Exclusive: Social Media Marketing- A Complete Guide To Become A Savvy Marketer
Read this guide to excel at social media in terms of social media content marketing and social media paid marketing
According to We Are Social’s latest report, there are 2 billion+ active social media accounts globally.
Yes this number is huge, but since total population is around 7.2, it also means that there will be billions of more active accounts in the future. From these 2 billion+ people 1.69 billion is accessing their accounts via Mobile. That shows the importance of mobile also in social media marketing.
If regions’ social media usage penetration is analyzed, when the global average is %29, North America, South America and West Europe are leading with %58, %48 and %47 respectively.
If countries’ social media usage penetration is analyzed, when the global average is %29, Singapore, Hong Hong and Argentina are leading with %66, %64 and %60 respectively.
Types of Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing becomes as a high priority tool for marketers because of both today’s numbers and expectations for the future. When social media marketing is the issue marketing strategy can be divided into two:
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Content marketing strategy: consists of content marketing efforts conducted through social networks
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Paid marketing strategy: consists of advertising through social network
In order to be successful in both strategies, certain steps should be followed.
Social Media Content Marketing
For social media content marketing strategy following steps can be followed:
Step 1: Defining Objectives
Social media marketer should decide goal(s) of social media marketing strategy. It can be building brand awareness, increasing brand value, sales, etc...
Step 2: Defining Target Audience
In order to construct an appropriate social media strategy, target audience should be defined.
Step 3: Listening Competitors and Target Audience
As can be seen below, in 60 seconds a lot happen in digital world. So while constructing a content marketing strategy via social channels, social media marketer should listen competitors and target audience.
For social monitoring purposes different tools can be used. Here is a list for free social media tools.
Step 4: Deciding Social Media Networks to Appear
Savvy social media marketer should decide which social networks to appear according to his/her goals and target audience. Active users of the social networks can be found below:
Step 5: Constructing Creative Strategy
Content should be created in accordance with goals and target audience, and also fit the characteristics of the social network (i.e. content to be published on facebook and linkedin may not be same since these social networks have different type of audiences and context). Content to be published should be:
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Shareable
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Likeable
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Talkable
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Engageable
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Unique
These content marketing tools may help social media marketers in their content marketing strategy
Step 6: Engaging & Managing Interactions
Since social media contains two-way communicationi social media marketers should also take into account interaction strategy. This is very crucial issue fort he brands especially if they provide customer service through social network.
Step 7: Monitoring & Optimizing
In order to excel social media content marketing, all the process should be monitored and optimized. Here are some crucial KPIs for social media content marketing:
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Growth Metrics: to monitor the change in the number of fans/followers.
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Engagement Metrics: These metrics show marketers interaction level of their customers with their brands. These metrics include unique engaged users and engagement rate.
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Content Strategy Metrics: Metrics regarding content type, time of posting and keywords.
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Audience Quality Metrics: These metrics include % Returning Users, Frequency of Actions, and % Shares or Retweets.
In order to excel social media analytics, marketers can these social media tools.
Social Media Paid Marketing
For social media paid marketing strategy following steps can be followed:
In paid marketing strategy in addition to defining objectives, target audience and digital monitoring, social media marketer should define a budget and allocate this budget through different social media channels (best way to allocate budget is conducting A/B tests). When the ads are running on social networks KPIs like impressions, CTRs (click through rate) and Conversion Rates should be monitored closely and ads (content, creative, call-to-action words etc…) should be optimized in order to achieve highest level of performance
Conclusion
In this article key issues regarding Social Media Marketing in terms of both content marketing and paid marketing are being put forward. Social media marketers can use the insights in this article in order to excel at their social media strategy. In addition, resources at the Appendix Part of this article is prepared for social media marketers to help them in their social media marketing efforts.
Presentation version of this article can be found here.
Appendix – Social Media & Content Marketing Resources
Photo Cred: We Are Social
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Eren Kocyigit’s Social Media Blog
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Eren Kocyigit’s Marketing Newsletter
About Author:
Eren is the Director of Product Management, Marketing and Business Development at Tikle in Turkey and is a Visiting Lecturer at both Istanbul Bilgi University and Bahcesehir University. @Tikle Linkedin Twitter Website
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