Everything You Need To Know About Social Media

By Azriel D'Souza

Social media marketing is a powerful tool you can use if you are looking to reach a target audience and achieve your marketing goals.

Social media has become an essential part of our daily lives, providing a platform to connect and share information with people all over the world. From Facebook and Twitter to Instagram and LinkedIn, there are countless social networking sites available for individuals and businesses alike to establish their online presence.

This means to stay up to date and connect with customers, businesses need to be alive and active on social media. According to research, businesses that are active on social media are 3.5x times more likely to experience business growth and profitability compared to those who are not.

To become active on social media and track metrics that actually matter, start with goals and a strategy. Then track the performance of your social media strategy, by monitoring key metrics like how many people your social media posts are reaching, how many impressions they get and their engagement rates (how many people look at and engage with your content).

Benefits of Social Media Marketing

This article is your comprehensive guide to social media. It covers social media in detail and offers expert insights on how to improve your social media. Whether you’re a small business or a large corporation, our guide will help you make data-driven decisions that help you achieve your social media marketing goals and strategy.

Social media marketing offers several benefits for businesses of all sizes. It allows you to reach your target audience in real-time, engage with your followers, and share information about your product or service.

With social media, you can build a community around your brand and establish yourself as an authority in your industry.

You can also garner critical insights from customers about your brand that you can use to improve.

Most importantly, you can grow your business through sales to social media followers and through social media advertising.

Types of Social Media Platforms

First, you need to understand the several different types of social media platforms, each serving a unique purpose.

The most popular ones are:

Social Networking Sites: These platforms, such as Facebook and LinkedIn, allow users to create a personal or business profile, connect with other users, and share content.
Video Sharing Sites: YouTube and Vimeo are examples of video sharing sites that allow users to upload and share video content.
Social News Sites: Reddit and Digg are examples of social news sites where users can share news articles and other web content.
Photo Sharing Sites: Instagram and Flickr are examples of photo sharing sites where users can share photos and videos.
Microblogging Sites: Twitter and Tumblr are examples of microblogging sites where users can share short-form content such as text, images, and videos.

Now that you know the different types of platforms, you need to look at your business and then decide which of these platforms is most suitable for where your target audience is.

For example, if you are a company that offers professional services like SEO management 😉 or financial advice, the best platform type for you is probably one that will have lots of business professionals on it like LinkedIn. You would NOT want to be wasting time somewhere like Flickr or Reddit, unless these platforms have proven to you that they have customers for you or there is some other reason you need to be on them.

You want to be targeting a platform that has a lot of your ideal customers on it.

Social Media Goals and Strategy

To make the most of social media marketing, it’s important to define your goals and create a strategy to achieve them. Your goals for social media should be aligned with your overall business strategy.

Common goals are:

Increase brand awareness
Generate leads
Drive traffic to your website
Boost sales

Which of these is right for you depends on what stage your social media is at and what your overall company goals are.

For instance, if you have just started out on social media or your followers are quite low, your main goal should probably not be to generate leads. This is because you probably don’t have a lot of brand awareness (low followers) and you might not have close relationships with your followers yet (of course there are always exceptions). It’s probably better to start by growing your followers and brand awareness, before moving on to generating leads.

Once you have established your goals, you can create a social media strategy that includes the type of content you will share, the social media sites you will use, and the target audience you want to reach.

For example, our goal is to increase brand awareness through social media. This means we have decided to target Instagram, Facebook & LinkedIn (where our target audience lives). We have broken this down further into measurable per month goals like increasing our followers by 8 each month and getting 2000+ reach.

Then we formulated a strategy with which to achieve these goals and created our content. We are currently implementing this strategy, adapting and improving it as we garner insights through tracking our progress (posts, followers and impressions).

Check out our Instagram!

Creating a Social Media Presence

To establish a social media presence, start by creating accounts on the social media sites that align with your brand and target audience. For example, if your target audience is mostly professionals, LinkedIn may be the best platform for you to create a presence on. Once you have created your social media accounts, start sharing your content with your followers.

Be sure to include a variety of content types, such as text, images, and videos, to keep your followers engaged. Researching trends is also helpful to ensure your content is relevant and aligns with what followers want or expect. Remember, people on social media generally want to be entertained and not “marketed” too, so post stuff that people will actually enjoy seeing or reading, you want to bring a smile to people’s faces when they see your brand’s content.

You want to regularly share content to keep people interested in your brand and grow your relationships with followers. Posting once in a blue moon is probably not going to be very effective. You can also grow your presence by starting conversations, posting comments and replying to others.

Facebook is one of the most popular social media platforms, with over 2 billion active users. Creating a Facebook page for your business can help you reach a large audience and engage with your followers. When creating your Facebook page, be sure to include your business name, logo, and a brief description of your product or service. You can also add a call-to-action button, such as “Shop Now” or “Contact Us,” to encourage your followers to take action.

Types of Social Media Posts

To keep your followers engaged, it’s important to share a variety of content on your social media accounts that will interest your target audience. Some of the most popular types of social media posts include:

Educational Content: Share content that educates your followers about your industry or product but remember, try to keep it fun, people now-a-days want to be edu-tained!
Entertaining Content: Share funny or entertaining content that aligns with your brand.
Promotional Content: Share content that promotes your product or service, such as sales or special offers (especially great once you have built up a lot of quality followers).
User-Generated Content: Share content created by your followers, such as photos or videos that showcase your product. People love to hear about something by seeing what someone else has used it for or done, word of mouth really does work!

Moreover, social media is constantly evolving, and it’s important to stay up-to-date with the latest trends and changes. For example, the rise of video content has led to the popularity of platforms such as TikTok and Instagram Reels. By incorporating video content into your social media strategy, you can reach a younger demographic and create engaging content that stands out in a crowded social media landscape.

If you are worried that creating video content is difficult or will suck up or your time, don’t be! You can use multiple free tools, including Canva that offer templates to easily and quickly create fun and engaging video content. Just check out our Instagram Reels (all made with Canva).

Another trend to watch is the growing importance of social media advertising. While organic reach on social media is still important, paid advertising can help you reach a larger audience and drive more targeted traffic to your website. By creating ads that target specific demographics, interests, and behaviors, you can increase your chances of reaching the right audience and achieving your marketing goals. This is something you definitely want to look at doing once you have your social media goals, strategy and organic socials sorted.

Tracking Your Progress

In addition to creating a social media presence and sharing valuable content, it’s important to track your social media metrics and analyse your results. This will help you understand what’s working and what’s not and make adjustments to your strategy as needed.

Now, before you go “Ugh, analytics and tracking… my worst nightmare!” Let us show you how easy and simple it can be to track your social media.

Have a look at our social media tracking dashboards.

As you can see, we are easily tracking some of the key social media metrics for brand awareness. Other common key metrics people track include:

Engagement: This measures the number of likes, comments, and shares your posts receive.
Reach: This measures the number of people who see your posts.
Click-Through Rate: This measures the number of people who click on a link in your post to visit your website.
Conversion Rate: This measures the number of people who take a desired action on your website, such as making a purchase or filling out a contact form.

By tracking the right metrics related to your goals, you can determine the effectiveness of your social media strategy and make data-driven decisions to improve your results.

For example, if you post reels, stories and posts and then notice that compared to stories and posts, reels are getting significantly more views, you may decide to focus more effort on creating reels and slightly less on stories and posts. This is because it is getting you closer to achieving your goal (in this case brand awareness) than stories and posts (you would still keep posting stories and normal posts to ensure variety!).

Social media is a powerful tool for businesses of all sizes and industries. By creating a strong social media presence, sharing valuable content, and tracking your results, you can build a successful social media strategy that helps achieve your marketing goals and grows your business.

With the right approach, social media marketing can help you generate leads, increase sales, and build a loyal customer base.

So, don’t wait any longer – start developing your social media strategy today and take advantage of the many benefits of social media marketing!

Top tips for social media marketing

Consistency is key: It’s important to be consistent with your social media presence by posting regularly and engaging with your followers. This will help to build brand awareness and establish credibility with your audience.
Use visuals: Visual content such as images and videos can be more engaging and effective in capturing your audience’s attention compared to plain text. Incorporating visuals into your social media posts can help to increase engagement and drive more traffic to your website.
Monitor your competition: Keeping an eye on your competitors’ social media activity can provide valuable insights into what is and isn’t working in your industry. You can use this information to inform your own social media strategy and stay ahead of the competition.
Use social media to provide customer support: social media can be a great tool for providing customer support and addressing customer concerns in real-time. This can help to build trust and loyalty with your customers.
Test and optimise: It’s important to test different social media strategies and tactics to see what works best for your business. Use data and analytics to optimise your approach and improve your results over time.

FAQs about social media marketing

What social media metrics should I be tracking?

You should be tracking metrics such as engagement, reach, click-through rate, conversion rate, and follower growth. These metrics will help you determine the effectiveness of your social media strategy and make data-driven decisions to improve your results.

What is the difference between reach and impressions?

Reach refers to the number of unique individuals who see your post, while impressions refer to the total number of times your post is displayed, including multiple views by the same user.

What are good engagement rates for a small business?

Engagement rates can vary depending on the industry and platform, but a good engagement rate for a small business on Facebook is around 0.5% – 1%. On Instagram, a good engagement rate is around 1.5% – 3%.

Can I run my business only on social media?

While social media can be a powerful tool for promoting your business, it’s not recommended to rely solely on social media for your business. It’s important to have a website and other marketing channels to diversify your reach and build a strong online presence.

Do I need social media?

Social media can be a powerful tool for promoting your business and reaching a large audience. While it’s not necessary for every business, it’s highly recommended to have a social media presence to establish credibility and engage with your customers. It is important that you are posting content on a regular basis once you setup your social media account.

When should you use social media for your business?

Social media is effective for promoting your business and engaging with your customers. You should use social media when you want to increase brand awareness, drive traffic to your website, promote your products or services, and engage with your customers.

What social media platforms should I use for my business?

The social media platforms you should use depend on your target audience and business goals. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn are some of the most popular social media platforms for businesses. Do some research on where you target audience are and decide the most suitable platform for your business.

Should I boost my posts or use Facebook Ads?

While boosting your posts can be a quick and easy way to promote your content to a wider audience, Facebook Ads offers more targeting options and allows you to optimise your ads for specific objectives. If you have a larger budget and want more control over your ad campaigns, Facebook Ads is recommended.

What is the ideal budget for social media advertising?

The ideal budget for social media advertising depends on your business goals and target audience. It’s important to start with a small budget and test different strategies before scaling up your ad spending.

When to use TikTok for your business?

TikTok is most effective for businesses targeting a younger demographic and those that can create engaging video content. If your target audience is on TikTok and you can create engaging video content, it’s worth considering as part of your social media strategy.