.png)
Social media marketing involves the tactical employment of social media platforms to connect with your audience, cultivate your brand, augment sales and stimulate website traffic. It’s pretty much obvious to everyone that digital marketing has transformed with the emergence of social media. Marketing is now immediate, far reaching, current and unavoidable. The dream of every marketer or business owner no? Well that depends on a few factors, not only has marketing evolved with social media, but so too has the behaviours of the consumers. A poorly judged post could be hugely detrimental, and that detriment is immediate, far reaching, current and unavoidable.
Table of Content
A social media strategy, like the other marketing strategies we describe on our other blogs, fundamentally serves as the blueprint for your business activities on social media platforms. To construct a robust social media strategy, understanding your target audience comprehensively, selecting the appropriate metrics to evaluate success, and generating engaging, relevant content that resonates with your audience are crucial.
The 7 P's of (Social Media) Marketing
The 7Ps Marketing Model was originally devised by E. Jerome McCarthy and published in 1960 in his book, “Basic Marketing A Managerial Approach”. His 7 P's apply to all forms of marketing including social media marketing, they are a set of guidelines ensuring structure for your strategy. These encompass our “Notorious Nine” from our Content Marketing Blog, which you may find more relevant to you.
Products: Develop your products or services to meet your consumer need
Promotion: A combination of paid, owned and earned media channels
Prices: Should we review/change our pricing model
Place: Distribution options for customers to experience our product, e.g. e-commerce
People: Do we have people and skills gaps? Are we seeking new partners and managing existing partners well?
Processes: Do internal processes assist or hinder our delivery of best customer value
Physical Evidence: How we reassure our customers, e.g. impressive buildings, well-trained staff, great website
Best Practice for Building Social Posts - CASA
If you are a reader of our blogs you will already be familiar with some of our SME friendly terms. CASA (house) is one search term, tipping our hat to our Spanish language affiliation, we use this acronym to outline best practice in “constructing” any content.
-Content that offers tangible value to the recipient. Have you identified or solved a pain point?
-A simple, clean design with easy-to-read fonts.
-Segmented email lists for relevant targeted and personalised marketing.
-Attention-grabbing subject lines, meta descriptions, hashtags or page descriptions. Although the first thing your recipient sees, this should be considered last, as what you end up saying may not be what you started out to write.
Define clear goals, understand your target audience's interests and behaviours and select the platforms that best reach your target audience. Create engaging content and establish a schedule for consistent posting. Regularly measure and analyse your results and given the immediacy of social media marketing, react immediately.
The Pros and Cons of Social Media Marketing
When executed correctly, social media marketing can considerably enhance brand recognition, boost inbound traffic, improve search engine rankings and drive customers to your product or service. It's an invaluable tool for shaping public perception of your brand and building a loyal customer base. How many of you found this blog on social media?
Pros: Enhanced brand recognition, higher conversion rates, improved customer insights, cost-effectiveness and increased inbound traffic.
Cons: Risk of negative public feedback. It can be time intensive, especially in maintaining a presence with new posts and the need for continuous monitoring and response.
While social media marketing holds immense potential, it can be time consuming. Negative feedback, if not managed, can tarnish your brand's reputation. Technical expertise is needed to track and adapt to shifting trends and algorithms.
Cost of Social Media Marketing
Ok, we’ve covered the why’s and how’s, but exactly how much should you invest? Let's break down the various costs associated with social media marketing.
In-House Team or Outsourcing:
The first cost consideration is whether to use an in-house social media team or outsource to an agency. In-house social media managers can command salaries from £25,000 to £50,000 in the UK or you can assign this role to an existing team member. On the other hand, working with an agency can cost between £200 to £800 per month for smaller businesses and several thousand for larger campaigns.
Social Media Advertising:
One of the main costs associated with social media marketing is advertising. Each platform has its own advertising system with costs based on the targeted audience, campaign duration and ad quality. A small to medium-sized business might expect to spend around £200 - £2500 per month on social media ads.
Content Creation:
Creating high-quality, engaging content for your social media platforms can incur costs, especially if you want to include varied content types like videos, infographics, high-quality images and interactive content or e-commerce. Costs for this can range anywhere from £20 to £100 per hour for freelance content creators. If involving influencers then there is no cap in reality.
Tools and Software:
There are numerous tools available to help schedule posts, track performance, manage multiple accounts and monitor social media mentions. These can range from free to £300 per month, depending on the software's capabilities and your needs.
Training and Learning:
Staying on top of the latest social media trends and learning new skills to improve your social media marketing can sometimes require training or courses, these costs depend on the provider and the number of attendees.
The costs of social media marketing can be adjustable depending on your business size, objectives and budget. Remember, effective social media marketing is an investment towards increasing brand awareness, customer engagement and ultimately driving business growth. Invest wisely, track your outcomes and adapt your strategy immediately to ensure you're getting the best return on your investment.
Why the Emphasis on Immediacy and How to I Achieve This?
Tracking social media metrics is essential to measure your marketing efforts' and make the data driven decisions we have urged you towards. Here are the key social media metrics you should track to help you achieve this:
Reach: This indicates the total number of unique users who have seen your content. It helps you understand the potential size of your audience but also which material is resonating.
Impressions: This is the total number of times your content was displayed on someone's screen, regardless of whether it was clicked or not.
Engagement: The next step up from Reach and Impression. This measures total interactions with your content, including likes, shares, comments and clicks. It is a good indicator of how meaningful your content is to your audience.
Engagement Rate: This breaks down the Engagement figure further. It is the total engagement divided by your total followers (or impressions or reach, depending on how you want to measure it). It gives a more proportional view of audience engagement.
Click-Through Rate (CTR): Measures the percentage of your audience who clicked on a link in your post. It's particularly important for posts driving traffic to a website or action.
Conversion Rate: This measures the number of desired actions (sign-ups, downloads, purchases etc.) based on your social media content.
Follower Growth: Measures the net growth in followers over a specific time. It helps gauge your growth and effectiveness over time.
Brand Mentions: The number of times your brand is mentioned by users on social media platforms gives you an idea of your brand awareness.
Social “Share of Voice” (SOV): Is a metric that helps you measure how much of the online conversation about your industry, niche or topic is related to your brand, compared to your competitors.
Sentiment Analysis: Is the qualitative measurement of the kind of response your brand is getting: positive, neutral or negative. This helps gauge your brand's image and reputation.
Remember, the specific metrics you choose to track may depend on your unique social media goals. It's crucial you align these metrics with your overall business objectives.
The Ongoing Influence and Future of Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing has significantly evolved over the years, shaping businesses and consumer interactions in a way that was previously unimaginable to experts like E. Jerome McCarthy. Its current state and the predicted shifts provide a compelling narrative about where we're heading in this digitised marketing landscape.
Presently, the role of social media in marketing is undeniable. It provides a platform for businesses to connect with their audience in real-time, share engaging content and gain valuable insights into consumer behaviour all in real time and all immediately.
Social media usage is one of the most popular online activities. In 2022, over 4.59 billion people were using social media worldwide, a number projected to increase to almost six billion in 2027, making it a massive platform for businesses to reach out to potential customers. Source: Statista
According to 90% of marketers, their social media marketing efforts have increased the exposure of their business, and 75% say they’ve increased traffic. Source: Small Business Trends
Spending on social media advertising worldwide was forecast to continuously increase between 2024 and 2028 by a total of $36 billion U.S. a 16.38% increase. After the tenth consecutive increasing year, the indicator is now estimated to reach a new peak in 2028 of $255.78 billion U.S. Source: Statista
The reach and impact of this form of marketing speaks for itself and businesses across the globe are taking full advantage of this, are you?
.png)
Comments