Social media marketing(SMM) is a part of digital marketing where a certain product or service is delivered through popular networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Snapchat, Youtube, Twitter, etc. Social media marketing(SMM) is basically using social sites to bring traffic to your website. It mostly includes paid campaigns and Ads.

Purpose of social media marketing(SMM)

• To increase sales and enhance brand awareness.
• The clear idea of creating trending content and when to use the content is another essential social media marketing (SMM) focus.

Pillars in Social media marketing- ICE

• Interaction-Talking with the existing or potential customers
• Communication-Exchanging the information about service or product
• Engagement- Getting customers attention’s to be in contact

History/Timeline of Social media Marketing’s Evolution

• 1970’s and 1980’s

During this era, people spent their time on online and dating sites. Most of them were chatrooms. Six Degrees, Livejournal, and Friendster were popular sites back then.

• 1995 – 2002

In this period, the internet was seen as a viable marketing tool. This motivated various brands to create websites to have an online presence. The evolution of Google, Yahoo, and MSN’s made companies work on SEO strategies.

Blogs were preceded by the concept of  SEO Marketing. The importance of content marketing flourished.

• 2003-2004

Facebook, LinkedIn, and Myspace have now arrived. This certainly gave arousal to the businessman to connect their business and brands with billions of people. At a present moment, Facebook ads are used as marketing. Various brands are investing a lot in this marketing.

• 2009

Whatsapp was launched which was focused on sending text messages, photos, and voice messages through the Internet by encrypted means. Various WhatsApp features can be utilized to enhance brand awareness, and share marketing messages. Different brands use WhatsApp statuses to announce a sale or offer to customers.

• 2010

Instagram, a photo-sharing social media, was launched. Instagram provides an opportunity to make a professional account where we can view the insights and progress of our account.

Instagram helps in introducing new products and increase brand awareness. More than 80% of users buy the items of a particular brand when they discover them on Instagram.

• 2011

Snapchat is a social media site where people can chat with their images and short videos.

Snapchat Stories are a great way to offer your audience a glimpse into your company culture. It allows experimenting with various filters and contents. 

• 2016

Tiktok was launched. Here, Creativity can be seen with lip-syncing or creating a dance to a certain part of a song. You must be familiar with Batash (Nepali) dance, WAP dance, I am savage TikToks which were used by millions of TikTokers. Influencer marketing has dominance in the TikTok market.

Types of Social media marketing(SMM)

Depending on every social networking site's zeal and the nature of your business, there are basically two types of business.

1. B2C

This means Business to Customer. It implies the idea of attracting Customers and continuing with further transactions. B2C focuses on emotion-driven purchasing decisions. Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok are the channels that use this type of marketing.

2. B2B

This means Business to Business. B2B implies the idea of marketing a company to another bigger or higher company/business. It focuses on logical process-driven decisions. Channels like Twitter, LinkedIn are used in this type of marketing.

 YouTube serves for both marketings.

In a nutshell,

1. Social networking-Connection with a large number of audiences (Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+).
2. Microblogging- sharing short messages with the audience to improve engagement. (Twitter, Tumblr).
3. Photo sharing- sharing brand/service pictures (Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest).
4. Video sharing- sharing info-based content via video (YouTube, Facebook Live, Periscope, Vimeo).

Working Mechanism of Social Media Marketing(SMM)

• Online Network        
• Relationship       
• Visibility         
• Listening       
•  Engagement

Creating a page or profile on social media means trying to connect with more people and making an online network. Within the network, you try to build a brand-customer relation. This relation is further seen on the page as the number of users/customers keeps increasing. Having more customers means listening to their feedback, both good and bad ones, and resolving the issues. This certainly increases the engagement of a brand with the customers.

After being familiar with the mechanism of Social Media Marketing, we must know about Social media marketing strategies, which are explained in the following points

What are your goals?

Social media marketing is done to bring traffic, SEO links, Brand Awareness, Conversions (Direct Sales). You must be clear about the goals because it is necessary to determine the type of audience to whom the content is targeted for. However, the goals can be single or multiple.

Know the Target Audience

The existing audience, new customers, and potentials customers are the variety of audiences that can be attracted by social media marketing. Upon being transparent with the goals, we can get an idea of a clear mapping of target and audience.

Which Channels to  use

Here, Channels include Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok, Snapchat, Twitter, Pinterest. However, there are restrictions regarding actions and differences in demographics in every channel. For example, the content we create in TikTok cannot be done on Twitter. Depending upon the reach of the product (you want), you can choose your channel.

Be Familiar with types of Engagement

Depending upon the channel, we can get the audience engaged. Images/Graphics, blogs, surveys, etc. are the ways to engage the audience. For example, if you are promoting your business of scrunchies (a type of hair tie) in Tiktok, it's better to use videos or a collection of images. The use of the blog is none of the use here.

Now, Let's know about the advantages and disadvantages of Social Media Marketing (SMM).

Advantages

Creation of organic content

Organic content in social media is the free content, namely: posts, photos, videos, memes, Stories, etc. that all users share on their feeds. The use of organic content can provide an immense opportunity to connect with the audience. Also, you can post as many posts as you want.

Access to a large audience and paid advertising.

 Millions of people use social media. This provides an ample amount of opportunities to reach the targeted audience. Likewise, Social media platforms help you to run ads. These ads appear in the feeds of people looking for similar products and services. It provides an excellent opportunity for your business to enlarge the reach and new leads.

Create viral content and attract traffic

People on social media love to share things with their network. If the content is amusing, outrageous, innocent, or advantageous, it spreads like a wildfire. First, one person will share, then their followers will share with their followers, who then share with their followers. In this way, content gets viral without any traditional marketing campaign.

  Disadvantages

Access to negative feedback

Since social media connects people with various opinions and mindsets, there is a high probability of getting negative feedback. Sometimes this feedback can be for the betterment of the brand. However, a large number of such feedbacks may affect the other audience and customer, as the comments are visible to everyone.

Time-consuming

 Social media needs updates. People get bored with similar kinds of posts. Moreover, they want freshness and variety. You must create new content, post content, and get your audience engaged. Not only that, balance on posting the content, checking the content, revert to the user, and figuring out content impact should be done. This makes social media marketing(SMM) to consume more time.

Wait for the results

Social media marketing does not provide immediate results. Posting a single content doesn't determine success. Multiple posts over the period should be done. You have to wait to see the results.

Conclusion

Social media marketing (SMM) means marketing the products or services via social media platforms. Relating to the type of business, social media marketing can be either B2C or B2B which includes networking, microblogging, and photo and video sharing. Along with that, one has to know the social media marketing, strategy for effective communication. This sort of marketing provides immense opportunity for organic and viral content; however, it requires a longer time to show results.  

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