Social media marketing might be the hottest area of digital advertising when it comes to innovation, growth in adoption rates and increased accessibility of progressive techniques to boost visibility and increase conversion rates. It is still far from being the most competitively advantageous mediums by way of these particular performance metrics, as studies indicate it remains at the bottom of the proverbial totem pole of online branding efforts.
However, expenditures in social media advertising are growing fast, and some studies have found that companies might begin to spend more on these endeavors than other types of efforts in the near future, which means businesses are indeed placing their chips on this number. Because of how quickly participation is expanding across industries, though, several emerging best practices have started to sprout up, which can help companies new to these pursuits along in their initial planning procedures.
Small businesses have been particularly active in this space given the duel ability to build the brand image in the eyes of loyal customers and spread the word about their projects, content and missions in a highly affordable fashion. In fact, social media advertising might be among the most cost-effective avenues to travel when working to boost customer satisfaction rates, so long as qualified professionals are in charge of managing the accounts.
In the coming years, entrepreneurs will likely continue to pave the way in this matter, helping to feel out the consumer landscape to better understand what will be needed to achieve objectives in social media marketing efforts. Let’s take a look at some of the facts that have become clearer as social media marketing campaigns mature, as well as how companies can improve their approaches to these strategies to enjoy stronger results over time.
Reality of social media
VentureBeat recently listed some of the truths of social media marketing and explained how misunderstandings of various best practices have appeared to be widespread when looking at campaigns and consumer reactions. First, the source pointed out that a wealth of business leaders have been led to believe that all social websites should be used and marketers should only be focused on bringing the number of followers up. However, the fact is that companies need not be engaged in all social media platforms and the size of the audience is not the only matter of importance.
In fact, the first portion of that has been somewhat of a common theme in social media marketing for years now, as analysts and experts have continued to suggest that a stronger performance in one platform will be better than weaker efforts across channels. After all, most companies will find that their consumers tend to stick to one or two types of social media websites, and these are the only ones necessary to target in branding initiatives.
Having a weak presence on any social media website can also work against the firm’s brand image should customer comments and feedback be left unchecked and unanswered for long periods of time. VentureBeat also mentioned that there are costs associated with social media advertising, and that the idea that virtually anyone can manage corporate accounts properly is a dangerous myth, as experienced professionals must be at the helm to steer a brand to success.
According to the news provider, many leaders will be a bit timid with the types of content they post on social media websites at first, but should not be afraid to be bold in their endeavors, even becoming more personal and publishing images of a recent vacation. Finally, the source noted that all types of businesses can make time to manage social media marketing campaigns and do so in an effective fashion so long as the underlying strategies are on point.
Social media intelligent management
Another major theme in the marketing industry has been the use of advanced technologies – most notably analytics solutions – to inform decision making on specific campaigns in a more accurate and profitable fashion. Entrepreneur Magazine recently listed some of the ways in which business leaders can leverage data collected and generated during research procedures and the campaigns themselves to drive social advertising methods in the right directions.
According to the source, analyzing social behaviors among your target markets can uncover trends that have occurred and ones that might hit several months or years down the road, and each of which can be highly advantageous in the realm of social activity. Another strength involved in social media marketing is how quickly an idea can be conceived and put into motion in a campaign or one-off communication for a specific event.
Examples of this can be seen in the increased use of social media to disseminate information and stories in the journalism arena, as well as how this particular form of mass communication is so popular among virtually every age group – including baby boomers as well as younger consumers. As such, leveraging data analytics that provide trends-based insights into the minds of your customer base can be a boon to your social strategies since the delivery mechanism is so quick.
After touching upon some of the specific best practices of collecting and analyzing information through Facebook, the news provider went on to note that conversion data should be integrated with analysis on various social websites to get a more accurate view of how campaigns are playing out in practice. Although this will be a broader endeavor that helps to fuel the overall efficiency of social media pursuits in the future, it can also have immediate positive impacts of spend management and success.
Key to online success
The big lesson here is to always be improving through the use of modern technologies, as well as the tools that are incorporated into many social media platforms’ core set of service offerings to business users. Social media is likely to be a more progressive and popular battleground on which brands can compete for new prospects, and putting effort into building the right types of campaigns can go a long way in helping to boost the stature of a company in the future.
