Why Should You Invest in Social Media Marketing?
Social Media – Does it Matter?
Social Media Marketing – does it matter? This is a question we hear all the time from businesses. The truth is yes, Social Media does matter and it matters a lot. Social Media used to be a place where people went to simply see what their friends were up to or to post updates about their own lives. However, a lot has changed. People are now using Social Media for recommendations on places to visit, products to shop, and more importantly, to gather information. Many people say, “I don’t even have Social Media” or “no one cares what I had for lunch” but that is old school thinking. Those people are being left behind. While they might choose not to post personal information, it is hurting their business by not gaining a following.
For the sake of this article lets focus on businesses. So far we have established that Social Media Marketing is important, but let’s take a 30,000 ft. view of what Social Media means. Later we can get into how to use Social Media effectively.
What is Social Media?
Social Media is websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking. Hmmmm…… that’s pretty broad. Here is what I see Social Media as: “A place where people spend their free time reading, looking at pictures and engaging with friends and acquaintances.” More importantly, Social Media is where you can reach and engage your current customers and gain new ones.
“But there are so many Social Media sites”. While this is true, here is the way we look at it. Rather than trying to be on all social sites, focus on one or two and grow that following until there is a need to add another. When someone attempts to do all social outlets instantly, they almost always fail for one reason; content. Posting the same content on all sites is a turn off to many of your followers who use multiple platforms and if they are seeing the same thing from you on all pages, they are likely to unfollow your page, which is very counter-productive for your end goal; gaining customers!
We advise our clients to start with one and build to two. Facebook and Instagram are the two biggest Social Media Platforms, and if you can master those and need more, then you are in great shape. However, reaching the millions, even billions of potential customers on those two sites will take a good amount of time and effort.
How do I “Social Media”?
It’s pretty simple; you’ve just got to do it. Creating a business page takes a matter of minutes. Then, it’s as simple as keeping people up to date on changes, information you would like shared or anything else you believe your following will find relevant. We always recommend a plan of action to be written up before you start trying to grow a following. You need to crawl before you walk. That being said, not everyone crawls for the same amount of time. Some people have years of content ready to go and in that case, growing a following will move much quicker and be much more effective. Others may have a brand new business, or just never save any photos, which is fine too.
You just need to put a heavy focus on creating new content before you grow your following, otherwise, you will have no information to share. Whichever one you are, the process is the same and the first step is making a plan!
Making a Plan.
Social Media should be treated as an entirely different section of your marketing plan. Set a budget (which we will discuss later). This can be used to grow your following, gain reach on special posts or to drive traffic to your website. Each day have a plan, a different style post, a different way of writing the post and each should be targeting a specific audience.
Once the posting begins, every day should be evaluated. Measure the reach, the engagement and compare to posts similar to that in the past. Whether there is a year of data or two weeks, measuring results is what will make your Social Media more effective. The data that is preassembled for you every time you click post, is unbelievable. It gives you all the tools to make your business a huge success. Success on Social Media will transfer to sales! We will get much more into the analytics of Social Media in the future, but for today, just know it’s extremely important!
So what did we learn today? We learned that Social Media is extremely important and really, it’s not that difficult. The key takeaways from this quick article are to start gathering content and make a plan. I cannot stress that enough. Having content allows you to engage your followers and helps you reach new customers. But a plan on how to use that content is what will determine your success.
I’ll sum up with this. How would it change your business if you could reach 500 people per day? How about 5,000 or maybe even 50,000 people per day? Social Media is here to stay – and Weicks Media is here to help!
