Social Media Marketing For Entrepreneurs
The goal of social media is to turn customers into a volunteer marketing army.
– JAY BAER, DIGITAL MARKETING EXPERT, BEST-SELLING AUTHOR, SPEAKER ENTREPRENEUR
Small businesses and startups can build and establish their brand in the market by learning how to create a successful social media campaign. Unlike larger companies and corporations, startups and small companies may not have as much capital or resources to utilize for traditional marketing efforts. Traditional marketing can put a huge dent in your marketing budget. Social media marketing, on the other hand, is low-cost with measurable results.
What is Social Media?
Social media is an umbrella term that refers to the different activities utilizing technology, social interaction and sharing of content. Social media may seem like a modern innovation, but its roots are way older than one would imagine. In the late 1990s, the first known social media platform, Six Degrees, and blogging sites were created and started to gain popularity. Social media gained increased popularity in the 2000s as sites like MySpace, Friendster, Photobucket and Flickr facilitated online photo sharing and communication. In 2005, YouTube introduced a different way of sharing online content. Facebook and Twitter were available for users all over the world by 2006 and continue to be the most popular online social networks. Other networking sites started to fill specific niches such as Tumblr, Pinterest, Instagram, and Spotify.
The Benefits of Social Media For Businesses And Entrepreneurs
Successful social media marketing is not built on impressions. It is built on relationships.
– KIM GARST, FOUNDER, CEO, AUTHOR AND CONSULTANT
Social media marketing offers many benefits which you can leverage as a startup entrepreneur and business owner. More and more businesses understand the necessity of learning how to run social media for a business. Social media marketing is more than just hype and it is more than just an online popularity contest. It offers the following benefits to businesses that do social media marketing right: increased brand exposure, awareness, and recognition, improved brand loyalty, better conversion rates, new opportunities and leads, increased sales, reduced marketing costs, higher search engine rankings, enhanced customer engagement, competitive analysis and insights, and improved customer service.
Social media for is a great Internet marketing tool for startups and entrepreneurs who want to stay competitive remain relevant as well as boost income and growth potential. Social media marketing is not without its disadvantages – if done without careful planning and strategy, it can put your business into a big mess.
How To Create A Successful Social Media Campaign
Social media campaigns are vital for effective marketing and branding. A social media campaign is not a one-time thing, but rather a series of timely and relevant actions and efforts. If you are like most budding entrepreneurs who are just beginning to learn how to start a social media campaign from scratch, it is important to know the basics before anything else. Keep these four simple things in mind when developing and executing a successful social media campaign.
Identify Your Objectives
It is important to identify your goals when coming up with a social media campaign. These goals and objectives should be clear and precise. Short-term goals can be used to monitor or track the progress of your long-term goals which may be to boost or increase sales, to have more followers, increase your brand visibility and much more.
Choose Your Platform
Do your research when choosing your social media campaign platform. Target markets and demographics have different social media usage behaviors and preferences. Although the majority of netizens have a Facebook account, there is no reason for you to isolate your social media campaign on Facebook. Twitter, for example, is more popular with social media users ranging from ages 18-29 years old. So if your target demographic is within this age range, it will be best to utilize Twitter for your social media campaigns, too. Carefully researching the specific platforms that your target demographics use will make your social media campaign more precise and effective.
Focus On Customer Engagement
Social media marketing will not even exist if not for the social media users and online customers. In order to nurture customer engagement, you need to focus on what you can do for them, instead of thinking what they can do for you. Effective customer engagement can be achieved by creating interesting, compelling and relevant content tailored for your target demographic. You have heard before that content is king, and it is true. Content should echo your company’s values and voice. Customer who share the same values as your brand are more likely to become loyal to you.
Launching your new business is both an exciting and nerve-wracking experience. Apart from all things you have to do and decide on, you need to plan and implement social media marketing strategies to ensure word about your product and services get passed around. When customers have a great experience with your company and your brand, they will share it with others through word-of-mouth. In today’s market, customers are in control so it is a must to align your social media marketing and campaign efforts toward their best interests.