Social Media Marketing: 4 basic tips for getting started
“I’m so far behind. Everyone tells me I need to be on social media, but I don’t know where to get started!”
Today’s MarketingSherpa Blog post is for the late adopters, those not yet deeply engaged in social media marketing.
But even if you are engaged in social media marketing, these tips may help you. Marketers all experience the same type of consternation when it comes to social media and receiving questions like these from peers:
- Are you on social media?
- Which platforms are you on?
- How often do you post?
- What are your engagement numbers?
Let me put your mind at ease. You are not alone. It’s a pressure we all feel within the industry. Companies large and small experience the same pressures.
- How do we get noticed?
- How do we create our social brand image?
- How do we drive sales from a social-oriented platform?
At MarketingSherpa, we have many more resources to help you dive into the complexities of social media marketing and I’ll end this blog post with a few links to help you answer some of the above questions. But first, let’s back it up a bit, and take a 10,000-foot view of the essential elements of any social media marketing endeavor.
Essential Element #1. Realistic goals
To start, we need to keep this in perspective.
Does social interaction and engagement directly correlate to conversion? No.
So, if social interaction does not directly create conversions, what are we spending our time, money and resources on? While we cannot directly correlate brand engagement, brand recognition and brand interaction with engagement on a social media platform, we can say the personality and presence of a brand helps to inform consumers and keep them engaged in the conversation.
Essential Element #2. Organic conversations
First of all, we do not need to be on every single platform to get to the next level. Start with one platform (i.e., Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Vimeo, Vine, Instagram, Pinterest, etc.) and start the conversation.
To start a conversation, we need to understand our audience wants to engage in an interaction. Start by asking questions (i.e., I’m having a case of the Mondays, how are you doing today? or TGIF! What are you planning this weekend?) then move on to talking about what you do or want to promote.
Obviously, these questions should be relevant to your brand. The goal is to engage visitors in a conversation and keep it going.
Ask more questions, respond and follow up. You do not want to be that company that puts something out there and doesn’t respond. It’s the same as sending a message to a friend to ask them out to dinner, having them respond to you and never setting a date or time.
Essential Element #3. A (growing) community
Grow your following.
I know! I know! How do I grow my brand’s following?
Once you pick where to start and you have a conversation going with your followers, this is an easy transition.
Let’s talk about the demographic you are targeting. Let’s get specific. I know. This is a hard thing to do. This is where you are probably saying “Come on Rachel, my product is perfect for everyone.” I get it. I’ve had the same trouble myself.
So, let’s pick your top demographic and go from there. Pick your top demographic and find out:
- Where they visit
- Who they follow
- What they read about.
Why is this important? It’s simple. Once you know where they go, start networking.
Social media marketing is all about the connections and creating conversations. For example, if I’m looking to help a company that is coaching boys soccer, where would I go? What would I search for?
I’d start searching locally. I would Google the top Facebook pages for the area by typing “Jacksonville” and “boys soccer” and “facebook.”
This search criteria would pull together the right information for my competition – Facebook pages I should start interacting with.
