Social Media Marketing is a new player in this Digital Marketing field where brands and consumers face each other.
Evolution reached marketing and advertising. Digital Marketing agencies have had to adapt to these changes and services that they provide to their clients.
As expected, techniques and approaches had to change. Not only because of the speed at which the world moves requires it but also because of the value and weight that the market has today.
As consumers, it is easy to describe our need in this new millennium: we want everything and we want it now.
To understand all the variations that Social Media Marketing affects. We must break down step by step what this term means.
What is The Meaning of SMM?
The key to all the concepts is that Social Media Marketing refers to the strategic creation of a new communication channel with the 100% digital audience.
SMM is the answer to the search for a new communication path to relate brands and products. With every one of the Internet users who surf the web daily.
In simple terms, Social Media Marketing means building a business through many different means. Such as viral videos and blogs, to expose a company and carry out different purchasing processes.
With the increasing number of online community engagement. Social media has become an important medium that is being explored by marketers. On them, they find the most effective way of approaching clients and getting to know them deeply in real-time.
Not being present in social media in the current times is not an option for marketing companies.
How SMM works?
Just as a society, technology and the way we communicate evolves over the days, marketing must also do so in order to transmit the information of companies to consumers and potential customers.
The question is, do you know how SMM works today? The simple fact that social media has a massive audience and messages can be delivered quickly and efficiently, has made SMM reduce the face-to-face interaction and more personal with your customers, creating more open action than traditional marketing methods.
According to experts, people no longer believe in traditional means of marketing, in fact, statistics show that social media marketing is much more effective and generates more profits and visibility for brands and companies that use it. Consumers turn to social media looking for unique experiences. Media and blogs reap customers, and brands, for the first time in history, can call their followers by name.
To be successful with SMM, i. e., to attract customers, you must go beyond just posting photos and answering user queries. It is necessary to use a strategy, which, we will tell you below.
Why SMM is Important?
It can help to raise your audience and convert interested people into potential customers in a significant way. Relevant content designed for your audience is really important to increase the presence of your brand within digital media.
It is essential to understand how social media works and how your audience interacts in each of them, analyzing, evaluating and executing the content, that is why we share with you some reasons why SMM is important.
Brand Building
It is important that we know how to get the attention of our audience and at the same time satisfy them. We must act predictably and consistently without becoming invasive. In this way, we will generate empathy with those who choose our brand. One of the best options is to rely on offering content that is emotionally and intellectually enriching. In this way, your brand will grow strong and you will create a positive vision in the minds of those who follow you.
Web Traffic
If you want many people to visit your website, then there is no better way than to do it through social media. Use them, if possible, use them all so that those visitors come to your website and add value to what you do. Base on a good strategy and you will see how you will receive visits from different platforms.
Positioning (SEO)
The more visits you receive on your website, the more reputation you get. This is possible thanks to the search engines that intervene to perform in positioning your website. This is also because we create different profiles on different platforms, i. e., users will be able to visit you because they saw a super offer of your brand on Instagram. This external reference makes your website rank in the search engines.
Return on Investment (ROI)
Promoting yourself as a brand using different platforms is much cheaper than promoting yourself using traditional media. Your investment will be minimal and you will get good results as long as you know how to execute a strategy. Besides, you can reach the target market much faster since its segmentation is specific. Your brand will be more relevant and you can undoubtedly get sales.
In simple words, thanks to SMM your brand can cross borders. If your brand doesn’t have web positioning strategies yet, now is the time to start.
What Is The Difference Between SEO and SMM?
In the digital marketing world, we find authentic acronym soups that often lead to confusion. Terms such as SEO, SMM or SMO are constantly found in articles and guides on web positioning, but it is not done with the intention of using code words so that no one can understand us, if not each one of them has a specific meaning that helps categorize the strategy that we are developing on our website in order to increase your traffic.
Let’s try to clear up the confusion…
SEO
Its literal translation is Search Engine Optimization. Its function is to classify a web page in organic search engine results. Google itself defines SEO as “improving the presence of a website in organic search results”, or what is the same, going up positions with our website in search engine rankings, obtaining greater visibility and pf course, more traffic.
Every SEO positioning strategy consists of two different parts:
1. SEO On Page: In this category, you will find everything related to our website organization. From the inclusion of keywords in the title, meta descriptions, tags and in the content itself, to the speed with which the web loads on both mobile and desktop devices.
2. SEO Off Page: Here we find the optimization of a strategy that is based on several factors such as the creation of relevant backlinks, the development of quality content and, ultimately, optimal use of traditional marketing techniques but applied to the on-line world. These techniques, in turn, are divided into two categories, Black Hat SEO and White Hat SEO, which refer to the type of strategy carried out.
SMM
As we mentioned before, SMM translates to Social Media Marketing. This is a relatively new term that emerged in the wake of the internet social media boom.
Basically, it is about promoting your website through social media, where you will have the opportunity to take advantage of a wide range of potential customers. In reality, the SMM is similar to SMO (Social Media Optimization) and like the SEM (Search Engine Marketing) is for SEO, paid advertising, but instead of SERPs, on the social media themselves. Similarly, most advertising will be paid the same way as in SEM, where the advertiser only pays for each click that is made on their ad.
One difference to note is that SMM advertising gives us the ability to add behavioral trends to the search equation, something SEM lacks. With SMM you can interact with customers by using platforms where the perfect profiles can be found with which to discuss and comment on your products or services.
What is SMO (Social Media Optimization)?
The SMO concept refers to the optimization of our website and its contents so that they are visible in the internet social environment with the purpose of providing us with relevant traffic to our website. To do this, we must distribute them on social media, ensure that they are shared and, finally, that this generates traffic from sources other than search engines.
In this context, the website would be the center of our strategy and around it, we would have a multitude of social spaces (and content formats) where we can be present. For
In these social media, we can be present actively (creating profiles and sharing content) or passively (getting users to share our content on their social profiles).
In any case, this presence must give us notoriety, brand awareness, reputation, dissemination, and positioning, in order to capture a segmented audience for our website. From this point of view, social media would be the tool to achieve our goals.
SMO should not be confused with SMM, more focused on the presence and actions we do on social media and on interaction with users. Instead, the SMO focuses on positioning the content on these social media to capture traffic.
Consequently, taking it to the extreme, to do SMM actions we do not need a web page since the actions can be carried out within social media. On the other hand, in order to SMO, it is not essential to have an active presence on social media as our content can be shared by users from our own website.
However, there is a confluence between these two disciplines since we can use SMM tools and strategies to carry out SMO actions, such as creating social profiles or generating communities in media environments.
Social Media: Which One Is The Best?
Social media mean space or a platform where the audience connects in different ways. Also, each one has different functions and within SMM each and everyone works in a unique way seeking specific objectives to achieve with the strategy.
Can we say that one social media is better than another? The answer is no. The truth is that each one is important due to different variants and they differ from the others by their characteristics and functionalities. Making all of them important for one objective or another, depending on the strategy. The audience and the goals we want to achieve.
1. Facebook
This is the most used platform in the world because they are always open to change and always looking for better features. So that, generate better experiences for their users.
Videos and photographs generate approximately 70% of the engagement of this platform. What has given rise to many experts in digital matters, for the study of audiences, their preferences, and needs on the web?
2. YouTube
The text has moved to second place. Where the video and images have been used to reign and give the consumer what they want more quickly and visually more gratifyingly. Which makes this content a positive results within the Social Media Marketing strategy.
This platform, in addition to being a perfect space for Digital Marketing. YouTube is a space where the same audience has a voice, not only through the comments. They can leave within the videos but also through creating their channels. Where they can echo their ideas and join the brand or product.
3. Instagram
Flickr has been left in the past, being crushed by this titan with more than 400 million registered users. Instagram is, without a doubt, one of the favourite platforms of the audience (of different ages). As it refers to the sharing of moments through photographs immediately.
The power of this platform in Social Media Marketing has a significant weight to the extent that brands or products show experiences with which the user can identify.
4. Tweeter
This social media continues to grow because current audiences want to know everything right now and Twitter is telling them at the moment. Do you want to know about the latest Zara collection? You will probably look it up on Twitter.
The first action of a user before finding out about world news is to enter the Trending Topic on Twitter. Then see what it is about, a functionality that you don’t get on other social media. Also, it is a media that can work very well to detect trends and conversation topics of users.
5. LinkedIn
If you work in a B2B field, this is the Social Media network you should focus on.
Connecting with business professionals in any industry is easier with LinkedIn. As it allows you to target them by industry, job title, etc.
As with all social media, LinkedIn prioritizes relationship building more than any other but don’t take it to a sales pitch: You should start by building a connection.
One of the best features for companies is LinkedIn groups. Companies must establish groups in their niche or industry and invite others in their target market to join.
6. Pinterest
Use this media only if you have excellent images to share. Quality images are perfect candidates to go viral on this site due to their visual nature.
If your content is followed by a member with many followers. Then you have the potential to be seen by millions.
It is also ideal for promoting products.
What are The Most Popular Tools Used in SMM?
If you want to make managing your social media a little easier, there are many tools that put it on a tray. They centralize all your profiles in the same panel, you can schedule your publications or receive new comments alerts or interactions from your followers.
And do you know the best of all? Some of these tools for managing social media are free or, failing that, have a more limited free version that you can use without problem for your business. Here you have them!
Hootsuite
The favorite of many Community managers to manage their social media profiles. This tool allows you to keep everything organized through desktops and, in each one, columns created based on what you want to have on hand at all times, such as, for example, the Twitter inbox, mentions, the tracking of a hashtag and even the account of your main competitor.
It is one of the most complete tools, with various plans and functionalities, but a completely free version is also available. You can manage up to three social profiles, a basic analytical report and you have the possibility to program messages. I know it is a limited plan, but it sure is enough to start.
TweetDeck
Another free social media tool you’ll love, especially if you manage multiple Twitter profiles. The tool’s design is similar to that of Twitter, everything is organized by columns and you can select the type of content that is shown in each one: mentions, likes, followers, etc.
Precisely, this columnar design makes it a very good tool to manage your social profiles and creating them is very easy. Just go to the left administration panel and click on “+ Add column”. Now the different types of columns that you can choose will be displayed and configured your way.
In addition, a new extension has been released for both Google Chrome, Firefox, and Opera. This allows you to personalize your panel much more and add a lot of functionalities that in the standard panel you do not have available, among them, the long-awaited option to “Edit” the tweets already published.
No, don’t get your hopes up. Even in this tool, they show it in quotes because, although it is something that many of us are waiting for, it is still not possible to do it as such, although it does come close to that possibility. Basically, copy the text into a new tweet, you modify the content you want and republish it.
Buffer
This is one of the crown jewels of this selection of the best free tools to manage your Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Google+, Pinterest or LinkedIn profiles.
In its free version, you can leave up to 10 scheduled posts on each profile. The good thing is that you don’t need to manually type and program each tweet. You simply choose the times at which you want your tweets to be published daily or weekly and they will remain in a “queue” until they are published. The first time it will be something you have to configure manually, but it will save you a lot of time the next schedules.
If precisely what you are looking for is to save time and dedicate it to other tasks, I recommend this tool’s extension for Google Chrome. It is very useful when sharing content on Twitter. You simply click on the Buffer icon in the browser and a tweet is automatically generated with the title of the post, the URL and the multimedia content to publish.
BuzzSumo
Once you start working with it you will realize all the potential it has, both for your social media strategy and for your content marketing strategy.
The tool allows you to know the most popular content in a specific sector or area, so it is a good option to select external content for your social profiles and interact with your audience, as well as to create your own content based on it.
Although it is true that the free version is a bit limited in terms of the number of daily searches or filters for search results, it is enough to start.
Canva
Unlike the tools we saw so far that were aimed at managing social profiles, this tool has a very different but fundamental use for your social media strategy.
With it, you can easily create images that impact your audience without having to be a design expert or having to pay a monthly license for some other design software that, perhaps due to lack of time or experience, we miss out on its full potential.
You will have at your disposal the appropriate size and format to design the type of publication you need for each social media: post or cover image for Facebook, banners or publications for Twitter, post for Instagram or, for example, covers for YouTube.
It does not matter what kind of business do you have, be present on social media and plan a strategy is really important to grow up and increase your sales.
How to Make a Social Media Marketing Strategy?
To reach your goals, it is necessary to define what will be the steps to follow to reach it, i. e., to have the highest conversion of Leads. At this point, you should consider investing in paid promotion. As it is the best way to boost your company in the short and medium-term. For this purpose, you have tools such as Facebook Power Editor, Google Ad Manager and Linkedin Ads.
Here, step by step, we explain how to make a comprehensive social media marketing strategy:
1. Think About Your Goals
What are you looking for? Branding? Increase your online community? Customer Support? Increase web traffic? etc., depending on what you want, define your objectives and start establishing the strategy.
2. Know Your Target Audience
Now that you know what your main goal is, the time has come to define who your audience is. This step will be key in the success or not of your campaign. Since a message directed to the wrong audience translates into money and wasted effort. So we recommend you take your time to study who your audience is, what media they are on, how to communicate, etc.
3. Choose Your Communication Channel
What is the social media in which your target audience has the most presence? Which one best suits the campaign? Remember that as we explained previously. Each social media has its functions and each one can be adapted to a different Social Media Marketing objective. You should always take into account where your audience is and this will let you know your target audience perfectly.
4. Generate Content According To Your Audience’s Preferences
It is useless to have a strategically well-thought-out campaign if our content strategy is very poor. You must understand how your target audience consumes the information and generate the content. That does the necessary engagement to achieve the campaign objectives.
5. Set Numbers
How many likes do you want to have? How many new followers do you expect to have? All these metrics are essential depending on your campaign’s goal because with them you can measure how effective your strategy is and if you will get the return on investment that you are expecting.
6. Analyze Day and Night
From the previous point, the metrics, you have to be constantly analyzing the behaviour of the campaign. Every day, not at the end, because you may have lost a lot of dollars and never have realized it. So the analysis is not the last point, but an action that must be constant throughout the campaign.