First and foremost you should know what is social media marketing;
Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing is a strategy for connecting with your target market and building your brand using free and sponsored posts on social media networks. It may sound like an excuse to play Candy Crush, but it’s actually one of the fastest-growing types of marketing today, as well as the world’s fastest-growing trend.
Unlike other types of marketing, social media marketing allows you to connect with your target market and provides feedback and insight into the people you want to market to. It’s also a simple technique to increase brand exposure with minimal effort.
Is it possible, however, for social media to increase your company’s sales? If that’s the case,
How exactly does social media marketing work?
Social Media Marketing Works…When It’s Done Right
A 2013 study by researchers at Aalto University, the University at Buffalo, and Texas A&M University was one of the first to show that the more customers engaged with a company through social media, the higher the company’s revenue from those customers. In fact, customers who engaged with the business regularly typically contributed 5.6% more revenue to the business and visited the business 5% more than customers who did not engage with the brand online.
More recent data from Fatbit Technologies demonstrates the power for social media engagement between businesses and their customers. Data from 2017 shows that 75% of people buy a product after seeing it in their social media feeds, and 57% of people are more likely to buy from a brand they follow on social media. Significantly, social media marketing has above 100% leads-closing rate compared to other forms of outbound marketing. In non-marketing terms, this means that social media marketing is one of the most effective forms of marketing available.
What is the role of social media marketing in digital marketing?
Social media is becoming one of the most important aspects of digital marketing which provides incredible benefits by reaching millions of customers worldwide. They help you to connect with the customers, increase your brand awareness, and boost your leads and sales.
Types of social media
- Social Networks
Examples: Facebook, LinkedIn
A social networking site is a type of social media site that allows you to meet others with similar interests and backgrounds. Three of the most popular social networking websites are Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
We can connect with our friends, family, and even brands through these platforms.
- Bookmarking Sites
Examples: Pinterest, Flipboard, Diggs
Bookmarking sites allow users to save and organize links to any number of online resources and websites. A great feature of these sites is the ability for the users to “tag” links, making them simpler to find and, invariably, share with their followers. A popular example of a bookmarking site is StumbleUpon.
- Social news
Examples: Digg
Users can upload news links and other stuff to external articles on a social news site. Users then vote on the things, with the items with the most votes being presented first. Reddit is a good example of a social news site.
- Media Sharing
Examples: Pinterest, YouTube, Vimeo
Users can share several forms of media on media sharing websites, with the two main ones being image sharing and video hosting sites.
YouTube still remains the most well-known media sharing site in the world.
- Microblogging
Examples: Twitter, Facebook
These are exactly what they sound like: websites where users can post short written entries that may include links to product and service websites as well as other social networking sites. Twitter is the most popular microblogging platform.
- Blog comments and forums
An online forum is a website that allows users to participate in discussions by posting and responding to community messages. A blog comment site is similar, but a little more focused.
- Social Review Sites
Examples: TripAdvisor, Yelp, FourSquare
When you’re looking to buy a new product or try out a new restaurant, what’s one of the first things you notice? If you’re anything like us, you’ll start with the reviews.
Businesses can learn about the customer’s point of view, which is beneficial not only to regular users like you and me. This can assist them recognize what’s working and where they can improve, both the good and the bad.
- Community Blogs
Examples: Medium, Tumblr
Sometimes all you want to do is convey a message. This is where shared blogging platforms like Medium come in, providing people with a platform to express their thoughts and voices.
- Sharing Economy Networks
Examples: Airbnb, Pantheon, Kickstarter
A website like Airbnb doesn’t just find holiday rentals or activities. Also, these economy sharing networks bring people who have got something they want to share together with the people who need it.
How can social media marketing help grow your business?
8 Ways to Use Social Media to Grow Your Small Business
- Increase Leads
It isn’t only the leads that are the most valuable aspect of using social media. It’s the ability to use advanced targeting to generate highly quality leads.
- Improve Search Engine Ranking
Your search engine ranking can (and will) be improved by using social media.
How? When your website’s social media share rate rises, so does its domain authority. As a result, your pages’ search engine rankings improve.
But there’s more to it than that.
- Drive Traffic
Small businesses typically use social media to drive visitors to their websites.
If you don’t have a strong presence on social media, you’re losing out on organically generated traffic.
So how do you generate traffic? What is the most effective way?
First, create a profile for your small business on each social media platform that is appropriate. Then, by posting unique content to each of these networks, you can make the most of them.
Second, Make it simple for the audience to share your material by prominently displaying social sharing buttons on your website.
You can also use a Click to Tweet tool to make an interesting statistic, statement, or other piece of information more shareable. Readers may now share your articles with a single click.
- Keep an Eye on Competitors
It gives you the opportunity to monitor and draw inspiration from their performance. You can see what type of content they’re posting, and how they’re interacting with their followers.
Social media can also help you learn from your competitors. There has to be a good reason why your competitors are performing better than you.
- Develop Trust with Customers
Social media gives you the opportunity to build trust with customers and develop loyal customers.
In the survey conducted by Social Media Examiner, nearly 79% of marketers agreed that social media is an effective way to develop loyal followers.
One way to make sure that your content has these qualities is to collaborate with an influencer to promote your product or services. One of the major benefits of working with them is that they may share their personal experiences with your product.
- Create Brand Recognition
Raising awareness is a top goal for any business.
Don’t place your logo in a place that will be overwhelming. For instance, when you look at the Twitter profile page of Nike, you’ll notice it’s clean and crisp. The images are simple.
- Establish Your Brand as a Topical Authority
How can social media help you establish topical authority?
You need to regularly post content relevant to your niche.
if your page has a high authority, it will also generate high-quality traffic to your website.
- Maximize Conversions
In order to succeed, you have to convert that traffic into paying customers. But how can you drive a high conversion rate on social media?
- Adding a Strong CTA is important as it directs and motivates potential customers on what to do next. Which can help potential customers feel motivated to make a purchase.
For example, have you noticed Domino’s Pizza’s message on their Facebook cover page?
The advantage of an ad like this is that it can be used anywhere on social media. It will motivate you to visit your website and make a purchase.
- Organizing contests or giveaways can also be fun and entertaining. They help increase your engagement rate as potential customers will start engaging with your brand more in the hopes of winning something.
For instance, JustFab, a fashion and clothing brand from the UK, gave away 3 nights for 2 people in South France.
The screenshot below is a great example of organizing a giveaway.
Advantages of using social media
Social media marketing has many advantages:
- broad reach — social media can reach millions of people all around the world.
- ability to target particular groups — many forms of social media (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram) allow businesses to target specific groups, often in particular locations
- free or low-cost — many forms of social media are free for business, and paid options are usually low-cost
- personal — social media allow you to communicate on a personal basis with individual customers and groups
- fast — you can quickly distribute information to many people
- easy — you don’t need high-level skills or computer equipment to participate in social media. The average person with a standard computer should have no difficulty.
Risks of using social media
Of course, using social media for marketing has its risks. These are some of them:
- wasted time and money for little or no tangible return
- the rapid spread of the wrong kind of information about your business (e.g. incorrect information accidentally posted by you, negative reviews posted by others)
- legal problems if you don’t follow privacy legislation and the laws regarding spam, copyright and other online issues.
It’s important to be aware of these risks and to have strategies in place to avoid them if you decide to get involved in social media marketing.
How to use social media marketing in a clothing business?
Now you know how to use social media marketing, so it is just that you have to implement the suited techniques to your clothing business. You can use social media like instagram, facebook, even youtube and pinterest to attain your target market.
You can use instagram and facebook to share your business ads, and to share what are your collections, even your customers can contact you on these sites for more information or even for purchase.
Through youtube you can share videos of the clothings (a video ad), because youtube is the most shared site. Not Only this, Pinterest is the most viewed app, where people usually check to get new ideas regarding anything.
Also nowadays whatsapp is on the go, you can use whatsapp to share your business with many people.
Conclusion
You now have a better understanding of how social media can be beneficial to your business. Decide wisely, all the social media platforms are open for you and your business.
Now it’s your turn to include social media in your business marketing strategy. Do you have any questions or tips to add? Please share them with us in the comments below.
Citations:
- https://tracsoft.com/how-does-social-media-marketing-work/
- https://seopressor.com/social-media-marketing/types-of-social-media/
- https://www.business.qld.gov.au/running-business/marketing-sales/marketing-promotion/online-marketing/social-media
- https://www.postplanner.com/blog/ways-to-use-social-media-to-grow-your-small-business
For more information about Digital Marketing Strategy Plan, visit our website and check out our blogs.
About the Author
Fathima Rishada Rizvy
Digital Marketing Analyst at International Institute of Digital Marketing™. My interests are digital marketing, with more focus on SEO and content creation, and art and craft.