02 February, 2022
Samantha Storms, Copywriter at Clash Creative
Four-minute read
For small businesses looking to expand their digital reach, online marketing tactics and resources are often the most significant source of business growth. In an increasingly digital world, it’s a no-brainer that professionals across industries should familiarize themselves with online selling environments – and how to market within them successfully. That’s where the concept of social marketing comes into play.
Your social media marketing strategy can tell you a lot about the true effectiveness of your overall marketing plan. From the success of your online advertising to your website’s performance, social marketing campaigns can help you identify your target market, build your brand and reputation, and engage with potential clients.
Fortunately for most businesses, creating a social media marketing plan doesn’t need to feel like rocket science. Your success can be affordable, and there are several ways you can grow your company and perform better in the digital space without the help of a professional marketing agency.
So, what is social media marketing, and how can you implement an effective social marketing strategy of your own without paying the cost of working with a professional or full-service marketing agency? Let’s take a look at some of the most effective social marketing tactics that will help you grow your business and capture leads more effectively.
What Is Social Media Marketing?
Social media marketing is the distribution of promotional or brand-awareness content across social platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. At its core, the primary purpose of social media marketing is building brand awareness and promoting goods and services, when applicable.
Despite having this primary goal in mind, companies often struggle to find the right balance between promotion and engagement when running their social media campaigns. Often, companies lack the digital marketing know-how to successfully develop and distribute content that truly resonates with users online.
Without understanding how individual social marketing techniques must complement an overall commercial marketing strategy, the capacity for effective and efficient lead generation will suffer. By developing a comprehensive social media strategy that covers the fundamentals of marketing on social networks, small business owners can start targeting leads with greater precision.
The Importance of Developing a Solid Social Media Marketing Strategy
Over the past two years, professionals have been forced to embrace all things digital. Webinars and remote work have become the norm in today’s professional landscape. As a result, social media has become the primary source for learning career skills, finding new jobs, and brand promotion. By its nature, social media marketing has become essential to branding in the twenty-first century.
To match the digital world’s current, marketing must be fluid; it must be adaptable and constantly changing. So, for your business to achieve consistent success and gain followers online, it’s essential to be flexible and creative in your social marketing approach. We recommend a detailed plan that can be adjusted as your target audience changes.
As well, by creating valuable, relevant content and setting realistic objectives, your company will be able to make more meaningful connections.
Social Marketing Tactics to Implement to Grow Your Digital Strategy
When it comes to the driving force behind the success of social media marketing campaigns, the key is understanding a given industry and its relationship to a target market. When you’ve got this knowledge at the ready, the process of identifying the social marketing techniques that work best for your company gets easier.
Remember to personalize your social media marketing strategy to your target audience and the social networks they frequent most.
To help you start building your social marketing strategy, let’s break down some of the most useful social marketing techniques step-by-step – all of which can be implemented without an agency!
- Identify Business Goals and Objectives
Developing a social strategy that works for you and your unique business starts by outlining social marketing objectives and identifying your target audience/market. Set realistic goals for yourself by thinking beyond follower counts. Use engagement and performance insights to find which users are viewing your content the most – and on which platforms.
- Redirect Traffic to Your Most Valuable Marketing Materials
Further increase brand awareness and lead conversation rates by driving traffic directly to your website via the sales funnel created by your social marketing presence. As you customize your profiles, include direct links to your website in your bio and posts.
- Engage with Your Followers Consistently
Create long-term relationships with your followers by connecting and engaging with them across your social channels and in social groups they participate in. Respond to questions and comments with a style and voice unique to your brand, and always be sure to offer assistance when users require it. As part of your next marketing campaign, make it a goal to interact with at least one comment on each of your posts in a given week. Also, try posting in a group – share a piece of content you have created and ask for feedback, or create a survey/poll asking a relevant question to get a conversation started.
- Keep Tabs on Your Competitors
Social media is an excellent tool for monitoring your competitors. Research other companies within your industry to better understand their social media strategies and the marketing techniques that work for their particular business model. Consider the look, feel, and effectiveness of advertising and marketing materials, as well as the degree to which companies are engaging with users.
Improve Your Social Marketing Strategy
As a business owner, it pays to know your way around the digital selling space, especially if you’re looking to increase brand awareness and improve lead generation in the long term.
While you don’t need an agency to be successful on social media, professional support can mean the difference between an effective strategy and one that flops. Need some help navigating the ins and outs of creating a marketing strategy? Book a call with the Clash team today to discuss the right marketing solutions for your business.
Samantha has created editorial content for organizations in a wide breadth of areas, including college textbook publishing, politics and hard news, love and lifestyle, faith and education, and technology. She is based in New York City, where she lives with her handsome Maine Coon-mix, Lincoln.
