If you still aren’t quite convinced of the power of social media marketing, let’s take a look at the stats:

• Over half of the world’s population (53.6%) is actively using social media. ( DataReportal )
• The majority of users (79%) expect a brand to respond to them on social media within a day of reaching out. ( Sprout Social )
• Almost half of all Millenials (49%) prefer social media for ad influence. ( Pitney Bowes )
• 79% of consumers look to user-generated content on social media to help them make a purchase decision. ( Stackla )
• On average, people spend two and a half hours on social media every day. ( DataReportal )
• 71% of users who report having positive experiences with brands on social media are likely to recommend the brand to friends and family. ( Lyfe Marketing )

It’s clear that investing in a heavier social media presence would help you connect with customers (and potential customers) like never before. That’s important, because many consumers prefer to reach out to businesses via social media channels. 

Before you can dive right into social media marketing, it’s good to recognize certain practices that will elevate your campaign.

Social Media Marketing Best Practices

You want your business to have social media presence, and to do that, you have to do more than just make an account on Facebook (although , that’s a good start). Here are just the basics of what goes into successful social media marketing campaigns:

• Setting Goals: This is the first practice I’m going over because it is vital to any successful marketing campaign, social media or not. If you want to see results from your campaigns, you need to know what you’re looking for. When setting goals, make sure they are S.M.A.R.T. goals ( S pecific, M easurable, A chievable, R ealistic, and T ime-sensitive). 

• Keyword Research: Before you run any campaigns, you need to know which keywords are going to produce the best results. The most effective keywords will differ based on which platform you are using. Also, you can’t just take your keywords from a PPC campaign and plug them into your social campaign. User intent varies depending on the platform. While people are looking for information on Google, they are engaging in conversations, idea sharing, and other types of interactions on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. 

• Consistent Content: Like I said before, there’s more to this than simply having an account. You need to use it! Let users know your business’s profile is active by regularly putting out content. And make sure it’s relevant. You want consistency, but that doesn’t mean rapid firing posts that have nothing to do with your business. 

• Maintain Your Brand Identity: Users who follow your social accounts will come to expect certain types of content, so you should strive to be consistent with the messaging in your posts. If your posts constantly come across as professional and serious and then you decide to start posting funny videos and memes one day, it might throw your followers off. 

• Use Social to Promote Your Content: Your business’s social media accounts should be used to spread the word about content that gets uploaded to your website. If you write blogs for your site, or make videos, you can promote these on your social accounts. It’s another way to extend the reach of your content and a good step toward maximizing impressions. 

• Promote Outside Content: There’s nothing wrong with sharing posts created by other brands or businesses. If the content of the post is relevant to your target audience, then it makes sense to share it. Make sure you don’t neglect your original content, though. 

• Track Your Campaigns: You want to keep an eye on how well your posts are doing in terms of impressions, engagement, reach, click-thru rate (CTR), and more. Social media platforms have analytical tools available that make it fairly easy to track such metrics. If you aren’t measuring the effectiveness of your campaigns, you won’t know how to improve them. 

• Track Your Competitors’ Campaigns: It’s important to note how well your competitors seem to be doing with their social media campaigns as well as your own. If their posts are more effective, try to find out why. Evaluating their campaigns can help you better evaluate your own.

• Keep Response Times Low: Consumers favor social media platforms as means to easily reach out to brands or businesses. People don’t like to be kept waiting on a reply for too long. It’s important to keep track of response rates and times, just as you would track impressions, engagement, etc. 

• Use the Right Platforms: Before you can run your campaign, you need to decide which platforms you are going to focus on. This will depend on the type of messaging you want to use. Facebook campaigns would benefit from a more light-hearted tone while LinkedIn users expect to see posts that come across as more professional. Twitter is great for higher levels of engagement with users and building up your brand identity, one Tweet at a time. 

While this is certainly not a comprehensive list of good practices to follow when running social campaigns, it’s good to keep these in mind. 

Is It Right For My Business?

Some business owners shy away from using social media marketing. They may have enough word-of-mouth going around that they don’t see a need for it, or they are comfortable with the methods they have been using for years. 

Marketing on social media is a great way to boost your online presence at a relatively low cost. It’s good for expanding your reach and engaging directly with your customers or prospective customers. If you are trying to build your brand identity or awareness, it’s great for that, too. Also, it’s helpful to know whether or not your target audience is on social media. 

Only you can ultimately decide whether or not your business needs to engage in social media marketing. Determine what your goals are, and go from there. And if you have trouble making that decision, or you aren't sure what first steps you should take, you can always reach out to professionals like us to lend a helping hand!