Is Social Media Marketing Right For My Business?

Are you trying to figure out if investing in social media marketing is right for your business? In today’s world there are a lot of digital marketing tactics available to you to help grow your brand, attract new customers and drive new business. However, out of all of these options, arguably none are more tied to business growth than social media marketing.

Social media marketing can fall under two different categories, organic and paid (also known as paid social or social media advertising), and both of these categories are key to building a successful social media marketing strategy for growth.

Organic social media marketing doesn’t cost money, but it does cost your time. This mainly consists of posting content to your social media feeds, whether it be text, images, or videos, and engaging with the audience that responds to your content. Organic posting is important to establish an audience and make your brand seem more trustworthy, and because if that cannot afford to be ignored nowadays.

When focusing on organic social media, your number one goal should almost always be to drive meaningful engagement. How can you drive the most social media engagement? The best way to do so is focus on what drives impact to your customers and represents your business most authentically. Some of the best ways to do this are highlighting your favorite customer reviews, calling out the great work of your employees and coworkers, tagging other local businesses and sharing relatable content. A simple way to think about creating quality posts is to ask yourself this question before sharing: Does this post mean something to my audience? If the answer is yes, then share away!

A bit more involved, paid social media marketing involves targeting a specific audience, creating ads or content tailored for their interaction, and using that paid social media to drive your intended business outcome. Whether you’re boosting Facebook post, promoting a Pin on Pinterest, or working with someone to manage your social media advertising, there are plenty of ad objectives to choose from. The intent of these objectives is to drive the outcome you’re looking for, and can include more general ones greater reach, impressions, brand awareness and engagement, or more specific ones like website traffic, app installs, messages, conversions and more. If you’re curious how much social media advertising costs, it will largely depend on these objectives. A general rule of thumb is the further down the marketing funnel your objective is, the more expensive that objective will be.

Is your business looking to drive growth (aren’t we all)? In 2020, over 90% of businesses that are growing the quickest and most significantly year-over-year are heavily focusing on social media marketing, and paid social advertising is a major part of that plan. When trying to define the goals and objectives of paid vs. organic social media marketing, we like to use the analogy of the restaurateur on opening night. Picture paid social as the spotlight – it creates interest, draws attention, and points people to where we want them to go and shows them what we want them to do. Organic social is event itself – you want it to represent your business in a way that engages both new and existing patrons, shows them what they can expect from you and keeps them interested.

Now – apply those concepts to your social media marketing strategy. Would focusing on nothing but sales at  your restaurants opening event likely represent your business well to those patrons?  Would a spotlight the size of your phone’s flashlight likely create the interest you need to make the event a success? Probably not. However, they both support each other and are key pieces to success.

Social media marketing strategies will vary widely across verticals, because different businesses will have different intended audiences, and those audiences all have different social media habits. Out of all platforms, Facebook and YouTube are generally regarded as the best place to be for most businesses. A business-to-business company is likely to see more success on LinkedIn, while a company that targets Millennials or has a visual buying process will likely do better on Instagram or Pinterest. Always consider where your target audience spends the most time, and which platform will best align with your customers journey to purchase.

Above all else, the number one thing you should do before building a social media marketing strategy is clearly define your goals and business objectives. With clear goals and objectives, it’s much easier to define what you should focus on, how you should accomplish it, and how to measure the results.

Looking for someone to manage your social media marketing? At Enspire for Enterprise, our social media specialists have the knowledge and skills to choose the right platform for your social media marketing efforts, build your audience, and create content and ads that resonate with the people you are trying to reach. Contact us today to learn more!   

“In 2020, over 90% of businesses that are growing the quickest and most significantly year-over-year are heavily focusing on social media marketing.”