What is Social Media Marketing? Social Media Marketing refers to the process of engaging users and gaining their attention through social media networks like Twitter, Facebook and others.

Social media marketing (SMM) is the Internet way of marketing that utilizes social networking platforms as marketing tools. The goal of SMM is to produce content that network users will share with their friends and then help the company increase brand exposure and also customer reach.

Before you begin creating your social media marketing campaign, you must always consider your business goal. Starting a social media marketing campaign without a well planned social strategy in mind is most of the times a waste of time and resources and with failing results, you are likely to be disappointed and have a decreased ROI (return of investment).

Here are some questions to ask yourself or your campaign manager to help you define social media marketing goals:

What are you hopes in achieving through social media marketing?
Who is defined as your target audience?
Where would you find your target audience and how would they interact with social media?
What message you want to send to your audience with your social media marketing campaign?

What is Social Media Marketing?

Think: Social Media Marketing Can Help Your Company Meet Its Marketing Goals

Social media marketing can help with many goals, such as:

Increasing your website traffic
Building conversions for your company
Raising your company's brand awareness
Creating a brand identity or positive brand association for your business
Improving communication and interaction with your market audience

More academic research on the topic:

The beauty of social networks is that anyone can take advantage of their potential if they have the right knowledge and tools. To establish an effective social networking strategy, a basic understanding of the relationship between companies and social networks is needed.

To help you, we've compiled the 10 best social media marketing tips for small businesses:

1. Use social media to sell your product
2. Join Twitter to improve relationships with your customers
3. Increase Twitter followers to increase your reach
4. Build relationships first
5. Optimize the volume of tweets to meet your needs
6. Optimize tweet times to maximize the impact
7. Join LinkedIn to establish your presence in social networks
8. Create a LinkedIn Company Page
9. Improve your commitment to the Facebook page
10. Ensure that the first point of contact is successful

Before social networks became a platform to sell products, the sales relationship for companies had this aspect: listen, help solve problems and make the sale.
With the advent of social networks as a sales tool, the only difference is that you have more real-time access to your potential customers during the investigation of your buyers.
Technologies and tools have been developed to help you sell on a larger and more efficient scale. The following steps will help you use social media to sell your products and services:

* Listen to what your customers say.
The most valuable lesson we can teach you is to pay attention to what your followers say in social networks.
* Monitor social channels, look for mentions of your brand, mentions of competitors' brands or any question or complaint about the products or services offered. Use your comments as comments to improve your offer and create content, such as blog posts or e-books, based on your frequently asked questions.
* Make use of different social networking platforms.
Each social network has a different type of participation from the audience to offer. Depending on your goals, take advantage of different platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn and use them for your benefit.
For example: Facebook is better to attract an existing community of customers or fans of your brand. Use this to gather feedback, celebrate customers and sell products. Twitter, however, is a source of quick and real-time information that can be used to find new
The customers talk about their needs.
* Help solve your customers' problems.
If you listen carefully, you will soon notice that your followers will express some kind of need or problem.
This is your chance to prove your experience.
Commit yourself to those followers with timely answers to your questions, pointing out the places on your website where they can find help or seducing them with products or services you sell.

2. Join Twitter to improve relationships with your customers

Twitter can help your company establish relationships with customers and connect with the companies and communities in which you are interested. You can also use Twitter to create brand awareness, market new products and get feedback from your customers.

In a Twitter infographic launched this year, they found that once someone follows their business on Twitter, they are much more likely to become customers. These followers became customers who end up directing traffic to their sites, which becomes the best type of recommendation or service that sells.

3. Increase your Twitter followers to increase your reach

There are many things you can do to build a relevant Twitter following. The following core concepts will help your small business build an effective Twitter presence:
* Find and follow relevant people
* Find experts and opinion leaders in your industry and follow them.
* Look for possible clients or people who are interested in your industry. Create a strategy of reflective and authentic content.
* Tweet content that is interesting and relevant to your target audience.
* Give clients promotions and incentives to follow and share.
* Create a single official hashtag - something concise. The Glee television program uses #glee to make the conversations around the cast and the episodes easy to follow and organize.
* Monitor your social feeds and answer the questions of your followers with intelligent answers that can help them. Integrate Twitter into your existing channels and use Twitter as an extension of your website
* By promoting your Twitter account in your previously established channels, a form of communication is opened in real time with your audience.

4. Build relationships first

Take advantage of different social networks like Twitter and LinkedIn. Use these channels to find potential customers and communicate with them online.

The following will help you build strong relationships:
* Set search flows and keyword searches to find leads
* Listen to what your potential customers are talking about and participate in those conversations
* Invest time in these relationships by continuing the conversation.

In social networks, quality is more valuable than quantity, to choose to follow the people with whom you can establish relationships. Also, if someone follows you, just follow him if he is a potential client or
someone who is relevant to your business.

5. Optimize the volume of tweets to meet your needs

There is no magic number of tweets or content strategy sure to work every time. The best strategy is to try and learn to see what feels good for your business.

For example, create a test content strategy:
* Make it a long week.
* Every day, it publishes a variable number of tweets.
* After 1 week, use analytical modules to see the commitment levels of your followers
* Depending on the results, adjust your strategy accordingly

6. Optimize tweet times to maximize the impact

There is no exact science to optimize tweet times, but it generally refers to the time of day that your publications will receive the maximum level of participation.
Your publications should be published at a time when your audience is active so that they receive a higher level of visibility.

7. Join LinkedIn to establish your presence in social networks

LinkedIn allows you and your company to connect to a massive network of professionals, industry leaders, potential hires and clients in a specific and brand-centric manner. As a result, LinkedIn is intrinsically valuable to your career.

Use LinkedIn to
* Establish your presence in social networks.
* Attract fans and customers
* Connect with your followers
* Amplify your message

A great resource for social media leadership is the LinkedIn blog, a library of innovative social content written by some of today's leaders.
For a more detailed look at how to take advantage of LinkedIn's potential, consider: "This powerful integration allows marketing managers, human resource professionals, community managers and business owners to better direct their message to their exact audience and, to their time, help improve the performance of your company. " Lana Khavinson, Senior Product Marketing Manager on LinkedIn

8. Create a LinkedIn Company Page

The page of a LinkedIn company improves the presence of a company and allows them to interact with a wider range of clients and prospects. A Company page also helps LinkedIn members know their business, brand, products and services, and employment opportunities. Any member of LinkedIn can follow a page of the company.

The company's LinkedIn pages also help companies to attract potential customers on a larger scale, show their history and relate to their followers. The management of the LinkedIn company page becomes more efficient and effective for teams and departments that use social networks.

9. Improve your commitment to the Facebook page

Facebook is another social network that you can take advantage of with your small business. Along with the Twitter and LinkedIn Company pages, create a Facebook page that shows your brand. To build your fan base on Facebook, you must be publishing content that is interesting and relevant to your target audience.

Interesting Post, Visual Content
Photos, faces and videos always perform better and can be easily added to publications from the panel.

Do not overdo it
You probably should not exceed 1 to 3 Facebook posts per day. Aim for quality over quantity.

Establish a personal voice
Set a tone for your publications and add the personality of your brand by talking about topics that interest the audience.

Schedule publications in advance
The tools allow you to schedule publications in advance so you do not have to check social networks constantly throughout the day.

10. Ensure that the first point of contact is successful

Treat your marketing strategy in social networks as the first page of your business. Their Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter profiles are often the first point of contact that a potential client has with their business. Use this to your advantage and put your best foot forward.

Post content that is thoughtful, authentic, and that fits your content strategy.

Keep your marketing plan in mind and interact with your customers on a personal level to build relationships. Your clients want to know that they are talking to a real person, so keep your communication authentic.

With these tips in mind, you must have all the necessary tools to create a strong social media marketing presence for your small business.

What is Social Media Marketing?

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