Social media itself has only come to prominence in the last decade or so, with the idea of marketing on social media platforms being even more recent. And yet in our fast-paced digital world, having a marketing presence on multiple social media platforms feels like a long-standing requirement.
The fact is, though, that any business that isn’t using social media is missing a critical to connect with, understand and grow its audience.
If you’re new to social media marketing, wading into this world can feel intimidating whether you have personal experience on social media platforms or not. By understanding the basics of social media marketing, you can start to develop an effective action plan that is right for your business.
Social media marketing basics
While social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter started by connecting individual people, it wasn’t long before businesses and other organizations started creating accounts for marketing purposes. Nowadays, most social media platforms have business-specific accounts that any business owner can set up easily. By providing some basic information about your business and creating a profile page with a picture, you’ll soon be off and posting.
That’s the good news about social media marketing — the barriers to entry are extremely low. However, success requires an investment of resources to manage these accounts, build your audience and engage with your community.
Social media marketing requires a mixture of content creation, customer service, public relations and digital advertising to represent your brand and give information on your products and services. What’s more, different platforms will have different best practices.
If you’re getting started in social media marketing, a great first step is to sit down and analyze your audience and your brand and compare them with the demographics of the major social media platforms. If you’re a clothing label going after a younger audience, Instagram might be right for you, while law firms may want to stick with LinkedIn.
Burg & Co. Marketing can be your social media marketing partner
Maybe one of the best pieces of advice if you’re new to social media marketing is to seek out a partner with extensive experience in the field. Social media can and should be a successful part of your broader digital marketing strategy. We’ll help you understand social media marketing and integrate it with other channels such as search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click (PPC) advertising and content marketing to create a comprehensive strategy built to achieve return on investment (ROI) for your marketing budget.
Contact us today for more information. We’ll be happy to schedule a free marketing consultation with our experts.
