Take a moment and look around you. What do you see? Trees? Birds? Animals? Humans?
Well, look closely. Mobiles? Yes, that is it. And running on those devices are the different social media channels. Be it Facebook or Instagram, Twitter or LinkedIn, social media is ruling the world. And it has no intentions of stopping any time soon.
Don’t believe me? Well, here are some numbers that will convince you otherwise.
- As of January 2019, the total 7.7 billion. 4.2 billion uses the internet, and 3.397 billion people are social media users
- On average, people spend 116 minutes daily accessing their social media accounts
- Between September 2017 and October 2018, social media users grew by 320 million
- In 2016, $40 billion was spent by businesses worldwide on social network advertising
- 38% of organizations spend about 20% of their total marketing budget promoting campaigns on social media networks
- 78% of customers believe that complaining via Twitter will get a response within an hour
Source: BrandWatch
Aren’t these impressive? There is no shade of doubt that social media is the place to be. And for businesses, it can be safely deduced that social media marketing has become an integral part of a marketer’s approach.
Social media marketing is mostly about building and increasing a brand’s visibility, by communicating and nurturing relationships with potential customers.
But is it fair to limit the infinite potentiality of social media marketing by stating that it just helps to increase a brand’s visibility? Is it all about posting ads and content on various channels and enhancing customer engagement?
Social media and subsequently social media marketing has much more to it.
Many of the hidden aspects of social media marketing are hard to come by, especially given how competitive the scenario has become. The old methods (which honestly worked wonders) are slowly going out of fashion, precipitously. This also means that we need to make way for the new processes and accept hard truths about the same.
Here I have summarized 5 hard truths about social media marketing that every marketer needs to accept. Keep reading to find out more.
#Fact 1: All ROI is Not Positive
Social media evolved as a business tool over the last few years. According to a survey, about 77% of marketers use at least one social media marketing platform to promote their brand. But on a closer look, only about 48% of the marketers receive Return on Investment (ROI) from the marketing campaigns they run on various social media channels.
Needless to say, not every campaign for social media marketing will be successful; however, you should always put effort to tie it to your goals. The ROI received from each of the campaigns will also vary, depending on how successful your campaigns are.
One of the reasons why all marketers don’t often see a positive ROI is because a lot of businesses approach marketing the wrong way. Most of them focus on posting information relating to their needs, overlooking the solutions that the customers are looking for.
When marketing on social media, not only should you aim to put forth information that is valuable to the customers, but also that grabs the attention.
According to experts, instead of focusing on ROI solely, you should focus on crafting campaigns that yield higher ROI. This is the key to mastering social media marketing.
Conclusively, tracking social media marketing ROI sums up to choosing the right key performance indicators to monitor and align with your goals.
#Fact 2: Success will not come Immediately
Contrary to popular belief, social media is not a magic bullet. I mean think about it, building relationships take a lot of time, effort and commitment.
The truth about social media marketing is you can’t expect to see instant success. Increase in your business conversions or revenue for that matter will take time.
Social media marketers should know that loyalty, consistency, a strong presence and adding value takes time and significant effort to build.
The chances are that your first month will not be as successful as you expect. It is simple- you will make a lot of mistakes, and it takes a lot of time to understand how to generate leads using social media platforms.
Also, you have to consider the fact to start right, you need to have a detailed understanding of your target audience, and let’s be realistic; it takes a lot of time.
Well, just because social media marketing isn’t going to work overnight doesn’t mean it won’t ever. Implementing a consistent advertising campaign will surely generate social sales success in the long-run.
As a marketer, you should be persistent in what you are doing. Keep trying to reach out, and success will come to you, better than ever.
Also Read: B2B Marketing Metrics to Grow Revenue
#Fact 3: Social Media Marketing is Not Always About Generating Revenues
Many marketers turn to social media with high hopes of earning stellar revenue. They believe that updating posts on social media will magically allow them to gain a lot of income. And from the very beginning.
But the truth is that social media, or for that matter social media marketing is not all about earning money. Yes, running ads and campaigns may help you mint a little money, but platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter can be used for far more. These can be useful to the business in a more substantial way.
According to a study, 90% of businesses use social media to attract new customers. Thus, the fact that social media is not just about generating revenue, but allow brands to place a more significant emphasis on customer loyalty, customer insights, and customer service.
Yes, the best place for customer care lies in social media.
Creating customer loyalty is extremely important as it develops a long-term relationship with your prospects. The more loyal they are to your business, the higher are your chances to succeed in the landscape.
There will be negative reviews, but don’t focus too much on that. Don’t let it drag your efforts down. Highlight on creating an excellent customer experience and positive reviews will follow.
About 50% of customers check online reviews about a brand before investing in it. Offer a pleasant and positive experience to your customers; revenue generation will follow suit.
#Fact 4: Some Industries are Better Suited for Social Media Marketing
Social media is a vast world. But it would be almost foolish not to point out that some industries are just better suited to that massive world as compared to others.
This, however, doesn’t mean that most businesses are doomed on the platform. That is just not true. Almost any business can succeed on social media regardless of the industry they belong to. But once again, some just score better.
Also Read: Why B2B Companies Need to Invest in Videos
Industries which rely heavily on visualized content have an easier time reaching their social media marketing goals in comparison to businesses who are more theory-based. For instance, travel companies are a major as compared to iron and steel manufacturing companies.
Since visuals have more impact on the masses, these industries fair better.
However, marketers from all areas are including visualized and engaging content to reach forth to their targeted demographics. So, even if your business industry does not have a typically “appealing” topic to dwell with, chalk out campaigns that will help you reach out to the right people.
#Fact 5: Mistakes are Inevitable
As Stephen Hawkings once said,
So stop fussing over your mistakes. Even experienced marketers make errors. It happens to everyone, all the time.
Trying to perfect your campaign is excellent. But letting your analysis paralyze your campaign is not fair either. Yes, some errors can be passed with a blink of an eye, but some can have catastrophic impacts.
For instance, mistakes like misappropriated hashtags or content can create a significant firestorm online. But should that stop you from trying out new things? Should that stop you from experimenting?
No! You learn only when you make mistakes. But maintaining a certain amount of caution is also necessary.
Be careful with your content in the campaigns. There is no reversing back in the world of social media. Analyze your content thoroughly, but not too much!
Make mistakes, but learn from them and implement the same in your next social media marketing campaign. Don’t let perfect become the enemy of good enough!
Factors to Consider for Successful Social Media Marketing
There are certain things that you need to consider when crafting your social media marketing campaigns. Go through the same.
1. Facebook Live stream
Facebook Live Stream has become a significant tactic for B2B marketers. When deciding on social media marketing in 2019, consider using Facebook live streaming services at large. Upload videos explaining your product/service or maybe conduct a webinar. You can also cover live events organized by your company.
Based on a recent survey, 82% of all internet traffic is derived from videos. So, it’s time to take some solid strategizing to include live streaming.
2. Enthralling long-form content
Share lengthy content. Long posts are gaining appreciation as they are not just about word count but offer valuable, in-depth knowledge. Search engines are recognizing it. Readers are accepting it. It is time. You do too.
Also, long-form contents are widely read and shared because they offer more information.
Keep your content of around 2000 words and see magic take place.
In Conclusion
With the introduction of social media, the entire marketing landscape has changed.
However, the dynamism often makes it difficult to predict whether a campaign will be truly successful or not. Instead of focusing on victory, place your bet on focusing on analytics and creating effective and impressive campaigns.
In social media marketing is that you can’t control whether a campaign will blow through all your all your previous track records or not. But setting specific goals to increase leads and building campaigns that are designed to help you reach determined goals can help you succeed.
You need to be patient and be proactive. Leverage social media and use marketing campaigns that make you different. All pieces will start falling in place.
Want to connect with us? Leave a comment below. For more such content, subscribe to our blog today.
Recent Comments