If you know anything about marketing today, you know that Social Media Marketing is the trump card of marketing. To put it simply, Social Media Marketing essentially means advertising on social media. But it doesn’t stop there. Big brand names like Nike, Oreos Cookies, Netflix, Dove and GoPro are all on the SMM bandwagon.
Then, there are brands like Fit Tea as well as Grace and Lace that derive almost all their sales through social media marketing! And believe me, this is just the tip of the iceberg. But this post isn’t here to tell you why Social Media Marketing is great or why this will help your business. You’ve probably figured that part out by now. This post is simply here to tell you the simple rules that will help you become a Social Media Marketer yourself!
For that, you must follow the 10 Commandments of Social Media Marketing.
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Know thy goals
It isn’t enough for you to have social media accounts and people running them. You must have objectives and aims. That way, you will be able to strategically plan your campaigns and set targets for followers. Social Media Marketing isn’t just about the followers though. You have to have targets for customer acquisition.
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Know thy customer
This means you must be on point with your target audience. Understanding who your ideal customers are, helps you understand their buying behavior and thereby, create campaigns according to that.
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Choose thy platform and approach wisely
You can’t be a scatterbrain when it comes to this. You must choose one platform that suits your product and then, your approach on that platform. The only way this works is if you produce high-quality unique content.
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Thou must make relationships with thy followers
It is imperative that you reply to comments, tag people and generally create goodwill on your forum. Keep your audience engaged or someone else will take their attention away.
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Know the trends of today
Tapping into viral trends is a jackpot for any social media marketing campaign. You can’t expect to be aloof of the world of the internet. Not knowing what the latest hashtag or coolest challenge is may be detrimental to your campaign. Also, take advantage of current events.
During Super Bowl 2013, the lights went off for about half an hour. During that blackout, Oreo tweeted out an image reading:‘Power Out? No Problem. – You can Still Dunk in the Dark’. It got more than 15,000 retweets on Twitter, making it trend. Now this, was BOSS marketing.
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Thou should spend some money on this
Make a strategy and allocate a budget that fits it. Prioritize your strategy according to your budget. It will never be as expensive as traditional marketing (TV ads, etc) but you have to shell out some cash.
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Thou must be accessible and active
You can’t start a campaign and not stick with it. You must be constantly engaged with your followers and up-to-date about the shares, retweets and reposts. If you disappear after starting something online, you will lose your audience.
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Thou must repost, retweet, share, comment and like
If your account is the kind to be active on social media and you share other accounts’ content, you will get similar accounts sharing your content too. It’s the simple law of reciprocity. Don’t try to push it too hard though.
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Know thy balance
Following from the previous commandment, you have to know what’s too much or too little. Don’t spam people so that they get annoyed and block your posts. Produce high-quality and engaging content drawing them in, keeping them interested.
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Thou must add value
If you spend all your time on the social Web directly promoting your products and services, people will stop listening. You must add value to the conversation. Focus less on conversions and more on creating amazing content and developing relationships with online influencers. In time, those people will become powerful catalysts for marketing your business.
More?
Did you ever stop to think there’s more? Well, there is. Through social media marketing, you recycle your content and use different approaches making the same thing attractive. A single blog post could be recycled into an article, Quora answer, video or even ebook!
Social Media has a wide penetration in today’s digital marketing landscapes. In 2016, the number of social media users has reached up to 2.3 Billion and 1.9 Billion mobile social media users. Most of the marketers use social media marketing for increasing their sales and boosting the brand name of their business.
“Most of these social media platforms have their own built-in data analytics tools, which enables companies to track the progress, success, and engagement of ad campaigns. Companies address a range of stakeholders through SMM campaigns including current and potential customers, current and potential employees, journalists, bloggers, and the general public.” says the Wiki Article on Social Media Marketing.
Some very common examples are Google Adwords for advertising in Google Search Result and Facebook Adverts for Facebook and Instagram advertisement.
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and SMM
According to Moz SEO is a marketing discipline focused on growing visibility in organic (non-paid) search engine results. SEO encompasses both the technical and creative elements required to improve rankings, drive traffic, and increase awareness in search engines. Search engine optimization is a methodology of strategies, techniques and tactics used to increase the number of visitors to a website by obtaining a high-ranking placement in the search results page of a search engine (SERP) — including Google, Bing, Yahoo and other search engines.
How can social media help?
Until recently, search and social media were thought of as two very different things. As a brand, you can reach customers with paid advertising or organic content. And when you start mixing paid and organic, the combined lift is overwhelmingly better than paid channels alone.
So, within the context of organic marketing, social media is your primary engine for promoting new content. Effectively organizing your social campaigns and tying them together with the new content on your site, optimized for search, can take you from zero visibility to a strong performing position almost overnight.
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What are some best practices for incorporating SEO into your social efforts?
Pay attention to the basics first: have high-quality content, well-structured pages, follow all of the best practices for SEO. Then look at the metadata that affects how well your content is shared on social media channels, specifically Open Graph tags, proper use of images, authorship metadata (for Google Plus and search results) and more. Finally, you need to learn from your activities, so make sure you have metrics put into place to analyze your performance and see where there is room for improvement. (source)
SMM is significant not just for advertising. It is also helpful in boosting SEO boost, creating a buzz and eventually leading to customer satisfaction. Now that you know the basic ten commandments of Social Media Marketing as well as a little bit of insight into other aspects of SMM, you can use them and get going.
Cheers 😀