Marketing your social media

Professional tips to benefit your business

By Libby O’Regan

Social Media Marketing has been underrated by many and understood by few despite being a powerful tool for e-commerce companies, emerging brands and manufacturers, professional services, and stores with a brick-and-mortar presence. Frankly, there are no businesses that will not benefit from some form of social media marketing in 2021.

The key to social media marketing success lies in identifying your goals and measuring their effectiveness with data. “What gets measured, gets managed” is a spot-on adage here. Facebook, Google, Instagram, Twitter, and the likes have very powerful analytics to aid in quantifying what’s working and what’s not. This often comes sometimes as a surprise to analytical, numbers-driven businesspeople who think social media marketing is a bunch of Millennials on their phones all day. With 80 billion small businesses using Facebook alone, it’s hard to ignore Social as a legitimate form of marketing today.  

Consider your goals

Brand Awareness (increase word of mouth, get people familiar with your business, gain logo and name recognition).  You will want to focus on interesting and creative content and measure success by quantifying your reach (views) within your desired target market, as well as engagement (likes, comments, shares.) 

Revenue (in sales of a specific item, product or category). You will want to focus on content that uses language with specific sales attributes (why they should buy, all the features and benefits) with a clear call-to-action and direct link to purchase.  Measure success by quantifying your ROAS (return on ad spend). Set benchmarks such as 3:1. For every $1 you spend on social media advertising, expect $3 in return, as an example.  

Conversions (conversions don’t have to be in dollars.  They can be a phone call or lead-generation contact form).  You will want to focus on “why choose you”, what sets you apart from your competition, with a specified call-to-action. Install proper conversion tracking with your Facebook/Instagram Pixels or Google Analytics goals. 

Be careful of spreading your business too thin and trying too much. Your business does not have to have all of the platforms (though, you should secure the “handles” or usernames for your business on every platform even if you don’t use them.)  Consider which platform makes sense to invest time in content creation to reach your target audience.  Pinterest and Instagram are excellent for highly visual fields like fashion, photography, and retail.  Facebook can be powerful for professional services like law firms or banks. Once you have chosen the platform that works best, consistency and measuring the data will help you set your business up for long-term success with marketing on social media.