Steps to gain success in social media marketing

Social media accounts for a significant share of the total time spent online and it has become an extremely popular medium for customers to learn about new brands or products. This is why marketers utilize this medium to reach out to their potential consumers. There are hardly any business owners who are not using social media marketing to enhance their sales. Networks such as Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and LinkedIn have become very popular already and Google+ is likely to follow suit. Here are some steps that can assure you success in social media marketing.

1. Make a plan. Most small businesses do not devise any strategy for social media marketing. If a business wishes to increase sales and revenue, there must be a proper social media strategy in place. Businesses should strategically pick the mediums that they will be using for advertising. A demographic study can help them to make a decision in this regard. Apart from this, gender, personality, overall lifestyle, competitor strategy, and similar other factors should be considered for coming up with an effective plan.

2. Use good quality content. Only good quality content can successfully engage the audiences. It is also highly useful in search engine optimization. Good quality content is actionable, informative, shareable, and relevant for the target audience. Marketers should not be fearful of trying different types of contents to come up with one that makes their social media marketing efforts succeed.

3. Creative Visualisation. A picture is worth a lot as far as the promotion in social media is concerned. Facebook activities revolve to a great extent around images and majority if post shares are owing to creative images. Pinterest, Instagram, and Vine are some more examples of social media marketing by using photos and videos. The need of the hour is that the marketers think ahead and utilize images in the best manner so they can easily catch the eye of those scrolling through social media. Reports show that people are more likely to remember the content when it is accompanied by a capturing image.

4. Being active and responsive is crucial. Once people start following a particular business page, they expect to receive regular updates and fast response. Companies which respond fast to consumer queries are definitely perceived better than their rivals. However, automation can deteriorate the image of business due to inappropriate responses and so, best would be to hire someone who can address consumer queries instead of sending an automated response.

5. Measure the metrics. Various businesses come up with social media strategies but only a few of them seriously consider measuring the metrics. For gaining a good return on investment, measuring metrics becomes very important. A few important ones include click-through rate, conversion rate, number of shares, and website traffic from social pages to the business website.

The goal of social media marketing is to enhance sales. However, businesses need to remember that brand awareness also has a big role to play. By measuring metrics, businesses can make variations in their strategies for best results.