Social Media Marketing: an overview
We are going to learn about social media marketing which is popularly known as SMM. The word “social” means anything which relates to society, organization, or groups and the word “media” refers to files, documents, texts, images, audio, visuals, and videos. So, combining these things, social media came into being.
Social Media is either a website or an application.
Social media has users registered upon them and they generate user content in form of texts, images, audio, and videos. However, social media is free to use and one may skip registration as well.
Social media runs Internet-based services. So, mostly, social media either runs on Internet protocol or Voice over internet protocol. So, we can say that social media is one of the most important things to exist in today’s times.
Social media started with one or two kinds of applications that would offer text-based communication between two people staying in any corner of the world but then, social media integrated its platform and offered communication which is audio, visual, image-based, and text-based as well, in groups or individuals, connected worldwide.
So many social media platforms have been introduced and there are a huge number of social media platforms used by people worldwide. There are “N” number of social media applications used for personal use, professional use, and business use by people belonging to any age, gender, or professional group.
Social media account verification
There are many verification services one can opt for, and there is a lot of important of getting your social media verified by the use of services such as twitter verification Service, Instagram verification or Facebook verification.
Let us now study them in detail. Verification of the social media handle is very important these days. Once your profile is verified, the brand starts to be trusted more by the people.
Generally, verification is a blue tick that comes after the name of the profile of the person. The criterion for the name of the profile is such that a small circled display picture is displayed, horizontally followed by the name of the profile and the verification badge of the profile.
So, it is very important to get your social media to handle verified if you are a professional, influencer, or brand as it generates more trust and boosts the algorithm.
Need for Social media marketing
Brand Awareness
Brands need to create awareness about themselves and in today’s times, social media is the best way to do so. Creating regular content in form of either Instagram reels, carousels, or videos, brands leverage social media for generating awareness about them.
One such example includes CoinDCX. This India-based cryptocurrency start-up hired influencers and made educational content to create awareness about its centralized exchange.
Inbound Leads
Regular content creation makes the content reach new people every day. These people might be interested in the service or product that the brand provides. So, these people come towards the brand and engage with their content to turn into real customers!
Quick Turnaround Time
The use of social media saves time in communication as there are jobs that make these tasks happen and also, automatic responders exist. So, communication between the brand and the customer is easier on social media.
Engagement
The engagement rate is something that is calculated by the total number of likes, shares, and comments on the brand’s posts. The more the engagement rate, the more are the chances for the brand to make money. Every brand wants an audience that continuously likes, comments, and shares its posts. So, engagement is very important.
Building Brand Persona
Adding testimonials to social media profiles builds credibility and trust among the customers.
Trend
Brands tend to trend their own hashtags with challenges that make the content grow viral.
Public Relations- PR
Public opinion is generated through social media. This is why brands create a positive PR and put social media halt in case of any unforeseen circumstance.
News
Important news is spread through social media. Many lost people get found and many poor people get crowd-funding.
Social media: Sales funnel
Usage of Social media marketing in businesses has become very important in terms of the four funnels of sales.
Awareness
Firstly, a brand generates awareness about itself on the social media platform. It gets likes/comments/shares to get a form of engagement. Brands create content that showcases their products and services. This is usually done in the form of storytelling and friendly content. Meme marketing is another sub-section of social media marketing to create awareness in a fun way.
Consideration
The second stage of the funnel is a consideration. Secondly, people start to consider the brand for its service or product when they start to follow/like the social media handle of the brand and queries are raised. Brands may put their links to the website on social media and the traffic is driven to the website.
Purchase
The next stage of the funnel, the third stage is the purchase. This is when social media helps in the purchase as well, where the potential customers can see the website section which helps the transaction to be completed. Thirdly, people may directly buy products/services through DMs, links on social media, or through the website provided on the social handle.
Delight
The Last stage or fourth stage of the sales funnel is a delight. Whenever the user likes the service of the brand, delight comes. So, when delight comes, users become happy and they start promoting the brand on social media becoming the “Brand Advocates”. People give their feedback to show their delight in form of reposting, sharing stories, and writing about the brands on social media.
Conclusion
It can be easily ruled out that Social media or SMM is every brand’s heart. Social media has become so popular that we cannot imagine our lives without social media. Social media is important in terms of communication whether it is personal or professional- text-based, image, audio and video formats, sales and information and so, is the social media marketing for a brand.
Also, social media needs to be verified for building customer trust, by services offering verification badges such as Twitter Verification Service, Instagram Verification Service, or Facebook Verification Service. Social media marketing lays down the foundation of the sales funnel and is the building block of any business that runs online.
So, Social media marketing not only helps a brand to generate awareness but also helps increase sales, increase engagement rates, increase customer delight, increase the number of customers, improve customer satisfaction, and increase the revenue of the brand.