Social network marketing, also often called social media marketing, is essential for any business – small or big – that wants to survive in this increasingly-connected world. In big companies, job position opened specifically to maintain marketing through social media. Small business stays relevant in the industry, even thriving, because of social network marketing.
If you’re a business owner, looking for a chance to promote your business, social network marketing will suit you better than you think. It’s arguably cheap, and wonderfully effective. You may wonder if it’s possible for you to understand, ‘social network marketing manager’ sounds sophisticated.
But, fret not, because here we’ll cover the basics of social network marketing. It will not turn you into social network marketing manager overnight, but it will give you basic insight to begin your journey to become one.
If you’re unfamiliar with the term social network marketing, basically it is any marketing effort that utilize social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, and so on, using contents that may lead to engagement – or any action by social media users that indicates they care about your content. Wow, it sounds complex. Even the choices are abundant! Where should you start?
- Know your target, pick your battlefield
Not all social media are created for everyone. Facebook is probably the only one that reach almost all ages and genders across the world, being the biggest social media with over 1.5 billion users. Pinterest users are 85% women and LinkedIn users are mostly professionals looking to do business.
Therefore, it’s important to know your target market and choose the right platform. If you’re selling make up product targeted for teenagers, don’t market in LinkedIn. If you’re selling motorcycle, Pinterest isn’t the best platform for you. - Make appropriate, effective content
Every social media has its own rule. Twitter – 140 characters max. Snapchat – 10 seconds video max. Instagram – visual content. Learn the rule and be creative in how to maximize the limitation to make effective content.
More scientific study has been made as well to make effective content. For example, if you play in Twitter, you may want to consider tweeting in 100 characters despite its 140 characters quota, because tweet with 71-100 characters long has the most retweet. If you play in Instagram, you may want to stop using cold, bluish filter, since it generated less likes than photos with warm, yellowish or reddish filter. - Gain followers, as many as possible
Followers are future customers. The more followers you have, the more potential buyers you get. While followers don’t always buy, they can still help your business thrive by sharing information with their own followers.
Approach users with massive amount of followers – usually they are called influencer – and they accept endorsement or paid partnership. The content they share will be viewed, liked, commented by their followers, raising the brand awareness of your product. - Provide clear information
Information is essential for followers to trust you. Social media users want to follow a real person, or at least a real business. They want assurance that you aren’t one of those scam accounts. Use clear, engaging photo of yourself or your best product. Write detailed and honest, yet positive description of your business. Never forget to put your business contact: phone number, email, other social media account, every way you can think of. - Link to your website
Social media is where you gain interest from public, but website is where you conduct your business. Put link to your website in the description, in a place where any users can find it. Also put link in every content you put, for potential customers who wants to head immediately there after seeing your post. - Facilitate them to share, share, share
Don’t only put your website link in social media, but also put social media button in your website. If any potential customers who is browsing or buying something at your website wants to show her or his followers about your business, they can use the button and immediately your website will appear in her of his followers’ seed.
Share is powerful, since it will reach not only your followers but their followers as well. And if these followers share again, the content will spread even further. This can happen slowly, but can also happen overnight. - Post Constantly
If there’s a drawback to social media, it’s that content live too shortly. Post like photos with caption and short videos will be constantly pushed down the feed, unless you’re paying for online advertisement. In some platform, content can stay a little longer if it has high engagement – like, share, or comment, but more often than not they are quickly replaced by new content every minute. If you post once a week in fast-moving platform like Instagram, your followers might even forget who you are.
The solution to this is not to post as often as possible. If you’re being too annoying, your follower may block or even unfollow. The key is to post moderately, but constantly. Studies have been made on how often you should post on social media. Depending on your platform, the frequency to post will differ. For example, 11 pins a day for Pinterest is recommended while 4 contents a day is considered high in Google+. - Respond
The point of social media is to share and interact. So, if any of your followers reach out to you, respond. Comment or message feature is available in every social media for this purpose. Responding to any inquiry is considered good customer service, and in social media, where other followers can easily see your interaction with others, can lead to good image.
As you spend more time doing social network marketing, you’ll gain more insight and learn new strategy to gain more followers and engagement, and eventually leads to purchase. If you’ve only started recently, however, these eight basics are not only simple, but also work. Are you ready to get more customers through social media now?