In the world of social media marketing, social media platforms get a lot of buzz. Why? Because they connect us to our consumers in a more intimate and meaningful way than pre-Facebook generations had ever known.
Social media platforms have driven everything from global conversations to political movements and buying trends, making them uniquely powerful platforms for brand awareness, customer engagement, revenue generation, and reach.
Gary Vaynerchuk, Marketer : “Marketers need to build digital relationships and reputation before closing a sale.”
Online marketing done right, means touching lives
But more than that, social media marketing gives your brand the opportunity to touch the lives of the people beyond the paycheck, in your target audience.
And those emotive aspects are what drive life-long relationships and real value for the consumers who will help your business grow.
Touch a consumer’s life, teach them something, and make them feel like they are a valuable part of your community sincerely, and you could reap the benefits as a bonus for the hard work and products and services you offer.
The real connector, mobile devices
We know that most people have access to the internet and social media via their mobile phones or tablets so this has to be considered in your social media marketing.
In fact, in some emerging economies, this can be one of the only ways individuals interact with the digital world. A whopping 98.5% of Meta users (that’s 2.8 billion) access this platform through mobile devices like phones and tablets – and these users span a broad range of target personas.
Therefore, in order to increase brand awareness and reach internet and social media users, your campaign needs to be mobile-friendly. And consumers know it.
A few consumer expectations have emerged as an always-on world becomes the norm and they’ll expect you to meet these on your digital channels.
Some examples?
Responsive and mobile-friendly web design, customer service and information on every social media channel, brand presence on multiple platforms, and quick, easy-to-consume content creation, localized by language.
In the modern world, it’s increasingly important to ensure your social media marketing strategy is refined to various channels and consumer needs.
Social media channels – a powerful tool in your arsenal
Social media sites are your catalyst to increase engagement, get more creative, and demonstrate what a “community” can really be. Don’t believe us? Well, we’ve got extra proof:
- 81% of consumers’ purchasing decisions are influenced by their friends’ social media posts. (Forbes)
- 66% of consumers have been inspired to purchase from a new brand after seeing social media images from other consumers (Stackla)
- Consumers are 71% more likely to make a purchase based on social media referrals. (Hubspot)
So if you’re looking to be part of this momentum and want to understand the true value and methodologies of engagement, instead of using it as just another uninterpreted vanity metric in a mandatory report, read on. Your social media marketing depends on it.
Rand Fishkin (Moz Founder): “The best way to engage honestly with the marketplace via X aka Twitter is to never use the words ‘engage,’ ‘honesty,’ ‘trust,’ ‘transparency,’ or ‘authenticity.'”
How does engagement fit into your social media marketing strategy?
Typically engagement is a default metric in social media marketing reports because it’s relatively easy to measure. Automated software will include figures around how many likes, comments, and shares your posts get which can serve as an initial indicator.
For your site and other digital marketing real estate, it’s easy to see things like website traffic. And your paid advertising campaigns come with a broad set of reporting tools to help you see how much your video ads are creating engagement.
Social media marketing done right: Dive deeper into engagement
However, as with any metric in social media marketing, you need to look beyond the surface level to get the best results.
For example, if you are running an influencer marketing campaign, you may need to measure results on their platforms or use a specific tool to understand their audience’s behavior and the overlap between their target audience and yours.
Looking for deeper insights also means examining other, related metrics that can give you more answers in your quest for greater inclusion. And this is a pro tip that doesn’t seem to make it into the curriculum of many social media marketing courses.
Neil Patel: “Engagement is really just about being a part of the conversation.”
Other engagement metrics to include in your social media marketing strategy
Conversion rate
Ever wonder how effective your marketing campaigns or website engagement strategies are? Well, that’s where conversion rates come into play.
In simple terms, a conversion rate is like a scorecard for your digital efforts. It tells you how well you’re convincing people to take specific actions you want them to take as part of your social media marketing strategy.
These actions can be anything you define as a goal, like making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter, sending you a message, grabbing an e-book, or any other interaction that shows real interest in what you’re offering through your website, app, or marketing endeavors.
Tallying your conversion rate
Conversion Rate =Total Number of Visitors over Number of Conversions​×100%. So, imagine you post a tweet and 500 people see it.
Out of those 500, 50 people actually buy something. Well, in plain terms, your conversion rate for that page is 10%. It means 10% of the people who viewed it decided to make a purchase. The same can be applied to your social media marketing in other areas. Each post can have an ideal conversion, creating website traffic or driving traffic to your online store. In some cases, these are more abstract but the doing aspect is ever-present.
Why does this matter? Conversion rates help you see how well you’re connecting with your audience. High conversion rates indicate that your message, products, or services are resonating with visitors. It also helps you spot where you might need to tweak things if your rates are on the lower side.
Make a Net Promoter Score (NPS) part of your social media strategy
A Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a simple but powerful way to gauge how satisfied your customers or users are with your products, services, or overall experience. It helps you understand if they’re likely to recommend your business to others and should form part of your social media marketing.
Let’s look at an example.
Imagine you run a small coffee shop. You want to know if your customers are happy and if they’ll tell their friends about your coffee. You ask them one question: “On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend our coffee to a friend?”
Based on their answers, you categorize them into three groups:
- Promoters (9-10)These are your enthusiastic social media fans. They love your coffee and are likely to tell everyone they know about it.
- Passives (7-8)They think your coffee is okay, but they’re not jumping with excitement. They might recommend you, but not passionately.
- Detractors (0-6)These folks aren’t happy with your coffee. They’re unlikely to recommend it, and they might even discourage others from trying it.
To calculate your NPS, you subtract the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters. The result is your Net Promoter Score, which can range from -100 (if everyone is a detractor) to +100 (if everyone is a promoter).
So, why is NPS helpful for measuring engagement? Because it gives you a quick snapshot of how satisfied and engaged your customers are and this can apply to your social media marketing too.
A high NPS means you have a loyal social media fan base, while a low score suggests you need to improve to keep customers happy and engaged. In order to review this for social media marketing, it can help to have social listening software.
Pro tip: Be sure to include measurement of user-generated content into your reporting for a more comprehensive view of performance. When they create posts, how are those posts driving engagement for your brand? And how does their personal brand align with your business? This can help you determine engagement overlap with their social media audiences.
Monthly active users on each social media site.
Your Facebook users are different from your Twitter followers and by measuring these differences, you can quickly ascertain how popular each platform is for your brand and where you need to adapt your social media growth and engagement strategy. By measuring your monthly active users, you can also identify your largest social media platform.
Quick fixes with long-term results – liven up your social media strategy
Bolstering engagement means following a format common to most metrics and applying that to your social media marketing across channels.
Determine why engagement is so important and get the whole team on board with your social media marketing strategy. Prioritize engagement in your social media marketing plan with tactics that extend beyond simply measuring it.
Create specific campaigns and sub-posts with the intent of driving engagement. Measure and monitor how engagement ebbs and flows over time and draw correlations between your tactics and performance. Run experiments to see which posts resonate with your audiences and get them the most involved. Here’s how to do that specifically:
- Share high-quality content: Post content that has aesthetic value, teaches people something or entertains, and write captions that people want to read and respond to, instead of long-winded advertisements.
- Know your followers: Up your research to really get what your audience likes, and what they care about. This might entail market research, social listening, and direct surveying through engaging and interactive posts and polls. This way, you can create content that speaks to them personally.
- Stick to a schedule: Make sure to keep posting regularly to keep your followers interested and expecting a certain cadence of comms. You can also use tools to plan that your posts get published at the optimal times when they are most likely to be seen by your target audience.
- Use hashtags with intention: Find and use hashtags on a specific social media platform that match your content. For example, look at what is specifically trending on Twitter (X) and get involved where relevant. Remember, don’t overstuff your posts with hashtags; a few good ones (by volume and relevance) will be more effective than hashtagging excessively.
- Be responsive to your audience: Answer comments and messages fast to meet consumer expectations of brands being “always on”. Ask questions in your posts to start conversations and do live chats or Q&A sessions to chat in real time.
- Team up and mention related but non-competing brands and influencers: Partner with influencers or similar brands on social media (not competitors) and be sure to tag people who should see your social media posts or may be part of them. This can lead to cross-promotion with other brands and influential figures to, helping you reach bigger audiences.
- Run contests and giveaways: Host fun contests and give out prizes and incentives. Get users to join by liking, sharing, or commenting but don’t overdo it on the entry requirements.
- Teach and share knowledge: Share useful tips, info, and how-to guides on your social media. Also, be sure to show that you’re credible and can offer real value by focusing on researched problems and high-quality solutions.
- Let your fans be part of the process: Ask fans and followers to create and share content about your brand. Then be sure to leverage those shares by resharing their content to say thanks and extend your social media community even further, potentially.
- Boost your posts with paid advertising: Sometimes, you need to pay to reach more people, especially depending on the social network you’re using. Target your ads to the right audiences and increase engagement by making sure your target audience sees your posts.
- Build communities inside and outside your main platforms: Create groups or forums where your fans can chat and put strategies in place for your social media community to grow.
- Stay trendy and fresh in terms of content and presence: Keep up with what’s hot and what’s not on social media and tap into relevant topics when they make sense and align with your brand values. Remember, building engagement takes time. Keep checking how you’re doing and adjust what you do based on what your crowd likes. Building real connections with your followers and giving them unique content to see and talk about is how you win at this social media game.
Know your social media platforms
While traditional marketing tactics have their place, they can be outdated and even present a risk to brands playing in the social media space. Try engaging with (X) Twitter users in the same way you would have even 5 years ago. The consequences could be anything from a dip in your brand reputation to a full-blown lawsuit on the same day.
The social media marketing landscape is an evolving entity and you need an intimate understanding of different social media platforms to up engagement in the right way. In turn, your social media presence can become a true asset to your brand, rather than a risk. Once you understand the nuances of each platform, you can increase engagement carefully and generate leads on each marketing channel.
Shama Hyder (CEO of Zen Media): “Engagement should be more about the I in social media than the ‘we.'”
Want to increase engagement in your social media marketing? We can help!
There’s no one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to social media marketing and your target audience. Different brands have different needs and at YDA we can help you meet them. At Your Digital Assembly, we’re just as committed to your social media success as you are, with the credentials to back it up. Get in touch with us to find out more or find out how brands are already working with YDA.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ): Social Media Marketing
What is Social Media Marketing, and why is it important for businesses?
Social Media Marketing (SMM) is a strategic approach that utilizes social media platforms to promote products, services, or brands. It plays a pivotal role in enhancing a brand’s online presence and engaging with a target audience.
- Social Media Marketing is crucial for brand visibility and audience engagement.
- It helps businesses connect with their target audience in real-time.
- SMM is an effective way to build brand loyalty and trust.
How does Social Media Marketing contribute to business growth?
Social Media Marketing contributes to business growth by fostering brand awareness, driving website traffic, and increasing sales. Through well-crafted content and strategic campaigns, businesses can reach a wider audience and convert potential customers into loyal clients.
- SMM drives targeted traffic to a business website, enhancing its online visibility.
- Engaging content on social media platforms can lead to increased brand recognition.
- Effective SMM strategies result in higher conversion rates, positively impacting sales.
What are the key social media platforms for marketing?
Choosing the right social media platforms is crucial for the success of any Social Media Marketing campaign. Each platform caters to a different demographic and offers unique features, making it essential to select those that align with the target audience and business objectives.
- Facebook: Ideal for a broad audience and versatile content formats.
- Instagram: Suited for visual content and reaching a younger demographic.
- LinkedIn: Effective for B2B marketing and professional networking.
How can businesses measure the success of their Social Media Marketing efforts?
Measuring the success of Social Media Marketing efforts involves tracking various metrics to assess engagement, reach, and overall campaign effectiveness. Utilizing analytics tools is essential for businesses to gain valuable insights into their social media performance.
- Engagement Metrics: Track likes, comments, and shares to gauge audience interaction.
- Reach and Impressions: Assess how many users have seen the content and its impact.
- Conversion Rates: Measure the number of users who take a desired action, such as making a purchase or signing up.
What role does content play in a successful Social Media Marketing strategy?
Content is the backbone of any successful Social Media Marketing strategy. It serves as a means of communication between a business and its audience, conveying the brand message, values, and offerings. Well-curated content can elevate a brand’s online presence and foster meaningful connections with the target audience.
- Establishing Brand Identity: Content helps define and reinforce a brand’s identity.
- Audience Engagement: Compelling content encourages user interaction and engagement.
- Virality and Shareability: Shareable content increases brand reach and awareness.