Social media has taken the world by storm — almost everyone has some kind of social media presence, either temporary or permanent. Most people in the developed world are connected to social media 24/7, whereas in regions of the world where Internet access is not continuous, the frequency of visits to social media accounts is much lower.

Nonetheless, even in those regions people have a presence on social media. This phenomenon of widespread ubiquitous acceptance of social media has been utilized by the global and local businesses for their marketing.

Marketing is the practice by which goods are sold in today’s world. Many businesses provide the same services or sell the same goods, so there is a great competition in the market.

Everyone desires to reap the maximum profits from the sale of their products/services and marketing is used as a tool to achieve that goal. Initially, print and electronic media via newspapers, magazines, television advertisements and huge electronic hoardings were used to get the attention of consumers. Though still in use and to promising effect as well, these methods have taken a backseat to social media marketing.

The continuous presence of general public on social media provided businesses, both small and large, to have a continuous interaction with their consumers by way of advertisements. A number of avenues can be explored to market a product and to increase the outreach of a company.

Some tips that are instrumental for effective social media marketing are highlighted here.

Defining Goals

Social media marketing must be strategized well to achieve its purpose to reach maximum number of end consumers. It is necessary to define goals that can include, but may not limit to how many people can view the product/services in a day, who should be the target audience, which region should have the maximum views of the product, whether selling a product is the primary goal or a visit to the website.

The definite goals should be identified, written and communicated to the whole team to set things in motion and to streamline the whole marketing procedure.

The goals of any small or large business set the base to develop a thorough marketing strategy. As it is said, a strong foundation ensures a solid structure, so the defined goals are instrumental in the success of a business.

Target Audience

The audience who is the primary target of a product or a service must be thoroughly searched. The statistics can be easily gathered in this age of technology. By use of various software, it is very easy to determine which social media platform has the greatest number of users from a specific age group or gender.

For instance, beauty, home decor and fashion businesses prefer to use Pinterest for their marketing because through analytics it has been ascertained that majority of the users of this social media platform are women.

In a similar way, user base of different social media platforms can be analyzed by way of gender, age and specific advertisements can be targeted towards the consumers on the basis of those findings. If it’s a professional educational service offered by a business, the preferred social media for its advertisement should be LinkedIn instead of Facebook, YouTube or Instagram.

The products that may appeal to people in the age range of 30 and below should be advertised on Instagram, as according to tools such as social media analytics tools that is the platform mostly accessed by that age group.

In short, knowing the target audience is essential to increase the reach and effectiveness of a social media marketing campaign.

Research on Industry

It is necessary to check the industry trends before developing a social media marketing strategy. That includes researching on what the competitors do to engage consumers. More and more people jump on the social media marketing bandwagon; therefore it is necessary to stand out. Explore avenues used by competitors.

Look at the way rivals conduct their social media marketing and ascertain its efficacy. Research the preferences of consumers by exploring market trends, case studies and surveys. Design marketing campaigns around the preferences of people and try not to restrict to one method alone.

The rapidly changing trends and practices make one single method obsolete in the marketing industry. Surveys provide a great insight and must be a part of every enterprise’s strategy.

Marketing specific surveys help businesses with their marketing campaigns by making them aware of the preferences of consumers.

Focus on Content

The content used to market a product must be engaging — this requires great effort. From accuracy to appearance, everything should be kept in consideration for marketing content. The content must be designed in accordance with the target audience. Teenagers may be more attracted towards flashy signs and short text whereas mature adults may prefer to read in detail about the specifications of a product before buying it.

Offer Factor generates content for women to educate its target market and market products accordingly.

Social media marketing can be through a blog or tutorial website. In that scenario, short videos or images of the said products on social media pages may be more effective in engaging the audience.

Videos have recently become very popular as a marketing tool — Facebook and YouTube incorporated short videos to advertise a product in the videos that are on these platforms. In such instances, it is essential that the videos are short and effectively highlight the product so that the audience gain interest.

In essence, the content should be well designed, engaging and free of any irrelevant material to be able to hold the interest of the viewer.

Engagement With Customers/Visitors

If the brand has a social media presence, it is vital that there is a social media team to engage with customers or visitors at any time of day. It is effective to recruit individuals from different time zones to ensure response at any time during the day.

A 24/7 engagement attracts much more customers and visitors than a customary 8-12 hour engagement. When the queries are answered promptly, the visitor stays on the page longer to look around. Such interaction makes a customer feel valued who is then encouraged to visit again and thus engagement with visitors leads to loyal customers.

The time of posting on a social media account is another factor to enhance the visitor engagement with the account. Here again, analytics and software help with ascertaining the time when most users in a region are on social media platform. Posting at that time results in maximum engagement, as it reaches a great number of people.

For instance, posting in the day results in minimum engagement as most people are either at work or in school. However, if a business account posts during the evening or night, the post engagement and reach is the highest. Thus, the engagement factor in both aspects is instrumental to effective social media marketing.

Social media marketing is such a huge thing today that now specific tools are designed by IT industries to facilitate businesses who want to have an online presence.

A time may come where businesses may only survive if they have a social media presence — the primary reason for that is the time actual consumers spend on social media. They only buy what they see and businesses have infiltrated all the avenues on social media. Therefore, those who have no social media presence may suffer a decline in the near future.