Social media marketing can be tough, particularly for beginners. Here are all the things you need to know in order to do it effectively.

Social media marketing can be a daunting task when you’re first starting out. It is a marketing channel that many big companies have realized the potential of and are using thoroughly to promote their brand. So many companies have started to use this channel for marketing purposes that having a presence on social media is no longer an option for brands but rather a necessity. This, in part, is because no matter what type of company you are and what kind of products and services you are offering, you are bound to find potential customers on these platforms. The social media world is so vast, and it boasts such a large following that you can expect to find all types of people on these platforms. If you do not reach these people on these platforms, then you better believe that some other competitor company will.

Today, we will look at how social media can be used effectively by companies to market themselves, what things to avoid, and what steps to take in order to make the most out of this channel.

 Know what you want

Different companies have different reasons for pursuing social media marketing. Knowing what you, as a brand, want from your marketing efforts is necessary if you wish to have an efficient marketing strategy. Not setting clear rules, and not knowing what you want will only lead to a confusing and misleading social media campaign.

Some questions you can ask yourself to figure out why you are pursuing social media marketing in the first place can be:

• Do I want to increase sales?
• Do I want to get my name out in the market and increase brand awareness?
• Do I want to improve my brand image?
• Do I want to build a loyal fan-base?
• Do I want to use this platform for customer service?

Figuring out what you want will not only provide you with a guideline on how to approach this task but will also provide clarity to your followers on the reason why they are being marketed to. This will help you achieve your goals much quicker and in an easier way.

Know your customers

A very important part of successfully marketing on social media is knowing who your customers are that you will be marketing to. You should try and figure out the demographics of your consumers, things such as what is the age of the majority of your customers, what is their gender, where do they live, what is their social status, how much is an average consumer willing to spend on your products, etc. If you can confidently answer these questions, that means you have a good knowledge of your customers and will be able to make custom posts tailored to them which are likely to bring in more engagements.

This task can be difficult for very big companies who have a wide range of customers with highly varying views and opinions, but for a medium-sized company or a startup these questions can be answered fairly easily.

Another important part of knowing your customers is knowing which social media platforms they are most likely to be found on. If you can pinpoint this platform, you will be able to focus the majority of your efforts on that website so that your efforts are efficient and bring in the most amount of engagements possible.

As a best practice, in the start, companies should aim to have a presence on all major social media platforms. You should spend the first month posting on all the platforms equally. After the first month, you can compare the platforms to see which sites brought in the most engagements. Once you’ve deciphered that, you should continue to post regularly on the platforms that bring in the most engagements, while posting once in a while on the platforms that are not being as rewarding.

Make a plan

Effective social media marketing can only be done if the process is pursued according to a plan. The plan should include a number of things. The main part of the plan should be the schedule.

As a company, you cannot wait for inspiration to hit you or for life to present you with the best opportunity that you can use to market yourself. You need to have a fixed schedule of what posts you are going to make, at that time, and on which platforms. You will come to see that, quite often, it is the standard routine post that gets the most engagements and the highest conversion rate.

You should know the amount of money you are willing to spend per post based on your budget, when to cut funding for an ad if it is doing badly, and when to boost funding for an ad if it is doing well.

 Use post insights

One of the major advantages of social media marketing over traditional forms of marketing is that with social media marketing you can see which posts are doing well and which aren’t. Most social media sites offer tools that can show you which posts are bringing in the most likes, which posts are being shared the most, which posts have the highest conversion rates, and which posts are bringing in the most profile clicks among others.

You can use these insights as feedback to see which posts are doing well, and which posts are maybe not doing so good. You can base your future activity on the posts that brought in the most engagements and through this process of filtration, you will be able to narrow down your posts to what statistics show will work and not based on what you think might be a good post.