An Expert Guide: Mastering Social Media Marketing Skills

Social media is still a fun way to pass the time during daily commutes and between chores. College students and professionals enjoy spending time on social media alike, thanks to its multi-faceted nature. It helps check out home decor ideas on Pinterest and Instagram or make weekend plans with friends over Facebook. We love being online and spending time on social media channels for many reasons.

Here is the age of digital marketing, social media ceases to be just fun and games. Right now, it is a smart marketing tool that helps brands reach out to their target audiences directly. What can be better than asking your target group for direct feedbacks and finding out what they want from you? Most workplaces need their marketing team employees to have digital skills and “social media etiquettes.” Online connecting is a pro skill that almost all 21^st-century job applicants must possess to be able to excel in marketing.

There are five critical points you must remember before you kick-start your social media career.

Jack of all trades is master of some

You cannot expect to know only Facebook marketing or Twitter marketing and be successful. There are many brands, which prefer visual content over text content. For them, you will have to master Instagram, Pinterest, and SnapChat. Some brands prefer old school content marketing via social media. They usually turn to Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp marketing. Then some brands emphasize on video content. For them, you will have to learn your way through YouTube channels and subscriptions.

In reality, social media is not a unidirectional platform. It is more of a Swiss knife, where each channel has a different function. The first step towards successful social media marketing is determining your target audience and finding out innovative ways to reach them. You need to clarify what you want to convey about your brand. The choice of the platform not only depends on the type of content and the brand manager, but it also depends on audience engagement and activity.

Content is always the king

It is still about the content, and you must never forget it. As we have mentioned before, there are several kinds of contents across different social media channels. Visual content is predominant on YouTube and Instagram. Text content is popular on Twitter, Medium, Facebook and LinkedIn. Irrespective of what kind of content you are creating, you need to keep the content fresh and exciting.

Research shows, more people are interested in the informative content. How-to formats and content pieces that answer the questions of your readers/viewers directly are highly valuable. Finding the right kind of audience for your content is very important. You can take help from experts, who can help you purchase followers for your accounts. They usually categorize the followers according to demographics, age, and other preferences to enable targeting. Keep your eyes open for feedback and adjust your content accordingly for better results.

Be instrumental, creative and alert

Good content and great marketing strategies will only carry you as far as you are willing to go. Social media marketing needs more than tools, strategies, and content. Think about this – almost all social media managing firms and professionals have access to the same kind of tools, tactics, and content. There is no critical secret to success as far as social media is concerned, but why are some of these people/brands highly influential on social media and others are as good as non-existent?

It is the attitude that matters. If you are active and involved in your campaigns, the results will show. Active marketers are usually better connected with their audiences, and they always know their ways around the different groups across the various channels. It requires creative skills, tenacity, and technical know-how, above everything else.

What do your results say?

Social media campaigns are investments for most brands. You cannot go through marketing without weighing the outcomes of the branding and the marketing process. Each campaign has a capital and an ROI. Social media marketing campaigns also have ROIs that you can determine using many analytical tools.

Social media analytics is now easier with so many free and premium tools that make the jobs for marketing analysts a breeze. Here are a few key performance indicators you should keep your eyes on :

Click through rate (CTR): click-through rate tells you how many people are going to your site through the link you have posted on your profile on any social network and social media channel.

Clicks, likes, shares, and comments: for most social networks, these are the key performance indicators of your social campaign. They represent engagement and activity on any social media profile.

Lead generation: most people believe that a high number of followers translates to more number of leads. However, this does not seem right. Any social media/networking profile that generates constant leads deserves more attention and resources. Not enough leads usually mean you are not approaching the right buyers or you are conveying the right message. Run A/B tests to find out where you are going wrong.

Customers and conversions: inbound marketing is incomplete without customer acquisition. Social media, traditionally, does not directly contribute to a high conversion rate, but it does provide a high ROI. It is possible due to the low marketing cost. Reach, and engagement does not cost much on any social medium. Therefore, when the time comes to measure the success rate, the ROI is almost always high enough.

It takes time

Social media campaigns can take some time to kick off. Unless you are getting a Cristiano Ronaldo or a Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson to endorse your products, you will find the process to be slow. We live in an era of instant gratification, and if you expect your social media marketing campaign to create an instant bang, you will be disappointed. Yes, social media is slow. That is also because it is FREE! Millions of brands are there on social media vying for constant attention. Since you have the right guide, skill-set, tools, and campaigns, you just need to be patient while your reach grows.

Social media marketing needs a consistent and tenacious approach. Always pay attention to content quality, customer feedback and analytics before you make any decisions for your channels.