3.10: YOLO

Social media marketing is the need of the hour. Not only does it help individuals stay connected, it also adds value to businesses with low cost and effective marketing methods.

Traditional marketing is still relevant, but digital marketing in general and social media marketing, in particular, is extremely helpful for entrepreneurs. It can be an invaluable asset for lead generation, raising brand awareness, engaging existing customers, and acquiring new customers at relatively lower rates.

However, social websites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and other platforms can be tricky. Not every marketer is able to get the desired results via social media marketing despite their familiarity with social media websites. This is because they ignore the basic principles of marketing, especially the marketing mix or 4 P’s principle.

Social marketing works on the basis of these fundamental marketing principles and you need to rethink these concepts in the context of digital media to achieve your marketing goals.

The key to surviving in the digital world is to understand the needs and wants of your customers. When you know which platforms are most commonly used by your target audience, then you can stay active on those websites to increase your reach.

It’s also essential to monitor the activities of your competitors. This practice helps you learn about the latest industry trends, identify your mistakes, and learn from those that have working in the marketing industry for quite a long time. You can update your social marketing strategy accordingly for better results.

Despite these tactics, your business may suffer if you blindly follow in the footsteps of the competition. You should rather develop an effective strategy that suits your particular needs.

For this purpose, you should first define your goals for social marketing campaigns and specify your target audience. The next step is to identify where these customers are mostly present and then create social media accounts on those websites. It’s important to remember that you cannot and should not try to run marketing campaigns on every social media website or this approach will only backfire.

The next step is to develop a content strategy for these websites. You should know what kind of content is popular on each website so you can post it when most of your target audience is online. You don’t need to create fresh content for every website and can rather repurpose and reuse it to avoid wasting time.

Moreover, there are many tools or software available that can assist you in creating unique content and repurposing the existing information. You can use these tools to maintain a content calendar and schedule social media posts so they reach your target customers at the right time.

Social marketing efforts produce results when you stay up-to-date with performance. Social media built-in tools as well as external performance measurement software can give you detailed information about the performance of marketing campaigns. You can find out which activities are performing as per expectations and which tactics need to be revised. With the help of this information, you can update and revise the social media strategy for improved performance.

This book is the first step in the right direction and provides you with guidelines for prospering as a social media marketer. However, you can learn best by implementing these principles and activities on your own. Hands-on experience further clarifies concepts, gives you a better understanding of digital and social media marketing, and helps you get down to the nitty-gritty of modern marketing strategies.