Social media marketing is integral for pretty much every brand out there at present. Since everyone is on at least one social media platform out there, if you advertise your products or services through these platforms, more people will get to see your material for what it is and be intrigued by it.
Of course, you need to develop a proper strategy and target the right kind of people so that you mainly get through to the people who you really need to get through. But before we get strategizing, it is important to know what exactly you are getting from your social media marketing campaign.
Why Is Social Media Marketing Important?
Social media marketing is so much more personal than other forms of advertising. You have an entire account, and you can use it to tell your story. Many brands have started using this to their advantage, and one of the biggest examples is that Atom Shoes. They got to tell their story through social media and it helped their business blow up and competed with giants in the shoe world like Nike and Adidas.
Other than that, you don’t have to spend as much money on social media marketing as you do on most other forms of marketing. You can run your ads and your sponsored posts with a small budget as well. Once you learn how to optimize your ads, you will not need to dish out an unnecessarily large sum of money, and you will get the kind of traction you truly deserve as well.
There are so many other reasons why Social media marketing is so hot right now, and therefore you need to strategize properly.
Goals To Set For Your Social Media Marketing Campaign
Remember that just running ads and putting up sporadic posts will not be enough for a campaign that gives you what you want, and you need first to set clear and concise goals of what you want to achieve.
Some of the most common social media marketing goals include the following:
- Increasing brand awareness
- Generating leads
- Directing traffic to the website
- Generating revenue
- Get engagement on your content
- Building a community
- Optimizing customer service
You need to remember that adding too many goals to your campaign will only muddle it up, and you will likely not be able to achieve your targets with enough efficiency. So you should set a few clear-cut goals for your brand only and stick to them for your whole campaign. Have a discussion with your team about what you hope to achieve from your campaign and optimize it to achieve exactly that.
Track The Right Metrics
It is essential to remember that not all metrics are important enough to be tracked. Remember to figure out what matters the most to your brand and keep track of that.
Remember that there is a difference between vanity metrics and metrics that result in lead generation. Metrics for lead generation include the reach, engagement, performance of hashtags, organic likes, and the actual sentiment that is usually associated with your brand. All of these can help you to generate leads and be profitable in your venture.
On the other hand, we have vanity metrics. Vanity metrics refer to your follower count, the number of comments and likes that your posts get, and the number of shared or retweeted posts you have put up. While it is not a bad thing to track vanity metrics, it is important to note that an obsession with vanity metrics is not really going to be profitable for you on its own. You can pay to increase your follower count, likes, and even the comments that your posts get, but if it is not organic engagement, you might not be able to meet your goals.
Learn As Much As You Can About The Competition
Always know what your competition is up to. It is essential to know your competition so you can keep up with them and get your hands on as much of their audience as you possibly can. You need to ideally stay one step ahead of whoever you are competing with, and that is only possible when you are aware of their progress.
It always helps to be unique. However, both you and your competitor think so, and if you both come up with the same or similar ‘unique’ marketing strategy, your audience will be divided, and no one will truly have the edge. So you should deploy the creatives in your team to think of unique content that captures your audience’s attention and helps them stay updated with your brand.
You should also try to differentiate yourself from your competitor through creative means. This could include using unique packaging, creating a story around your brand, and engaging with the audience in a new and compelling way.
Figure Out What’s Working For You
After your campaign has been running for a while, it might be time for some optimization. You need to start figuring out what has been working for you and what you need to cut out. This can be an excellent way to optimize your campaign to fit into the algorithm and also save money that is no longer being used to show you to your audience.
So you must evaluate the performance of your campaign over the past few months or weeks and tweak it to your needs. Get an expert to help you make the decisions too, if it helps.
Learn From The Best
It’s never too late to learn from the giants who have been killing it in terms of social media marketing. This includes brands that have generated a lot of pull through social media and are often quoted in marketing terms. Even if they are not in direct competition with you, you can possibly learn a lot from the campaign that they are running. So keep yourself updated with the world of marketing and stay inspired with the new and improved content which will constantly be gracing your feed.
