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What is social media marketing?

Social media marketing is the process of creating content for social media platforms to promote your products and/or services, build community with your target audience, and drive traffic to your business. With new features and platforms emerging every day, social media marketing is constantly evolving.

Social media marketing is all about meeting your target audience and customers where they are and as they socially interact with each other and your brand.

While social media marketing as a whole is incredibly valuable and beneficial to your business growth (as you'll see in the following section), your strategy will differ based on which social networks your audience spends their time on.


Social Media Marketing Platforms

Facebook

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  • Users: 1.9 billion daily active users worldwide
  • Audience: An even spread of Generation X and Millennials
  • Industry impact: B2C
  • Best for: Brand awareness; advertising; community building

Facebook is the largest social media platform and the most established. Since its launch in 2004, it has become an invaluable tool for B2C businesses, offering advanced advertising tools as well as organic opportunities.

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TikTok

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  • Users: 1 billion active monthly global users
  • Audience: Primarily Gen Z followed by Millennials
  • Industry impact: B2B and B2C
  • Best for: Short-form, creative video content; user-generated content; brand awareness

When you think of short-form video, you probably think of TikTok. The platform rose in popularity in 2020 and shows no signs of slowing down. It's one of the best platforms for community building, with marketers ranking it in second place behind YouTube.

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Instagram

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  • Users: 1 billion monthly active users
  • Audience: Primarily Millennials
  • Industry impact: B2C
  • Best for: High-quality images and videos; user-generated content; advertising

Although Instagram launched only 12 years ago, the platform has taken the world by storm. When it comes to sharing visually compelling content, Instagram is where brands go. Another thing that sets the platform apart is its advanced ecommerce tools.

Today, users can discover brands, browse their products and/or service, and complete a purchase without ever leaving the app – making Instagram a hard platform to beat.

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Twitter

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  • Users: 211 million daily active users worldwide
  • Audience: Primarily Millennials
  • Industry impact: B2B and B2C
  • Best for: Public relations; customer service; community building

While Instagram focuses on visuals, Twitter focuses on words. Since the early days of 140-character Tweets, the platform has now expanded to include an audio tool called Twitter Spaces, a community-building tool called Twitter Communities, and Twitter Moments to share interesting content with your followers.

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LinkedIn

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  • Users: 774 million active users worldwide
  • Audience: Baby boomers, Generation X, and Millennials
  • Industry impact: B2B
  • Best for: B2B relationships, business development, and social selling

LinkedIn is Facebook's professional cousin. It's perhaps the only platform where its audience is clearly defined: Working professionals looking to network and seek out new opportunities.

That makes it the ideal platform for B2B companies looking to identify key decision-makers and build an industry-specific community.

Featured Resources:

  • The Beginner’s Guide to LinkedIn Marketing
  • Social Selling on LinkedIn: The Ultimate Guide
  • How to Craft the Perfect LinkedIn Profile

  • Pinterest

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    • Users: 444 million monthly active users worldwide
    • Audience: Primarily Millennials with a solid audience in Gen Z, Gen X and Baby Boomers
    • Industry impact: B2C
    • Best for: Visual advertising; inspiration

    Think of Pinterest like a visual storyboard that allows users to get inspiration for everything from fashion to home decor.

    85% of Pinners say Pinterest is where they go to start a new project. In addition, 80% of weekly Pinners say they've discovered a new brand or product on the platform. So, not only is it a great discovery tool but it's also a way for brands to build their narrative through visual stories.

    Featured Resources:

    • The Ultimate Guide to Pinterest Marketing
    • How to Use Pinterest to Promote Your Business or Blog

    • Benefits of Social Media Marketing

      To illustrate the benefits of social media marketing, let's take a look at the experience from the user's perspective. Well, my perspective.

      As I scroll through my Instagram feed every day (cough, cough...multiple times a day), I consistently notice new posts and stories by The Frye Company. I’ve always been a fan of their boots, clothing, and accessories, but I also love the content they share on their Instagram profile.

      All of their photos have the same filter on them to ensure they match — this makes their profile look professional, artistic, and organized when visitors, like myself, browse their page.

      Frye’s account also encourages interaction between the company and its followers by providing them with a specific hashtag to use so they can be featured on the page when they post photos with Frye products.

      Frye’s Instagram account is a great example of successful social media marketing — it’s attractive, distinctly Frye, engages their ~200K followers, and promotes their products.

      But why is social media marketing so important? And how do you actually build a social media marketing strategy that’ll work for your specific type of business?

      There are a variety of reasons why your company should use social media marketing. We've created a list of the most beneficial reasons to consider.

      Let's dive in.

      1. Increase your brand awareness.

      Due to the sheer amount of people on social media, you're missing out on the potential to reach thousands, and even millions, if you don't have a presence.

      In fact, social media has been proven to boost brand awareness by driving up engagement. Social engagement includes things like comments, likes, shares, and reposts, and saves.

      It also helps you increase brand awareness by directing traffic straight to your site. You can do this by including links to your website and other offers in your profile, bio, and posts.

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      2. Generate leads and boost conversions.

      Promoting and sharing your products on social media is a simple way to improve lead generation, boost conversions, and increase sales because you're advertising to people who have opted to engage with you by following your account.

      Here are some examples of ways you can use social media to generate more leads.

      • Create contests for your visitors and followers to participate in on your social media profiles.
      • Include links to your website and offers in the bio sections of your profiles.
      • Host live videos to make announcements about products and provide updates or details about exciting news at your company.
      • Implement a social media marketing campaign on one of your channels.
      • Sell your products through your social profiles. For example, you can enable Facebook's Shop Section or Instagram's Shopping feature on your profiles. These features allow your visitors and followers to click on products you've shared in posts to view information such as price, material, and size. Then, visitors can easily proceed to checkout through the platform and buy the product directly from you.

      3. Foster relationships with your customers.

      By connecting and engaging with your social media followers, you'll be able to build lasting relationships between them and your business. You can do this by interacting with them on your posts, responding to their questions and comments, and providing them with any help they may need.

      You can also ask your followers questions about your products, their pain points, or create giveaways to help you build trust and show them how much you value their input and support.

      4. Learn from your competitors.

      Social media is a great way to keep tabs on your competitors — whether that's in reference to their social media tactics, the products they're promoting, the campaigns they're implementing, or their level of interaction with followers.

      Social media allows you to get a look at what is and isn't working for your competition, and therefore helps you decide what should or shouldn't change in terms of your company's approach.

      Lastly, reviewing the social accounts of your competitors can help you make sure your marketing stands out and is unique to your brand.

      Learn how to conduct a competitive analysis to discover how you can beat the competition.

      Now, let's talk strategy — there are several steps to ensure your social media marketing plan is sustainable and positively impacts your business.

    • How to Create a Social Media Marketing Strategy

    • Set clear goals. Research your buyer personas and audience. Determine which social platforms you’ll market on. Establish your most important metrics and KPIs. Get to know your competition. Create unique and engaging content. Organize a schedule for your posts. Review and adjust your strategy.

      Although social media is constantly evolving, most of the foundational steps you need to succeed stay the same. Essentially, you're following the same steps you would take to create a marketing strategy and narrow it to a specific channel.

      Let's cover these steps in more detail so you can begin applying them to your business.

      Step 1: Set clear goals.

      The first step to creating a social media marketing strategy is to define your social media goals and ensure that they align with your overall business objectives.

      Ask yourself: What do you want to achieve through your social media efforts? Examples could be increasing brand awareness, driving website traffic, generating leads, boosting customer engagement, or improving customer satisfaction. 

      Once you've set your high-level goals, break them down into smaller, actionable steps. This helps you identify the specific actions and strategies needed to achieve your goals. For example, if your goal is to increase website traffic through social media, actionable steps could include increasing posting frequency, optimizing content for sharing, or running targeted ad campaigns.


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