Based on figures from the global digital snapshot over two billion people have social media accounts. Popular social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram carry the largest share of users making them a fertile ground for marketing. Social medial allows brands to create close connections with audiences and even converse with customers locally and globally. Creating an online presence has become a crucial part of any brands marketing strategy. The benefits of social media marketing cannot be understated:
- Social media is the most affordable media for advertising today as compared to conventional methods such as TV commercials and print placements. Most social media sites allow businesses to open pages free and have very affordable advertising costs.
- Currently, social media is the largest audience you can target with a single advertisement, especially if the demographic you are targeting includes active internet users. Many people today will consult the internet first before buying a product or even choosing a restaurant. You definitely have your work cut out.
- Social media marketing is instant and interactive; you can post up new promotions and sales as soon as they begin. You can also use daily blog posts to share new information and customers can respond to these posts through comments and replies.
- Social media can also help you to attract traffic to your website and convert them into active users of the website. You can use post links of products and services to social media and this will attract traffic back to your website.
Social Media Listening
In order to be effective in your social media marketing efforts, you need to be knowledgeable and objective. Monitoring social media is called social media listening. Listening simply means you find out what people are saying on social media about your brand as well as competitor products. You can use monitoring tools and software available online to track social media conversations and habits regarding a particular product. Listening equips you with the information to form new strategies that will have a greater impact among your audience and lead to better sales. Social media listening can help you to:
Create a community
It is essential to create a loyal online community that uses your products and also recommend them to others through sharing your posts or links. Through using listening tools, you can track frequent buyers, people who share and comment on your posts as well as conversations about the product. You can target these individuals with conversations geared to creating a loyal following. These individuals can be your online brand ambassadors.
Use consumer behaviors
Social media listening will help you know how many people simply talk about a product and how many people use it with something positive or negative to say. Knowing consumer behaviors can help you narrow your target to making moves that are guaranteed to generate sales. For instance, if you identify a group of consumers who make frequent purchases with coupons and discount vouchers, you can encourage them to buy from your online shop using these vouchers.
Manage your social media page
You need to be careful about how you use social media. One of the biggest challenges about the internet is people can hide behind the keyboard of their computer and create a bold online personality. If you make the wrong move, such individuals can tear you down and damage your online brand devastatingly. Social media listening helps you to determine the current trends in the product market, what people want to hear, what people want to see and therefore makes it easier to manage your social media page for the best possible outcome.
Become agile
Many internet users often expect a response from brand pages and websites within an hour of making a request or comment. The urgency only increases when it is a complaint or question. In order to create a great brand image online, you can use social media listening to determine the window of opportunity where you can have a positive impact on your customers.
Enhance your product
Social media is brutally honest when it comes to describing products and services. You may have to sieve through quite a number of irrelevant comments but you can get many positive criticisms, comparison to other brands and comments about your product that can help you to make it better. Everyone would love to know they have made such an impact and you can encourage customers to get involved more by highlighting these inputs on your social media pages.
Conclusion
The strength of social media marketing cannot be underestimated. However, marketing strategies can only be effective if they are based on realistic assessment of the target market. Social media listening is the best way to assess various aspects of social media pages that influences how your product performs.
