Social media marketing is a very affordable way of marketing your small business. A large part of advertising is getting your products in front of as many potential customers as possible. This is where social media marketing comes in. Before we get into what social media marketing is lets find out what it is not.
Social Media Marketing is Not
These are social media platforms. They are not what social media marketing is. Social media marketing is simply using the social nature of people to build a buzz about your product creating brand awareness hopefully resulting in increased sales.
Social Media Marketing or SMM has several different strategies that are very effective at achieving your marketing goals.
- Social Media Advertising
- Direct Posting
- Social Media Influencer Marketing
Social Media Advertising
Social media advertising is the process of targeting your buyer personas, audience, and customers and promoting your brand, product, or service via social media posts and ads to convert leads and increase revenue.
hubspot
Simplified this is just purchasing advertising on social media platforms. Such as buying an ad on Instagram or targeting a specific demographic on Facebook with ads. Social media advertising can be very targeted for your desired audience.
Direct Posting
Social media direct posting is a concept that most of you will be familiar with. It is simply creating a profile on Facebook or Instagram and then adding a post to it. However, with direct posting you want to be careful not to use it as a broadcasting channel but a conversation. Provide value to your customers and they will award you for it.
Social Media Influencer MarketingInfluencer marketing is a form of social media marketing involving endorsements and product placement from influencers, people and organizations who have a purported expert level of knowledge or social influence in their field. Wikipedia
This is the same thing as a large organization getting a celebrity to endorse their product. Social platforms like Facebook and Youtube have people that you would not categorize as regular celebrities from sports or movies that have built up lots and lots of followers from providing either expertise in their respective fields or from simply being very entertaining. As a small business, you can get a similar effect that Nike gets from getting a sports star to endorse their products by getting one of these highly followed social media influencers to promote, show, or just mention your product on one of their posts or in their videos at much lower costs than paying for a Lebron James.
Social Media Marketing or SMM is a great way to advertise and market a small business. It is a lower-cost alternative to traditional marketing that packs a very powerful marketing punch. By utilizing this powerful marketing channel small businesses have been able to not only thrive and grow but to also compete with large mainstream corporations and in some cases beating them.
