Social media marketing has been relevant for a few decades now. Businesses of all sizes and in all sorts of industries have made the most of these platforms and their integrated tools to promote their brand and what they’re selling. And its relevance hasn’t died down – not even in the slightest. Between 2023 and 2024, the number of social media users grew by 320 million people.
Even if you’re a solopreneur or a small business owner, social media marketing isn’t a nice-to-have aspect of your marketing mix but rather a need-to-have. If you’re not hanging out where your audience is, then it’s not very likely they’re going to hear what you have to say or even know you exist. But it can be hard if you already wear a bunch of hats and are worried about the learning curve that comes with every platform.
We’re here to show you what social media marketing is, why you should have your business on social media and valuable strategies and tips that won’t require a serious investment of your time, money, and effort.
The goal of social media marketing is threefold – to build your brand, promote your product or services, and foster a relationship with your customers. In order to achieve these goals, your task is to authentically connect with your audience on social media platforms they spend the most time on.
This type of online marketing for businesses is all about enticing potential customers at the top of the funnel. If you picture the customer journey as a funnel with different stages, the top of it is about getting customers interested in jumping in in the first place.
While this sounds relatively simple, it’s about a lot more than just counting likes and views and garnering followers. Effective social media use by businesses can enable a whole host of benefits – but you need a well-strategized social media campaign to make sure you succeed, whether your aim is to generate sales or drive traffic to your site.
Starting with social media marketing is overwhelming. There’s knowing creative ways to promote your business on social media in order for people to bite, and then knowing how to carry out an informed strategy. But despite the initial bumps in the road, the benefits are too good to pass up.
Boosts Brand Awareness
Let’s revisit the statistic we looked at previously – the fact that there was an increase of 320 million people on social media in just one year. Getting people to become aware of your product or services requires you to have a strong presence online. Without one, you’re missing out on millions (potentially even billions) of people who could turn into potential customers.
Social media is the perfect place to tell your story and form a connection with people. You might create a post that goes viral, show off how your product is changing industry norms, or give people a peek behind the scenes of your brand. When people become infatuated with what you’re posting, they’re more likely to interact with and share that content.
Heightens Brand Loyalty
Doing business has always been more than just about the purchase itself. A successful business considers the entire customer experience, and the best kind of experience is personal and highly engaging. Social media is a fantastic platform to foster that sort of experience, breaking through those traditional boundaries of consumer interaction.
In these online communities, you can showcase the human side of your business and become a part of their daily lives online. It gives you a way to constantly keep in touch with your valued customers and let them know that you don’t just see them as a dollar sign. Responding to queries quickly, resolving issues in a genuine manner, and acknowledging your loyal customers are just a few of the ways you can do so.
Offers Cost-Effective Advertising
One of the most exciting benefits of social media marketing is that it’s a cost-effective way to advertise your products or services. Yes, paid ads exist, and they certainly have their merits. But with social media platforms, you won’t have to dig deep into your pockets just for people to even get a glimpse of your brand.
Creating a profile on platforms like Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Snapchat costs absolutely nothing. Any business of any size can quickly get up and running and establish their brand presence across multiple platforms. Of course, it’s important to figure out the platforms worth using. Find out which platforms align best with your audience, goals, and brand, and narrow your focus. Your final task? To make sure you get noticed in a sea of brands all fighting for the same attention.
Convinced and ready to perk up your social media presence? Before you start posting, you’ll need a strong social media marketing strategy in place. Every good strategy will have these key components, no matter if your product is unicorn glitter or an inflatable hammock.
Clear Objectives
Jumping on board the social media marketing train isn’t so useful if you don’t know where you’re going. Outlining clear objectives will make sure you know why you’re doing what you’re doing. Perhaps you’re looking to bring in new customers or engage your existing ones – either way, a goal gives you a place to direct your social media efforts, so long as they’re SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound) goals.
Identified Target Audience
Without a specified audience to market to, you might as well be shouting out in a random crowd without a megaphone to project your voice. Here’s where being savvy about your audience comes in handy. Knowing who your target audience is, what they want and need, how they operate in the world, and what social media platforms they frequent allows you to tailor your content and message to attract and engage them.
A Focus on a Few Key Platforms
Although it might seem like the best idea to hop on every single social media platform out there, the smart idea is not to spread yourself thin. Narrow your focus to a few platforms that you’ve discovered (through analytics!) are worth investing your time and resources into. After all, you’d be wasting your resources if you’re half present on platforms that don’t serve to enhance your visibility or engagement.
Consistent Branding
Consistency is important in any relationship – and that includes the relationship that consumers have with your brand. People want to be able to recognize a brand right away, whether it’s from their tone of voice and messaging or visual elements like brand colors or a logo. Having these elements be cohesive across all channels makes your business recognizable and reliable, which means customers are more likely to be able to spot your brand.
Engaging Content
The content itself is what attracts your audience’s attention and encourages them to interact with your brand. While you might be compelled to write posts or create videos that seem to be trendy in the social media space, they don’t always resonate with the audience you’re marketing to. Consider what your specific audience would find exciting and speak their language – don’t just push your brand messaging on them. Maybe they’re after informative content that could help them solve a problem or prefer light and entertaining content – anything you put out on social media should do your brand and your audience justice.
Regular Monitoring and Analysis
In the pursuit of creativity, don’t forget about the analytics. Having a dashboard that tells you exactly what’s going on across your campaigns will show you what’s working and what isn’t. With this information always available, you can understand where the likes, engagement, shares, and conversions are happening and why. That data lets you tweak anything that needs it and capitalize on the methods that are truly working.
-
Start with a Blueprint
No social media marketing strategy starts off without a whole lot of planning. We’re talking about defining those goals, recognizing your ideal customer base, and choosing the platforms you’re going to focus on. These key components often need refining and more refining, so get ready to spend a good chunk of time on them before you start posting. Some tried-and-true strategies include researching the competition, creating detailed customer avatars, and defining your own brand’s value propositions.
-
Develop a Content Strategy
Since the type of content you post will determine how your audience sees your brand and how engaged they’ll end up being, a content strategy is important to have. So many types of content exist, but there are only a few that resonate with your particular audience. If there’s one specifically that seems to stand out above the rest, capitalize on it, but leave room for a balanced content mix.
The goal is to plan for real-time content that entertains and inspires while subtly weaving in your promotional content. The most useful way to do this is through a content calendar, where you can plan and manage your posts across all social platforms.
-
Plan Your Posting Schedule
To complement that content calendar, you need to go into detail and plan out a posting schedule. It’s not enough to just post whenever you have the time to do so – you need to post when your followers are most active and be consistent with it. It’s also wise to consider the platform you’re posting on, as each of them has different unwritten “rules” for posting frequency. On X (Twitter), it’s quite common to post multiple times a day, while it’s more suitable to post a few times a week on Facebook. Social media scheduling tools are especially useful for this, as they can automate the posting process and track your performance all in one place.
-
Foster Engagement
What separates the good brands from the greats is active engagement, chatting with customers in the comments, creating a two-way dialogue, and encouraging community development. This type of engagement on social media doesn’t always have to be stiff and planned, either, as you could spark conversions through wit and humor, play on trending topics, or share user-generated content.
-
Evaluate and Adjust
Once those posts become public, you can’t just leave them to their own devices. If you want your social media strategy to thrive, each post should be evaluated using platform-specific analytics tools or external analytics tools so you get insight into how it’s doing in terms of engagement.
Suppose your posts are appealing to your audience and doing well, then great! If not, then it may be time to tweak your strategy to get better results. Always be receptive to change and stay agile in case of any shifts in the social media world.
Having the right set of tools in your toolkit will give you the edge – over the competition and over social media marketing itself. There are broad categories of social media tools that you’ll want to look into, including content creation and content management tools, analytics tools, competitor tracking tools, and comments management.
Semrush Social is an all-in-one social media management tool that brings the world’s attention to your brand, effortlessly growing your brand’s visibility and driving sales. With one subscription that covers all your social media management needs, you won’t have to look for three separate tools for each aspect of the process. It’s a simple solution that doesn’t require sophisticated knowledge of difficult-to-onboard features, making it a foolproof choice for solopreneurs and small business owners too.
Semrush Social lets you:
- Track and analyze your social strategy: Get a full view of your brand and its metrics, as well as your competitor accounts, to uncover their high-performing tactics.
- Create and share content on your social profiles: With capabilities for 10 social media profiles, you can create content, streamline scheduling, and find the best time to post for top results.
- Centralize your community management: Consolidate and manage all your communication in one place and harness customizable message templates for easy responses.
Not sure where to start? Here are the best social media for businesses to consider:
- TikTok: TikTok is famous for its short-form video content that attracts a younger crowd. Brands who want to tap into virality, trending topics, and entertaining content should consider this platform.
- LinkedIn: On the other end of the spectrum is the networking platform LinkedIn, which is more suitable for B2B businesses looking to create professional industry-specific content and publish thought-leadership pieces.
- Instagram: Instagram is a go-to platform for all things visual. Especially with their range of useful features such as Shopping, Stories, IGTV, and more, it’s the ideal place for creative brand storytelling.
- Facebook: Facebook caters to a very wide demographic, which is why almost all businesses have a presence on the site. It excels most in community building, targeted advertising, and customer service, with several post formats to get creative with.
- Pinterest: Industries such as design, fashion, and nutrition will do best on Pinterest, thanks to its highly shareable Pins and shopping capabilities to drive traffic and sales.
- X (Twitter): X thrives when it comes to real-time updates and quirky threads, meaning that businesses can interact with customers fast and authentically.
- Google My Business: Although not traditionally considered a social media platform, Google My Business is a must-have for targeting local customers. It gives businesses a robust presence across Google, including Search and Maps, letting them update through the Posts function and allowing for customer reviews.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What is the best social media management software?
There are a variety of social media management software options out there to meet specific needs and goals. While Hootsuite and Buffer are well-known for their reputation, Semrush Social can help you get the most out of your social media marketing through publishing, monitoring, and analytics tools.
What’s the difference between a social media ad and a social media post?
A social media post refers to any regular content that is shared on your profile and is publicly available for anyone to see. On the other hand, social media ads are typically paid content that is curated for a specific target audience based on their demographics, behaviors, and more. This content targets anyone on the platform who fits the set criteria, regardless of whether they follow you or not.
What is the best way to handle negative customer comments on social media?
Handling negative customer comments can feel like walking on eggshells, but responding quickly and professionally is always the right way to go. Customers want to feel heard and valued, which means you don’t want to simply provide a copy-and-paste robotic response. Instead, be genuinely apologetic, speak to them privately, and make sure they get the assistance they need.
What are the top social media marketing platforms for business?
There isn’t one concrete answer, as it depends on the nature of your business and your particular user base. LinkedIn is a powerhouse for B2B businesses, while Instagram is best for creative brands that want to display visual-oriented content. Pinterest can be impactful for home decor, fashion, and DIY niches, especially given its focus on shareability.
