate social media marketing with the 25

overall online marketing strategy and share contents with the users in a social media-friendly ‘pressroom’. Effective collaboration and providing value content plays a major role in determining the success of a social media marketing strategy (Evans, 2010).

A good social media marketing model should be adopted in order to target the right customers, engage with them, constantly work towards attracting more potential customers and building a good brand image. Figure 2 (Appendix) depicts a three-phased approach in the social media marketing model. Firstly, customers need to be understood – from what they perceive about the brand and also their networks. Secondly, the key influencers are analysed to assess what interests customers. The third and final phase is engagement and interaction with the customers. This model gives a broad overview of the social media engagement phases. There are various models in vogue today and each model can work well for a specific business or sector. Depending on the requirements of the business, it is essential to work on a model that would add value to the business and also act as a powerful tool to facilitate the achievement of social media goals for the business. Social media marketing model should be aligned to the social media strategy of the business.

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 Return on Investment

Drury (2008) discusses how marketers of various industries and businesses can effectively engage in social media marketing. The paper gives a fairly comprehensive view on what social media is and the role of marketing within it. It discusses how social media can be monetised by the marketers and the researcher talks about how marketing is no longer one-dimensional and it is therefore essential for businesses to engage with consumers to build stronger and lasting relationships. It also suggests that the key to a successful relationship would be to provide consumers with tailor-made promotions and messages that would bring various elements together to reach a larger percentage of the audience. The researcher does however state that it is essential for businesses to benchmark success and to effectively measure return on investment (ROI), otherwise it could become very challenging and difficult to drive growth.

Measuring ROI can however be challenging. A recent white paper by Adobe revealed that 88% of the marketers surveyed didn’t feel they could truly quantify the success of their social media efforts (Adobe Digital Index, 2012). Some logical starting points would be to use metric tools, measure interactions such as ‘likes’ and ‘shares’ and measure traffic to the sites (Burg, 2013).

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Conclusion There is a lot of literature on various aspects including, but not limited to, the effects of social media on small and medium scale enterprises, identification of skill gaps in social media with specific emphasis to certain industries, general studies on implementation challenges, perception of social media on businesses, and barriers to adaptation of social media by businesses etc. Each researcher, however, talks about the importance of measuring the success of the social media activities on the business to enable further growth. They also discuss the importance of being able to fully understand the paradigm shift and having to constantly engage in effective ways of using social media and how any mistakes might jeopardise the business, its image and the reputation that has been built.

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History of Social media marketing The growth of social media has created a need for platforms to evolve with consumers demands for something new and entertaining. Over the years there have been many networks that have been slow to implement changes or unable to adapt their platform to demands of consumers.

On a daily basis we check our phones on average 150 times, here in #TheLab it is the first thing we do in the morning, the last thing we do at night and continually throughout the day, social media marketing is everywhere. Over the years there have been many social platforms that have successfully developed their brand to accommodate the needs of consumers, but of course where there are successes there are failures, and many platforms have failed to stay relevant in an ever changing climate.

Believe it or not social media did not start with Facebook, the idea of social media began in the early 1970’s as a result of aspects like e-mail, the first e-mail being sent in 1971. With the first solely social interaction site developing in 1997, Six Degrees.

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The importance of understanding the history of social media marketing is not only the development of the platforms but how they also offer something unique for the customers and offer a personal, yet sometimes interruptive form of advertising for businesses. Knowing how to use social media marketing for your business properly and acknowledge upcoming platforms as well as out-of-date sites gives you advantage over others. At the moment Video is a hot trend but images do still have more engagement on social media, so be sure to use the right method for your business. There are so many different trends available and with the platforms continually updating it is more important than ever to make sure that you are creating content that your audience will see. Your audiences are now more accessible than ever with the help of these social media sites providing advertising and specific targeting opportunities.

The majority of the sites that are still relevant are using Paid Advertising on their platforms, this is increasingly important as businesses want to be where consumers are, and if your platform is good enough it will have the people. Using Paid Advertising on social media allows you to target specific demographics, choosing the right social media marketing strategy will determine the success of your campaign. For example, Facebook’s demographic has shifted over the years and now 73% of 3049 year old’s are using the social network! If you are wishing to target this audience, it would be illogical to put money into advertisements on Instagram for example where the demographic is much younger.

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As well as primarily using social networks to advertise, they will allow you to monitor audience trends and adapt to them. Social networks also let you to communicate with your audience directly, by doing this you are making your brand more personable; breaking down the impression that your accounts are being run by corporate robots. Overall, social networks allow you to get your name out there, by interacting with your target demographic this can create a chain effect in growing your business.

If you are unsure of whether you are up to date on the social media marketing platforms available for you business or if you are unsure that you are using them correctly for your business, get in touch for a no obligation conversation.

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The Evolution of Social Media Marketing Before the social media boom, marketers thought social media marketing was just another fad that would soon likely pass, something in the vein of pyramid and networking scams. But when Facebook started attracting attention from the year 2004, more and more social media marketing strategies were developed. Today, this marketing tool has allowed start-ups and established companies to gain attention without having to spend millions of dollars on advertisements.

 A Brief History Before there was social media, netizens in the 1970s and 1980s spent most of their time on social networks like dating sites and online forums. Six Degrees, Livejournal, and Friendster were the earliest form of social medias.

The dot-com bubble of 1995 – 2002 was a critical event that allowed the internet to become a viable marketing tool. It began with search marketing, prompting brands to create websites to establish an online presence. As Google, Yahoo and MSN’s search engines evolved, companies turned to SEO strategies to remain at the top of search results. 33

When web 2.0 sites – blogs in particular – increased in popularity, marketers began to recognize the potential of content marketing. Inbound marketing, where more value is added for the customer and business is earned, starts replacing age-old “buy, beg or bug” outbound marketing strategies.

In 2003 – 2004, the arrival social media sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and My Space initiates the shift of internet users from multiplayer online games into social networking sites. Eventually, businesses picked up on the positive effects of a social media site presence on ecommerce and started creating their own profiles on the popular networking sites.

In the years that followed, customer’s favorable attitude towards social media marketing slowly changed business marketing preference from the more aggressively-proactive outbound marketing to the more reactive inbound marketing.

Nowadays, over 90% of marketing executives utilize social media as part of their marketing strategies, and successful businesses utilize social media marketing for branding, lead generation, customer retention, research and e-commerce. Not only does social media manage to significantly reduce marketing expenses and the time needed to market products and services, it also increased the 34

effectiveness of marketing and overall customer satisfaction. 83% of customers who post complaints on a brand’s social site like Twitter and get a reply state that they are satisfied. This helped companies retain more of their customers, resulting to increased existing customer transactions.

 Capitalizing on free Internet

There are over 2 billion people online at any given time. Around 23% of the total time spent on the internet is spent on browsing or interacting within social media sites. At least 53% of individuals who are active on social media sites such as Facebook are following a brand. With the help of global internet, more and more customers (if not all) are expecting their brands to have an online presence.

This year’s tablets, iPads, and Android-operated phones will only make internet browsing all the more accessible for consumers, and social media marketing will allow companies to reach out to more target markets. As long as the internet exists, social media will remain an important part of marketing strategies.

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7 reasons why social media marketing is important for your business Social media is quickly becoming one of the most important aspects of digital marketing, which provides incredible benefits that help reach millions of customers worldwide. And if you are not applying this profitable source, you are missing out an incredible marketing opportunity, as it makes it easy to spread the word about your product and mission.

 Improved brand awareness

Social media is one of the most stress-free and profitable digital marketing platforms that can be used to increase your business visibility. To get started, create social media profiles for your business and start networking with others. By applying a social media strategy, it will help you significantly increase your brand recognition. By spending only a few hours per week, over 91% marketers claimed that their social marketing efforts greatly increased their brand visibility and heightened user experience. Undoubtedly, having a social media page for your brand will benefit your business and with a regular use, it can also produce a wide audience for your business in no time.

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 Cost-effective

For an advertising strategy, social media marketing is possibly the most cost-effective way. Creating an account and signing up is free for almost all social networking platforms. But if you decide to use paid advertising on social media, always start small to see what you should expect. Being cost-effective is important as it helps you attain a greater return on investment and hold a bigger budget for other marketing and business payments. Just by investing a little money and time, you can significantly increase your conversion rates and ultimately get a return on investment on the money that you primarily invested.

 Engage with your customers

Social media is a good way for engaging and interacting customers. The more you communicate with the audience, the more chances you have of conversion. Set up a two-way communication with your target audience so that their wishes are known and their interest is catered with ease. Moreover, communication and engagement with customers is one the ways to win their attention and convey them your brand message. Thus, your brand will reach more audience in real terms and gets itself established without any hassle.

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 Improved brand loyalty

When you have a social media presence, you make it easier for your customers to find you and connect with you. By connecting with your customers through social media, you are more probable to upsurge customer retention and customer loyalty. Since developing a loyal customer base is one of the main goals of almost any business. Customer satisfaction and brand loyalty typically go hand in hand. It is essential to often engage with your customers and start developing a bond with them. Social media is not just limited to introducing your product, it is also a leading platform for promotional campaigns. A customer sees these platforms as service channels where they can directly communicate with the business.

 Healthier customer satisfaction

Social media plays a vital role in networking and communication platform. With the help of these platforms, creating a voice for your company is important in improving the overall brand image. Customers appreciate the fact that when they post comments on your page, they receive a modified reply rather than a computerized message. A brand that values its customers, takes the time to compose a personal message, which is perceived naturally in a positive light.

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 Marketplace awareness

One of the best ways to find the needs and wants of your customers instead of directly communicating with them is Marketplace awareness. It is also considered as the most valuable advantage of social media. By observing the activities on your profile, you can see customers’ interest and opinions that you might not know otherwise if you didn’t have a social media presence. As a complementary research tool, social media can help you get information and a better understanding of your industry. Once you get a large following, you can then use additional tools to examine other demographics of your consumers.

 More brand authority

For making your business more powerful, brand loyalty and customer satisfaction both play a major role, but it all comes down to communication. When customers see your company posting on social media, especially replying to their queries and posting original content, it helps them build a positive image in their minds. Regularly interacting with your customers proves that you and your business care about them. Once you get a few satisfied customers, who are vocal about their positive purchase experience, you can let the advertising be done for you by genuine customers who appreciated your product or service.

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 Increased traffic One of the other benefits of Social Media is that it also helps increase your website traffic. By sharing your content on social media, you are giving users a reason to click-through to your website. On your social account, the more quality content you share, the more inbound traffic you will generate while making conversion opportunities.

 Enhanced SEO rankings Social media presence is becoming a vital factor in calculating rankings. These days, to secure a successful ranking, SEO requirements are continuously varying. Therefore, it is no longer enough to simply optimize your website and regularly update your blog. Businesses sharing their content on social media are sending out a brand signal to search engine that speaks to your brand validity, integrity, and constancy.

 Final words

There is no denying that Social media marketing has many advantages for startups and established brands. By regular updating the right social media marketing strategy, it will lead to increased traffic, better SEO, 40

improved brand loyalty, healthier customer satisfaction and much more. Your competition is already increasing on social media day by day, so don’t let your competitors take your probable customers. The earlier you start, the faster you see the growth in your business.

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How to Develop Your Social Media Marketing Strategy Before a few years ago, you could get away with building a social media marketing strategy on a whim. But with 30% of people saying they engage with brands on social at least once a month, purely existing isn’t going to cut it anymore. If you’re not fully engaged and emerged in accomplishing the goals set in your strategy, there will be serious effects on your desired results.

Learn what an effective social media marketing strategy should include, and follow our plan for creating your own.

Step 1: Create Social Media Marketing Objectives and Goals The first step is to establish the goals and objectives you want to achieve. A key component of setting effective goals is determining what metrics you’ll use to measure them. Are you looking for purchases or leads? Or likes and retweets or followers? You should use the acronym S.M.A.R.T when setting these goals. Each objective is Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and TimeBound.

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An example of this from our Home Décor client above would be: “For Instagram we will share client photos that showcase our products in real homes. We will do this by posting three client photos a week. The target for each is at least 50 likes and 5 comments.”

Step 2: Conduct a Current Social Media Audit

“You can’t know where you’re going until you know where you’ve been.” Take a look at where you are and consider a few points: 

Current active social networks



Are your networks complete (URL, Images, Bio, etc)? 43



How does your social media presence compare to your competitors?



What sites is your target market on?

It should be clear which accounts need to be updated or deleted altogether. It’s better to maximize your presence on fewer channels than to be scarce on all channels. Step 3: Narrow Down Your Ideal Customer Demographics You want to be as specific as possible with this step. For example, if our Home Décor’s ideal target are homeowners, that is a little too broad. There will be more success if the target lives in the United States, is between 25 – 50 years of age, earns over 50K, primarily uses Facebook and Instagram, and has an interest in HGTV. Here are some helpful demographics to consider: 

Age/Gender



Location



Income



Pain Points (that your business can solve) 44



Interests

Step 4: Write Your Social Media Mission Statement Your social media mission statement clearly outlines what you plan to use your social media presence for. These statements revolve around your ideal customer and are typically onesentence statements. These short declarations will not only guide your actions, but help to keep you on track should your efforts begin to fall short. To do this, determine the purpose of every social media profile you plan to include. If you can’t think of its specific purpose in relation to your business goals, you probably shouldn’t use it. An example for our Home Décor company could be this, “we will use LinkedIn to focus on efforts to connect and recruit potential franchise leads to expand our company’s footprint.” Once you define your mission, think about how to communicate your brand’s voice, a potential brand tool kit, will videos be involved, etc. If it doesn’t align with your mission statement(s), then nix it! People will follow and purchase with you if it makes sense. Step 5: Curate Engaging Content When you first think of creating an online social presence, you probably want to jump immediately to this step. Instant gratification is always rewarding… right? 45

Wrong. Within your successful strategy, you also need a strong content plan. Think about the following questions: 

What types of content will be published on social media?



Who will the target audience be?



How frequently will you post?

You know who your ideal customer is as you used that research to create your mission statements. Here are a few examples of content you could create: 

Images



Videos



Blog Posts



eBooks/Infographics



Company Updates



Gifs

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If you’re unsure of what types of content to produce, try the social media rule of thirds. It’s important to have a good mix of content to engage the audience prior to trying to sell your product or service: 

1/3 of your social content promotes your products, services, events, etc. (Sell Content)



1/3 of your social content shares educational, entertaining, or emotional content to help users connect more with your page. (Share Content)



1/3 of your social content shares tips, how-to’s, blogs, educational videos, company photos, etc. (Brand Content).

Creating high quality, engaging content is a top priority. It’s helpful to create a content calendar outlining how often you will post, what networks those posts will go on, what time you will post, and the topics you will post about. Step 6: Track and Optimize Last but not least, the most important step when it comes to social media success. Trial and error will be your best friend when it comes to analyzing data and making tweaks. 47



Track the number of clicks, leads, or purchases your ads get by using Facebook Ads Manager



Use an outsourced social media analytics tool to track the likes, comments, reach, and shares of social posts



Track page visits driven by social posts or ads via Google Analytics

The most important thing to remember is your social media marketing strategy will always be changing. It’s never set in stone. As new products and updates emerge, you may want to adapt your strategy. As results roll in, you’ll learn more about your target audience and might want to change up your audience demographics. If you need to rewrite your social media strategy after a few testing periods, don’t worry, because you have all the steps right here! Part IV: Effective Social Media Marketing Strategy Checklist Now that you have the ‘Why’ and the ‘How,’ you need the ‘What.’ Use our 7 Step Checklist to inspire your new strategy! 48

Checkmark #1: What are your brand’s social media goals? o

Increase Brand Awareness and Engagement – focus on creating content that compels a story, rather than promotional content. Your brand voice should be evident across your social media channels.

o

Increase Followers – practice following relevant people who are related or could be potentially interested in your brand. Look at your competitors, key influencers, and relevant communities or magazines for inspiration.

o

Higher Quality Leads or Sales – Through consistent trial and error, you will reach your core audience much faster.

o

Higher Volume of In-Store Traffic- Make sure you’re sharing your promotions on social to reward your frequent and infrequent customers. Consistently alert your customers of your in-store offerings. 49

o

Improve ROI – Perform frequent audits on your social channels to ensure budgets, visuals, copy, and promotions stay on track.

Checkmark #2: What social platforms will you use to reach your audience? o

Facebook

o

Instagram

o

Twitter

o

LinkedIn

o

Pinterest

o

Snapchat

o

Yelp

o

Google+

Checkmark #3: Who is your target audience? 50

o

Age Range

o

Gender

o

National or Local Location

o

Income

o

Education

o

Behaviors

o

Interests

Checkmark #4: How will you measure your social media success? o

Increase following across all platforms

o

Increase engagement (likes, comments, shares, clicks). This directly correlates to how well your audience relates to your content.

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o

The amount of clicks on your content determines how your audience moves through your marketing funnels.

o

Influx of purchases or leads

Checkmark #5: Who are your competitors and what are their strengths and weaknesses? o

Determine what your competitors are doing that is keeping your mutual customer engaged

o

Identify what the customer likes and doesn’t like on social media pages

o

Decide what you know you could do better than your competitor and start doing it

Checkmark #6: What type of content will be produced? o

Videos

o

Photos

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o

eBooks

o

Webinars

o

Blogs

o

Case Studies

Checkmark #7: What are the best time and dates to post for your target customer? o

Facebook, Date: ______________ Time: ___________

o

Instagram, Date: ______________ Time: __________

o

Twitter, Date: ________________ Time: __________

Checkmark #8: How will you track and optimize your social media efforts? Social Media Marketing brings new rules and opportunities to increase the awareness, profitability, and overall lifeline of your brand. A further understanding of your consumers, how they communicate, the experiences they’re looking to have, and where they’re located digitally is crucial. Your social media strategy will affect the chances of winning new customers, retaining current customers, future business expansion 53

opportunities, talented employees, and better products. But don’t take the short way out. If at first you don’t succeed, don’t give up. Stray away from being comfortable and what’s safe. Social media is a marathon, not a sprint.

Achievement in almost any area of your life will be dependent upon other people. In this case, it’s your future customers and your current customers. Actively cultivating and curating your brand’s online presence is the investment required to achieve an effective social media marketing strategy. Our full services social media marketing company can help you give your all to your investment through our social media management and social media advertising services. We’d be happy to talk to you and see which avenue is best for your business.

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Preference

ww.wikipedia.com www.targetstudy.com www.hintedu.com www.quora.com

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