Principles of social media marketing – what you need to know

Social media

A social media marketing agency can help you get the most out of your social media for business. Social media marketing is changing the marketing industry so fast that businesses are striving to adapt their tactics and strategies. What used to work five years ago is becoming less effective. So, when planning a social media marketing strategy, there are some key elements you should keep in mind.

  • Share

You should think about sharing. You need to know what your audience wants to share, and publish and promote it. You need to start with a compelling and sharable headline.

  • Real-time

If you want your social media marketing to be effective, you should go real-time and not next month or next week. You need to make posts that will enable you to catch the viral wave and trends. This means that you should respond to comments, questions, complaints, inquiries and issues in real-time. The days of publishing your posts three months in advance have gone. The market wants to be kept updated.

  • Educate – don’t just focus on selling

A lot of people don’t want posts that try to sell things to them. Social media marketing should be about solving problems that people have and informing them about what they don’t know, through links, blog posts, and information on Facebook.

  • Try to entertain

If you do not know how to entertain your audience, hire a professional social media marketing company. We live in an information age where people seek to be informed and entertained. Facebook updates that entertain with humour, competitions, or unexpected information are the links that will be widely shared.

  • Use multichannel

Mono channel isn’t enough, whether that be niche magazine advertisement or email marketing. You should be on Twitter, Facebook, blogging, Instagram, and even YouTube. Social media provides you with channels to be everywhere.

  • Give information for free

Free things get shared – this does not mean that you give everything out for free. However, you should give out enough to spread your content and build trust among your audience. For example, you can offer an e-book sneak peek for free to encourage people to buy your content.

  • Think multimedia

While written text is an effective form of marketing, text on its own will not be effective. You should provide information in different ways to meet people’s varying needs. Make your content available in different media. Use photos, videos, audio and text to share your messages.

  • Think like a publisher

We are past the days of just sending texts and emails with a special offer. Consumers are researching your company on the internet with a google search. They are also searching for content that provides answers to their questions. Online publications such as podcasts, eBooks, PDFs and tutorials will make your marketing effective.

Finally – Target your niche

A good social media marketing agency will help you research your target audience and create messages that your audience can relate to. Fans and tribes find you and share you with their connections. You should follow people in your niche so that when you share content, they can re-share it. This is the key to social media business success.

Written by Lorna Mates