Social media marketing might seem like a piece of cake as a lot of people are now becoming familiar with social media platforms and their features but the question remains – Are they doing it right? Social media marketing is not just posting day and night, it’s about starting with defined objectives, breaking through the clutter, and achieving desired goals effectively. Marketing evolves and changes everyday and as new social media platforms are popping up there’s no particular benchmark to market the ‘right’ way. The key lies in finding the right balance according to your business needs. Picking the right platforms, curating the right content and choosing the right timing creates the magic potion for doing Social Media Marketing right!

What Makes Social Media Marketing Tricky?

Opposed to traditional marketing which was more static, utilized offline mediums and focused on one message for all, social media marketing focuses on greater interaction, personalized messaging, instant feedback and building a two-way relationship.
The word ‘Social’ itself has made all the difference! 3.96 billion users are active on social media to fulfill their social needs of belongingness, acceptance and emotional connection. People like content that resonates with them and makes them feel connected to current events, new ideas, and products. They share content to stay connected with their social circle and seek validation from them and they engage with brands with the ‘fear of missing out’ and to ‘stay in the know’
Users want their news feeds to be full of content they want to like and share and cracking that is one of the most complex jobs! Your marketing has to appeal to these social needs. The messaging must hit prospects rationally or emotionally and while they are trying their best not to buy your product, your marketing should slowly persuade them that you are the best solution to their problems and needs.

How to Crack the Code?

Analyze Competitors

While you want to kick off the marketing efforts right away, it’s important to hold your horses and research how your competitors are reaching the audience already? This largely helps in testing the pulse and helps identifying what works and what doesn’t. You can see the type of content the target audience is already engaging with, the gaps that you can fill better and if the competitor analysis is done right you can have a comprehensive list of dos and don’ts even before jumping in the waters.

Create Content Strategy

This step is crucial because now is the time to gather all the previous research and chalk out a thorough content strategy to attract the target audience and keep them hooked. It’s important to decide the type of posts you want to push, define the purpose of each post, decide the frequency and create a social media content calendar to schedule monthly posts. Please keep in mind that you’re using ‘Social Media’ to market your business hence it’s not necessary to sell the product right away. Instead, your schedule should be a mix of content that informs, educates and entertains the audience as they want to see content that they can like and share.The right content strategy can truly be a gamechanger, it keeps your audience interested and converts them into buyers effectively!

Now that you’ve cracked the code and kicked off the Social media marketing efforts, it’s time to see did you do it right? To be able to measure the effectiveness you need to be familiar with social media analytics and the performance is usually measured against the following KPIs;

If the KPIs seem favorable, you’ve made it!

Marketing on social media has changed from a nice-to-have to a must-have for all businesses. The power of social media can be gauged from the following facts:

• 45% of the world devotes 2 hours 24 minutes to social media everyday.
• 73% of marketers consider social media marketing effective.
• 80% of the purchase decisions are driven by Social media ads.
• CPM or Cost per Thousand Impressions
• Bounce rate