Introduction
Online marketing strategies have become an important focus as more retail outlets expand their marketing efforts to the internet to take advantage of the increased online profits to be had.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO), email campaigns, online reviews and product information sites have assisted online businesses with building an initial online presence.
The rise of social media popularity has increased business interest in it as a useful marketing tool.
Online brands which have successfully implemented social media marketing strategies have reported severalfold returns on brand loyalty, consumer engagement, retention levels, product exposure and higher conversion rates.
In this article we discuss how to use social media as a marketing tool.
Understand the Social Media Market
Social media marketing statistics reveal a broad range of business sentiment towards this online marketing venue. Many businesses consider it a passing fad providing little value for their core offerings. At the other end of the spectrum, companies have invested significantly in content creation expertise and online marketing specialists in the areas of brand storytelling, image-based content and other online brand promotion strategists.
Supporting the latter category of social media sentiment, Hubspot.com reported that over 90 percent of surveyed marketing staff agreed that social media campaigns were important for their online promotional efforts, furthe reporting increased web-based traffic resulting from their social media efforts.
Create a Social Media Marketing Plan
Understanding what you expect your social media campaign to accomplish, who you want to reach and how you plan to accomplish your objectives, helps limit the at times intimidating number of options available at the onset of moving into the social media domain, by allowing you to focus only on those efforts which will assist you with accomplishing your online marketing objective(s).
Keep Initial Efforts Manageable
Having a huge budget initially can create more difficulties than it addresses. It’s advisable for those new to social media marketing to experiment with free accounts, review and modify strategies and changes frequently and expand efforts in proportion to the campaign’s success and audience response.
For instance, Facebook ads, while not a cost prohibitive option, may make more sense for a successful campaign which is being expanded, rather than as the primary strategy for a new campaign for a company which is just beginning to experiment with social media marketing.
Prioritize Marketing Campaign Goals Over Technological Offerings
Recognizing that the social media campaign is merely another dimension of your business’ marketing strategy can assist your business with avoiding getting caught up in unjustified marketing strategy expenditures with returns low returns or that take a long time to recoup.
The main goal of any tool which you use should always be to further the efforts of your campaign, simplify a process or provide feedback for campaign evaluation.
It also provides the justification for trying out free tools such as Google Analytics or tools offered on a free or trial basis with upgrade options.
Create Brand Toolkits
Your social media campaign is an extension of your brand’s image. Designing themes and style sheets which create a consistent look and feel can assist with increasing user recognition of your business and ultimately the success of your social media campaign.
Exploring content sites with reasonable subscription fees can definitely be valuable in terms of time and investment savings.
Utilize Experts
There are many pieces to building a successful social media campaign. Initially, it may all be managed in house by one or a few staff members. However, the growth from successful campaigns can be explosively exponential and keeping and maintaining customer interest can require frequent content updates, creative presentations and plans which target competitor’s customers, for which an outside expert may be ideally suited.
Companies which have implemented successful social media campaigns have different views on how much should be outsourced versus competed inhouse. However, one thing that is clear is that a successful social media campaign is the result of multiple highly talented experts.
Again, business objectives should be the driver for decision-making.
Conclusion
The popularity of social media is too significant to ignore. Many marketers have made significant investments and have reaped commensurate returns. A social media strategy need not be complex initially.
Building upon the success of campaign strengths can ultimately lead to the range of social media campaign returns including:
- Increases in customer loyalty
- Higher recognition of your company’s brand(s)
- Increases in inbound web traffic
- Improvements in customer experiences and perceptions
Potentially lower customer acquisition costs
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Contact Business Credit & Capital today to discuss how we may provide financing for your social media marketing strategies. (866)222-9922