Social Media Marketing

Social media is platforms and applications that allow us to share information, communicate with others, create communities based on mutual interests, and much more.

There are so many active social media users nowadays—billions—that people often associate it with the entire internet. According to recent studies, the average American spends approximately 2.5 hours per day on social media, and this figure is on the rise. People use it for all sorts of things like chatting, making friends, seeking recommendations and reviews, networking, and establishing business connections. This is why social media cannot be overlooked—chances are that most of your competitors, prospects and clients are active users as well.

In 2024, it's not enough just to be aware of your audience's presence on a particular platform; you must be visible to them in order to establish direct communication. Most social networks provide this opportunity through targeted advertising.

Targeted advertising can help you grow genuine followers on social media, provide regular traffic to your website, grow your newsletter subscriber base and much more.

If the content you share on social media is high-quality and relevant, and the people that discover you are your actual target audience, there's a good chance that they will become customers. These customers won't just follow you and buy your products or services; they may also recommend you to others and defend you against critics. These loyal customers are commonly known as brand advocates.

Social media is also the perfect platform for sharing educational content like articles, guides, check-lists, etc., the one that people would want to share and help others to learn.

Even though resharing content on social media is not a direct ranking factor, it can still affect SEO by increasing visibility and generating backlinks. In some cases, posts with a lot of likes, comments and shares get at the top of the search results.

Social networks can be classified into three main categories, based on the predominant content posted on them:

• Visual-centric. These platforms predominantly feature photos and videos, such as Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, etc.
• Text-centric. Platforms like X (former Twitter), Reddit, Telegram, etc., are meant to share various forms of textual content.
• All-in-one. These social networks showcase a diverse range of content without specific preferences. Examples include Facebook, MySpace, and others.

In addition to the platforms we mentioned, there are also corporate social networks, but we won't discuss them because they are closed to the public.

Now that we understand the significance of social media and why you need them for your business, let's move on to the promotion part.

Before starting social media accounts, make sure you ask yourself why you need them. Define what you are trying to accomplish by building a social media presence, and set the goals.

Without clear goals and targets, it's hard to know whether your social media strategy is performing well and whether you're moving towards achieving results.

Consider what you want to achieve, and identify a goal to pursue first—choose either from the provided list or come up with an alternative one.

After deciding on your first goal, consider it in quantifiable terms. "Grow revenue" is okay, but it sounds vague for an actual plan. Try to be more specific: Come up with the main steps, estimate the cost, create a project timeline so you know when to expect first results, etc. For example, setting a goal to boost revenue by 20% through attracting new customers on Instagram over the next three months is a clearer target.

By the way, you don't have to stick to just one goal at a time. You can set multiple goals and work towards achieving them on different platforms. For example, you can use Facebook to generate leads and leverage Instagram to increase brand awareness.

Once you've identified your main goals that can be expected to produce concrete, measurable results, the next step is to pick the social media platforms that will help you achieve them.