What is social media marketing (SMM)
Social media marketing, also referred to as digital marketing and e-marketing, encompasses the utilization of social media platforms on which individuals create social networks and exchange information, with the objective of enhancing a company’s brand, boosting sales, and generating website traffic.
SMM not only offers companies a means to engage with both existing and new customers, but it also incorporates data analytics specifically designed for marketers to monitor the effectiveness of their efforts and discover additional avenues for engagement.
From 2004, when MySpace became the first social media site to achieve one million users, to 2022, social media experienced significant growth in interactive digital platforms, surpassing the influence of television and radio. By the beginning of 2023, the global number of social media users reached 4.76 billion, accounting for more than 59% of the world’s population.
As social media continues to have a significant impact on consumer buying decisions, particularly through influencer content, marketers in various industries are pushing for the transformation of social media marketing (SMM) from a singular tool into a multifaceted source of valuable marketing insights aimed at a growing and increasingly crucial audience.
Why is social media marketing (SMM) so powerful
The unparalleled capacity of social media in three core marketing areas, namely connection, interaction, and customer data, is what drives the power of SMM.
Connection
In addition to providing businesses with unprecedented opportunities to connect with customers, social media also offers a wide variety of channels to reach target audiences, including content platforms such as YouTube, social sites like Facebook, and microblogging services like X platform.
Interaction
Businesses can take advantage of the dynamic nature of social media interactions, such as direct communication and liking, to gain free advertising opportunities through eWOM (electronic word-of-mouth) recommendations between existing and potential customers.
The positive contagion effect from eWOM, which is a valuable driver of consumer decisions, can not only be measured but also occurs on social networks. This allows businesses to measure their social equity, which refers to the ROI from their social media marketing campaigns.
Customer data
Social media marketing plans provide an additional resource to enhance marketing outcomes, which is customer data. Instead of being daunted by big data’s 3Vs (volume, variety, and velocity), SMM tools can not only extract customer data but also convert it into practical market analysis, or even utilize the data for crowd-sourcing new strategies.
How social media marketing (SMM) works
Social media had a profound impact on both interpersonal connections and business strategies, as platforms such as Facebook, X, and Instagram gained popularity. Businesses can now utilize these platforms to shape consumer behavior by generating engaging content and tailoring messaging using precise geographic, demographic, and personal data extraction.
SMM action plan
Hootsuite, a top provider of software in social media management, suggests the following plan of action in order to construct a targeted SMM campaign with a framework for implementation and performance measurement, resulting in increased effectiveness.
- Align SMM goals to clear business objectives
- Learn your target customer (age, location, income, job title, industry, interests)
- Conduct a competitive analysis of your competition (successes and failures)
- Audit your current SMM (successes and failures)
- Create a calendar for SMM content delivery
- Create best-in-class content
- Track performance and adjust SMM strategy as needed
Customer relationship management (CRM)
Social media marketing offers certain unique advantages when compared to conventional marketing. One of these advantages is that SMM supports targeted customer relationship management (CRM) tools through two types of interaction: customer-to-customer and firm-to-customer.
While traditional marketing primarily captures purchase activity to track customer value, SMM has the ability to track customer value directly through purchases and indirectly through product referrals.
Shareable content
Additionally, businesses have the opportunity to utilize the increased interconnectedness facilitated by social media marketing (SMM) for generating compelling content. Sticky content, a marketing concept referring to appealing content that immediately captures customers’ attention, convinces them to make purchases, and motivates them to share the content, can also be produced.
The creation of shareable content is one of the most important ways that social media marketing drives growth because it reaches an audience that is usually not easily reachable and it also has the implicit endorsement of someone the recipient knows and trusts.
Earned media
Customer-created product reviews and recommendations are another form of earned media (i.e. brand exposure from methods other than paid advertising) that can be effectively utilized by a business through SMM.
Viral marketing
Viral marketing, a sales technique, is another SMM strategy that depends on the audience to create the message with the aim of rapidly spreading word-of-mouth product information. When a marketing message extends beyond its intended audience and reaches a wider public, it is deemed viral, which is a cost-effective and straightforward method of promoting sales.
Customer segmentation
Companies can ensure that they focus their marketing resources on their exact target audiences because customer segmentation is more precise on SMM than on traditional marketing channels.
Pillars of social media marketing
When creating marketing programs, a crucial concern for marketers is the method of delivering their messages. Social media aids in disseminating these messages to the appropriate individuals at the appropriate moment, both through unpaid and paid methods.
Social media also enables brands to learn more about their audience’s personal, geographic and demographic information. This enables organizations to customize their messaging and content for the best engagement.
1. Social strategy
When planning for any marketing campaign or activity, it is crucial to establish a suitable strategy beforehand. It is important for organizations to identify the objectives of the program, the channels to be utilized, and the types of content to be disseminated. The following are a few illustrations:
- Determine goals. Using social media for marketing should align closely with business and other marketing program goals. Some goals that businesses can use to measure success include increasing brand awareness, driving website traffic and leads, and increasing revenue.
- Select social media platforms. There are many social platforms available, but it doesn’t make sense for businesses to use them all. Organizations need to know their audience and choose the platform(s) that best fit their demographic.
- Content mix. Each social platform has a unique flavor for distributing content — including video, imagery, links and direct messaging. So brands need to identify which content their marketing persona is most likely to engage with.
2. Planning and publishing
Once a strategy has been established, the next step is to start publishing. This could involve tasks such as creating a new blog post, disseminating details about an upcoming event, or uploading a fresh product video.
Consistency is crucial for an effective SMM program. In order to attract an audience, organizations should make frequent posts on their page. By consistently posting relevant content, the audience will continuously return for more.
In order to ensure consistency, the content that organizations share on social media needs to be consistent with other marketing promotions. Marketers have the ability to schedule their posts at the appropriate time using tools like Hootsuite, HubSpot, and Sprout Social.
3. Listening and engagement
When businesses engage with social platforms, they have the potential to observe an increase in interaction and discussions related to their brand and products. Users will actively comment on and share posts, mention the company in their own posts, and even initiate communication using instant messaging features.
These interactions are considered ideal as social media managers are notified, allowing them to provide good customer service and enhance the customer experience.
Without directly tagging or speaking to a company, individuals on social media have the ability to discuss a brand, product, or service. Various social media listening tools, such as Brandwatch, NetBase Quid, and Sprinklr, can be utilized to remain engaged in these conversations. Additionally, marketers can receive notifications regarding mentions of their company through free tools like Google Alerts.
4. Analytics and reporting
When more content is published and the audience grows, it is advisable to consistently evaluate performance. Some questions to consider are:
- Which posts are getting the most engagement?
- Where are a brand’s followers from?
The data and analytics outputs of a marketing program play a crucial role in determining its success. By utilizing this information, a marketing team can make better-informed decisions regarding future campaigns and capitalize on effective tactics.
Every social platform possesses its own set of analytics data, but various tools can gather data from multiple channels and centralize it. This allows marketers to assess the overall effectiveness and shortcomings of their marketing campaigns.
5. Advertising
Social media marketing is mostly free, although resource time and specialized tools are an exception. To fulfill marketing objectives, one can effectively build an audience and share content on various free social media platforms. However, as the program expands, the budget also increases.
Organizations can find paid marketing features highly valuable as they allow them to target their advertisements towards specific audiences by considering various factors such as demographic information, retargeting, and behaviors.
Although there are tools available to assist with handling social media marketing at scale, initially utilizing the native ads feature is sufficient for promoting posts, acquiring leads, and ensuring that messages reach the appropriate audience.
Advantages and disadvantages of social media marketing
Every organization’s sales and marketing strategy now includes social media marketing. It serves as an extra platform to reach a much larger audience compared to a self-built contact database.
Advantages of social media marketing
- Reach a wider audience. There are more than 3.6 billion users across all social media channels. A single post share can exponentially increase brand exposure.
- Improved customer satisfaction. Organizations don’t just market to customers on social media, they also interact with them. This can improve customer service and create one-to-one relationships.
- Cost-effective tool. When executed correctly, the cost of managing a social media program can be low. Once the knowledge, team and program strategy are in place, marketing teams find it easy to use with very little overhead.
- Increase website traffic. Social posts are a great way to drive traffic back to a brand website. Promoting blog content, landing page offers and more can entice users to click through and engage further with a brand.
- Gain better insights. Using the analytics and reporting features from each social media platform gives insight into who page followers are, what content they are interested in and how they like to engage with a brand.
Disadvantages of social media marketing
- Time-consuming process. A lot of time can be spent on social media campaigns to ensure they are effective. Marketing teams also need to constantly fill the calendar with new content and respond to inquiries. This can make it difficult for small marketing teams to tap into the full capabilities of SMM.
- Need qualified resources. It takes the right person or team to run a social media marketing program. Social media marketing programs don’t benefit from entry-level employees. Instead, skilled and seasoned social media marketers are key.
- Have to wait to see ROI. SMM is a long-term investment. Social media platforms yield a high ROI, but not in the form of immediate results. The success of an SMM program isn’t determined by one piece of content, but rather several over long periods of time.
- Competitor’s market research. Posting to social media is a public forum and everyone can see the content, including the competition. There is no workaround for this.
- Brand reputation is vulnerable. SMM can open a brand for public embarrassment and bad press. Negative reviews can be plentiful as customers take to social media to vent frustrations. And because of the public nature of the platforms, anything a company says or does will be seen and reacted to. Brands should expedite response times to mitigate this risk.
