Social Marketing 101: 13 Amazing Tips For Starters

The world of business has been rapidly changing over the past decade. It has evolved from a traditional approach of a basically sales dependent relationship with customers to a more sophisticated approach which draws from successful techniques that are more based on personal and emotional relationships with customers. One of these techniques is social marketing.

Social marketing is one of the several activities that go into maximizing the success of any business. Social marketing is highly beneficial for building a business that drives an impact in the environment in which it exists. Social marketing if maximized can create an effect in which customers of a business become its marketers. The first key step in maximizing social marketing is understanding what social marketing is.

What is social marketing?

Social marketing was introduced in the 1970s by Philip Kotler and Gerald Zaltman. These two discovered that the same marketing principles used to sell products to consumers could also be used to sell ideas, attitudes and behaviors.

Kotler and Andreasen therefore define social marketing as "differing from other areas of marketing only with respect to the objectives of the marketer and his or her organization. Social marketing seeks to influence social behaviors not to benefit the marketer, but to benefit the target audience and the general society."

So social marketing is basically marketing that focuses on creating value for your target audience. With social marketing, you’re trying to inspire your target audience to take actions that would benefit them and the society at large.

Haven cleared up what social marketing is all about, I’ll be sharing with you some tips you can use to get started with social marketing for your business. These tips will be very beneficial for creating a business that is highly valued by its customers.

Here are they come!

1. Blog Right

Social marketing is basically about offering people value and one of the many ways to do that is by sharing valuable content on your blog. With social marketing, you’re more interested in impacting your readers than driving traffic to your blog. The good thing about sharing valuable content is that people will keep coming back and sharing your blog if they’re impacted by it.

2. Build A Community

Social marketing leverages on the power of community to drive an impact. You can get started on social marketing by building a community of like minded people. The best place to start off building a community is on social media. As a newbie to social marketing, I advice that you start off with creating a Facebook Group that states clearly what you aim is. Share valuable content on your group and get people to follow you.

3. Have a Social Media Plan

Social media is vital for effective social marketing. The reason is basically because the whole world is on social media. So if you’re going to carry out social marketing activities that drive an impact, then you have to go where your audience is. However, given the fact that the world of social media is massive, it’s best to come up with a plan that states clearly, what you want to achieve and how you want to go about achieving it. This will ensure that you don’t get distracted on social media.

4. Harness The Power Of Infographics

Infographics are basically graphic representation of content. Infographics are a great way to step up your social marketing activities. Infographics combine the power of visuals and content to convey information to customers. With the use of infographics, you can convey very complex information quickly and clearly. Many leading companies use infographics to carry out their social marketing. Infographics are highly compelling and will definitely improve your social marketing activities.

5. Keep Up With Trends

You have to keep up with trends in the social marketing sphere if you’re going to get it right. You can start by registering for and attending various social marketing trainings in your location or even online. Keeping up with social marketing trends will help you know which activities are beneficial and which activities no longer yield the expected results with an audience.

6. Use Great Visuals

Content may be the king of social marketing but visuals is its equally powerful queen. Visuals are highly compelling and an easy medium of communication. Use great images that leave your target audience convinced that they need to make a behavioral change. Great companies like Coca-Cola and Dove tap into the power of great and relevant visuals to promote their social marketing activities.

7. Offers Value Always

There really isn’t social marketing without the presence of value. Also there’s no escaping offering value in social marketing. In fact the basic rule of social marketing isn’t customer first, it’s customer only. The best way to offer value to your customers is to look beyond what you’ll gain as a business and focus moiré on what value you can offer to your audience and which will impact the society at large.

8. Join In On Conversations

It’s “social” marketing which means that you have to mix up with the people you’re trying to influence. You have to go where they are and join in their discussions. As a newbie to social marketing, you can start off by searching online for forum discussions in your niche which you can use as an avenue to share value with an interested audience.

9. Build Up Your Reviews

The best way to promote a cause or an activity is by getting the people who are involved to say something good about that activity. Reviews are a great way to get more people involved in your social marketing efforts. Reviews validate your social marketing efforts and lets people know that your efforts are actually genuine. However, getting good reviews boils down to the quality of activities and information you’re giving to your target audience.

10. Analytics Is Key

Like I earlier stated, social marketing is highly dependent on technological tools and one of them is analytics. Analytics is simply a key part of any business activity today. So when you start off your social marketing activities, you have to set out time to review both offline and online, the performance of your social marketing. If your social marketing is basically online, then you should pay close attention to the backend of your online platforms to help you determine your strengths, weaknesses and opportunities.

11. Show Expertise

If you’re going to draw the attention of your audience, you have to show them that you know your niche like the back of your hands. If your business is for instance, in the natural cosmetics niche and you’re carrying out a social campaign on the benefits of going natural, then you must show your audience that you know the skin structure well and also know that the many of the chemicals contained in artificial creams are damaging. This is just an illustration but the bottom line is that you have to know your field well enough to carry out any form of effective social marketing in it.

12. Use Relevant Tools

A lot of business owners give up on social marketing because they tried to handle too many things at the same time. That is a no no for successful social marketing. You have to learn to simplify or you will get overwhelmed. There are several tools available to help simplify your social marketing activities and also make them more effective. From social media management tools to time management tools, relevant tools are a must have for any successful social marketing endeavor.

13. Be Consistent

Consistency is basically the master key to unlocking the effectiveness of any business activity. Not just any kind of consistency, but consistency at doing all the right things. If you’re going to see lasting results from your social marketing activities, then you have to be consistent at applying these tips in your social marketing activities.

Conclusion

Social marketing is a subtle way of growing a business using its target audience. It can be highly beneficial for business growth as long as the business focuses on social marketing activities that offer great value and drive behavioral changes among consumers and the society at large.

Don’t forget, social media is a core part of social marketing and great and affordable social media is what we at 99DollarSocial are known for. Get in touch with us to discuss how to get started on your social marketing today.