Social Media Marketing as a Type of Digital Marketing

Updated: 28 Oct 2024

According to a report in July 2024, 63.7 percent of the total global population make use of social media in their daily life activities which makes 5.7 Billion in numbers. This high user ratio makes social media marketing a top notch market tactic for promoting products, brands or services.

Imagine you can have thousands of potential customers by posting on social media which can provide sparking conversations and sales. In today’s digital age, Social media is a very powerful platform which is not just for sharing useless memes; it’s a powerful marketing platform that can take your business to the next level.

Social Media marketing as a type of digital marketing

But there are some challenges that come up with social media marketing due to its changing algorithms over night and fast updating trends. This needs a person to be a master of all these activities. But how can one become a master in social media marketing? Let’s dive in and explore the secrets to use social media for business growth.

Table of Content

What is social media marketing
The Importance of Social Media in Digital Marketing
Major Social Media Platforms for Marketing
Social Media Marketing Strategies
Measuring Social Media Marketing Success

Promotion of a product, brand or service by using different social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, twitter, tiktok and linkedin is called as the social media marketing

As social media is evolving at a higher pace, it offers unlimited opportunities for any kind of promotion. Huge number of influencers are available on social media with millions of followers in different niches. Collaboration with these influencers play a vital role in promoting a product.

In short words social media marketing includes sharing useful information, entertaining visuals in the form of images and videos on different social media platforms for a single and main purpose which is Promotion.

Importance
Social media marketing plays an important role in digital marketing because of its adverse use by businesses, companies and agencies across the world. Everyone in the world can take advantage of social media by paid or free promotions on social media. It provides a platform where a brand can reach its audience directly through cost effective ways. It is the cheapest method of all the digital marketing techniques. Some major benefits of social media marketing are; Brand Awareness: the biggest advantage of social media marketing is, it enables brands to reach a large number of targeted audiences in a short period. Direct Customer Engagement: The use of social media is increasing day by day. Therefore it is the best way to target and engage directly with the customers which allows personalized communication and responses. Cheapest Advertising: If we compare the social media platforms with amazon, google, bing, yahoo or emails then we can find the truth that it is much cheaper than all of the mentioned platforms for paid promotion of our business. Useful Insights: analytics from social media campaigns give us useful insights for introducing best quality in our business and making leads generating decisions. It gives us information about the interests, demands and needs of our audience.

Importance

Social media marketing plays an important role in digital marketing because of its adverse use by businesses, companies and agencies across the world. Everyone in the world can take advantage of social media by paid or free promotions on social media. It provides a platform where a brand can reach its audience directly through cost effective ways. It is the cheapest method of all the digital marketing techniques.

Some major benefits of social media marketing are;

Brand Awareness: the biggest advantage of social media marketing is, it enables brands to reach a large number of targeted audiences in a short period.

Direct Customer Engagement: The use of social media is increasing day by day. Therefore it is the best way to target and engage directly with the customers which allows personalized communication and responses.

Cheapest Advertising: If we compare the social media platforms with amazon, google, bing, yahoo or emails then we can find the truth that it is much cheaper than all of the mentioned platforms for paid promotion of our business.

Useful Insights: analytics from social media campaigns give us useful insights for introducing best quality in our business and making leads generating decisions. It gives us information about the interests, demands and needs of our audience.

It is very important to research social media platforms before investing in it. We can make an example of making a shop in the town where our customers visit daily.

Choosing a platform depends upon the business, needs of our customers, most importantly strategies used by our competitors.

Major social media platforms are;

Facebook
Linkedin
YouTube
Instagram
Pinterest
Raddit
Snapchat

Strategy serves as the backbone in social media marketing because it is the first step towards our customized reach to our audience.

We cannot reach the ideal customers without knowing the interests, needs and pain points of our audience.

Steps in a successful social media strategy are discussed below:

1. Platforms Selection:

Platforms Selection is the first and foremost step in social media because it will help us to reach our targeted customers. Before selecting a platform First, you will check who will be your ideal customer, define their needs, interets, age, gender and online behaviours etc. Next, research on where your audience spends most of the time and remains active such as Facebook, linkedin, YouTube and Instagram etc.

2. Understand Your Audience

When you don’t know who you will need your products or services then how you can design, show and represent. Do a deep research on interests, demands and needs of your targeted audience so that you can make your products accordingly.

3. Craft Unique Content

Content Creation will define whether you will succeed or fail. If customers like your content they will click and then it will lead them to your products, so content creation is the key in a successful strategy. You can write articles explaining different aspects of your product, make images and videos for showing the best sides of your product.

4. Take Benefits from Features of Platform

Every platform has unique features like Facebook is most famous for posts, tik tok is famous for short videos, YouTube is famous for informative videos and Instagram is famous for stories. Use each and every feature of your selected platform wisely.

5. Encourage Users Interactions

Encourage the audience to share their thoughts about your brand, product or service. For this purpose run different challenges and consents where users can come and show different visions. In this way you will create a scene of belonging for your brand or products with the targeted audience.

6. Audience Engagement

When a customer wants to interact, engage with him in every possible way so that he can show more interest in your products, services or brand. You can improve your audience by liking and replying to their comments quickly which is very important for a successful social media marketing campaign.

7. Data Analysis

Data analysis is the last step in a successful social media marketing campaign. After running a social media campaign analyze the data carefully by focusing on interactions, user liking, clicking, opening conversations and conversion rates. This will help in launching a successful social media marketing campaign in the future.

How will you know that you are running a successful social media marketing campaign?

Well this is a billion dollar question because engagement or converting a customer into a buyer is not a success. The success is when a customer becomes your buyer and then it repeats the sale after some time. This happens when you make content and products exactly according to the buyer’s needs, interests and pain points. It will also involve how the customers engage with your content and their time of engagement.

You can consider success in a social media marketing campaign if your audience considers your products as their first choice, remain engaged for longer periods and prefer the products to others.

Challenges in Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing is not a cup of tea, honestly it is the toughest of all the campaigns in digital marketing because you will focus on different aspects of social media platforms and sometimes its algorithm behaves very harshly. The most common challenges in social media marketing are creating customer engaged content, Remaining Up To Date with the Platform Changes, Negative Feedback, Measuring ROI (Return On Investment), and Time Management. Engaging Content In all campaigns creating relevant and engaging content that can grab the attention of audiences is the most challenging step. Solution: We will focus on creating quality content that explains our product, brand or service perfectly. Keep up with Platforms Updates As the technology is changing rapidly, thus every platform wants to maintain its algorithm and features according to the new technology trends. Solution: Sometimes new updates come when a campaign is running, thus we have to keep ourselves updated with the platform’s changes. Negative Feedback One of the main challenges in social media marketing is negative feedback. If a customer finds a little bit of problems in the product he will give negative feedback which can ruin all your previous efforts. Solution: Nobody can become perfect in any sense, thus it is very important to keep an eye on all the feedback and provide proper answers to negative feedback. Measuring ROI (Return On Investment) When we invest in a campaign then it is very important to check the return profit. It becomes challenging when we find different results than tools. Finding all the return profit and then calculating the investment is a headache. Solution: Set goals for targeting relevant audiences and then deciding on most perfect tools which give accurate data. Time Management Time management is the biggest problem in social media marketing because you will have plenty of time to run campaigns and focus on betterment of your product. Solution: Make a schedule in which you will focus on creating new content for social media marketing campaigns, checking different insights and maintaining quality at the same time.

Challenges in Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is not a cup of tea, honestly it is the toughest of all the campaigns in digital marketing because you will focus on different aspects of social media platforms and sometimes its algorithm behaves very harshly. The most common challenges in social media marketing are creating customer engaged content, Remaining Up To Date with the Platform Changes, Negative Feedback, Measuring ROI (Return On Investment), and Time Management.

Engaging Content

In all campaigns creating relevant and engaging content that can grab the attention of audiences is the most challenging step.

Solution: We will focus on creating quality content that explains our product, brand or service perfectly.

Keep up with Platforms Updates

As the technology is changing rapidly, thus every platform wants to maintain its algorithm and features according to the new technology trends.

Solution: Sometimes new updates come when a campaign is running, thus we have to keep ourselves updated with the platform’s changes.

Negative Feedback

One of the main challenges in social media marketing is negative feedback. If a customer finds a little bit of problems in the product he will give negative feedback which can ruin all your previous efforts.

Solution: Nobody can become perfect in any sense, thus it is very important to keep an eye on all the feedback and provide proper answers to negative feedback.

Measuring ROI (Return On Investment)

When we invest in a campaign then it is very important to check the return profit. It becomes challenging when we find different results than tools. Finding all the return profit and then calculating the investment is a headache.

Solution: Set goals for targeting relevant audiences and then deciding on most perfect tools which give accurate data.

Time Management

Time management is the biggest problem in social media marketing because you will have plenty of time to run campaigns and focus on betterment of your product.
Solution: Make a schedule in which you will focus on creating new content for social media marketing campaigns, checking different insights and maintaining quality at the same time.