Q: Why should I do social media marketing?
A: Marketing is all about developing relationships with people so they’ll eventually become your customers. Right now, social media is where your target audience is, with billions of people having at least one social account.
This reason alone should compel you to use social media as a marketing strategy, although there are still a couple of others, like how social platforms can be used as a channel dedicated to educating, entertaining, and interacting with your target market through different types of content.
Q: What social media platform should I use?
A: Many factors are at play when choosing a platform. For one, you need to take into consideration the kind of audience that you want to reach, and determine which social channels they’re using the most. It’s also important that you assess whether or not your chosen platform has features or capabilities that will allow you to showcase your products or services. Another concern to look into is your company size and budget since you’ll want to focus on the platform that gives you the best ROI.
Q: How often should I post?
A: Once you know the best platform for your business, it’s easy to determine the frequency of your social media posts: Twitter—3x daily; Facebook—2x daily; LinkedIn—once per day; Instagram—1.5 times or more per day; Pinterest—5x daily or more. Your blog also needs to push content twice per week at a minimum, and then you could increase it to 3 to 5 times weekly.
Q: What kind of content should I post?
A: Just like content marketing, your social content has to prioritize the needs of your target audience before those of your business. The kinds of content that people on social media are looking for are certainly not promotional, but should be industry-related with focus on trends, challenges, and other issues that are important to consumers.
You could also attract your audience with user-generated content, as it makes your brand more relatable and that they can have an authentic relationship with you.
Q: What’s the difference between an ad and a post?
A: When you create content that you make searchable through organic methods like SEO, then what you’ve created is a post. On the contrary, when you pay for your content to be shown to your target audience based on factors like demographics and online behavior, it becomes an ad. Sponsored content or paid content is seen by more people, so you may want to explore this in your social strategy.
Q: How do I start with social media marketing?
A: It’s possible that you might want to try doing things like social media management and social media monitoring on your own first. This is a good option if you’re facing budget restrictions, or if you want to experience social media marketing first-hand to understand how it works. Alternatively, you could work with marketing experts like Spiralytics Agency to help you manage your content calendar, curate and create content, or run optimized social campaigns for you.