Marketers’ top goal with social media marketing is increasing engagement. However, their top challenge is creating content that inspires the engagement they look for.
Since social media plays such an essential top-of-the-funnel role, it’s important to understand how to use the platform to meet your goals.
In this post, we'll dive into all things social media marketing — what it is, its benefits, and how to build a social media marketing strategy that drives the results you want.
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Social media marketing is all about meeting your target audience and customers where they are and as they socially interact with each other and your brand.
While social media marketing is incredibly valuable and beneficial to your business growth (as you'll see in the following section), your strategy will differ based on which social networks your audience spends their time on.
Before we dig deeper into social media marketing, let's segment the strategy by platform.
Benefits of Social Media Marketing
To illustrate the benefits of social media marketing, let's take a look at the experience from the user's perspective. Well, my perspective, to be exact.
As I scroll through my Instagram feed every day (cough, cough...multiple times a day), I consistently notice new posts and stories by The Frye Company. I’ve always been a fan of their boots, clothing, and accessories, but I also love the content they share on their Instagram profile.
All of their photos have the same filter to ensure they match — this makes their profile look professional, artistic, and organized when visitors, like myself, browse their page.
Frye’s account also encourages interaction between the company and its followers by providing them with a specific hashtag to use so they can be featured on the page when they post photos with Frye products.
Frye’s Instagram account is a great example of successful social media marketing — it’s attractive, distinctly Frye, engages their ~200K followers, and promotes their products.
But why is social media marketing so important? And how do you build a social media marketing strategy that’ll work for your business?
There are a variety of reasons why your company should use social media marketing. We've created a list of the most beneficial reasons to consider.
Let's dive in.
1. Increase your brand awareness.
Due to the sheer number of people on social media, you're missing out on the potential to reach thousands, and even millions, if you don't have a presence.
In fact, social media has proven to boost brand awareness by driving up engagement, including things like comments, likes, shares, reposts, and saves.
It also helps you increase brand awareness by directing traffic straight to your site. You can do this by including links to your website and other offers in your profile, bio, and posts.
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2. Generate leads and boost conversions.
Promoting and sharing your products on social media is a simple way to improve lead generation, boost conversions, and increase sales because you're advertising to people who have opted to engage with you by following your account.
Here are some examples of ways to use social media to generate more leads.
- Create contests for your visitors and followers to participate in on your social media profiles.
- Include links to your website and offers in the bio sections of your profiles.
- Host live videos to announce new products and provide updates or details about exciting news at your company.
- Implement a social media marketing campaign on one of your channels.
- Sell your products through your social profiles. For example, you can enable Facebook's Shop Section or Instagram's Shopping feature on your profiles. These features allow your visitors and followers to click on products you've shared in posts to view price, material, and size information. Then, visitors can easily proceed to checkout through the platform and buy the product directly from you.
3. Foster relationships with your customers.
Connecting and engaging with your social media followers can build lasting relationships between them and your business. You can do this by interacting with them on your posts, responding to their questions and comments, and providing them with any help they may need.
You can also ask your followers questions about your products and their pain points or create giveaways to help you build trust and show them how much you value their input and support.
4. Learn from your competitors.
Social media is a great way to keep tabs on your competitors — whether it's their social media tactics, the products they're promoting, the campaigns they're implementing, or their level of interaction with followers.
Social media allows you to look at what is and isn't working for your competition and, therefore, helps you decide what should or shouldn't change regarding your company's approach.
Lastly, reviewing your competitors' social accounts can help you make sure your marketing stands out and is unique to your brand.
Learn how to conduct a competitive analysis to discover how you can beat the competition.
Now, let's talk strategy — there are several steps to ensure your social media marketing plan is sustainable and positively impacts your business.
Although social media constantly evolves, most foundational steps to succeed stay the same. Essentially, you're following the same steps you would take to create a marketing strategy and narrowing it to a specific channel.
I'll cover these steps in more detail so you can begin applying them to your business.
Step 1: Set clear goals.
The first step to creating a social media marketing strategy is to define your social media goals and ensure that they align with your overall business objectives.
Ask yourself: What do you want to achieve through your social media efforts? Examples could be increasing brand awareness, driving website traffic, generating leads, boosting customer engagement, or improving customer satisfaction.
Once you've set your high-level goals, break them down into smaller, actionable steps. This helps you identify the specific actions and strategies needed to achieve your goals.
For example, if my goal is to increase website traffic through social media, helpful, actionable steps could include increasing posting frequency, optimizing content for sharing, or running targeted ad campaigns.
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Step 2: Research your buyer personas and audience.
Whatever Thoreau once said about building castles and setting foundations under them is absolutely true.
Okay, yes, he was definitely not talking about social media marketing, but bear with me — you’ve set your goals (built castles), and now you need to define how you’ll meet them (the foundation). Your goals will mean nothing without the foundation that helps you meet them.
That’s why, after establishing your goals, the next step is to outline how you’ll meet them, and one of the best ways to start is to determine who your buyer personas and audience are so you can target their needs and interests appropriately.
Without knowing who they are, you won’t be able to share the content they’re looking for to entice a response from them that helps you meet your goal.
To do this, consider the people you're trying to reach, why, and how you would classify them as a group. For example, if your company sells trendy leggings and joggers, you might classify your target audience as millennials who like to wear stylish athletic apparel regularly — a style known as athleisure.
By considering your buyer personas and audience, you'll then be able to determine what content will attract the type of followers and customers you hope to gain. Plus, learn how to create engaging content to keep your followers interested.
Pro Tip: I recommend gathering feedback from your followers to get insights into their preferences, pain points, and satisfaction levels. This data can help you identify areas for improvement and refine your buyer personas.
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Step 3: Determine which social platforms you'll market on.
As a social media marketer, it’s important to determine which platforms you’ll use.
I can’t give you a yes or no list regarding which social channels your business should use — it's more about the needs of your target audience, where they spend their time, and the kind of content you want to create.
"It's important to be where your audience of potential customers is today, and where they might be tomorrow," said Andrew Delaney, former social media marketing manager at HubSpot. "It's better to be ahead of the curve than behind."
For example, Gen Z is all about TikTok. If that’s your primary audience, I would consider it a best practice to use that platform and meet them where they already are.
If you're going for that target audience of athleisure-loving millennials, you may want to focus most of your social media efforts on Instagram — millennials are the largest user base on the platform.
Stephanie Morgan, founder and CEO of Social Lock, a top social media agency, echoes this sentiment.
"Think about their behaviors and where they hang out online. If that's Pinterest, use that platform for your brand. If that's TikTok, use that platform for your brand," Morgan adds. "Don't waste time on a platform that your ideal client avatar is not very active on."
When it comes to the content you want to create, consider what each platform specializes in. For example, if you want to share video-forward content, a platform that favors that, like YouTube, is your best bet.
All of this to say, you aren’t restricted to best-fit channels. Having a presence on multiple platforms is important, and I always encourage experimentation on emerging platforms or platforms that don’t entirely align with your social media marketing needs. Not only does it diversify your strategy, but it also helps you interact with the unique audiences and requirements of each platform.
However, I can only recommend this type of experimentation for businesses with established marketing strategies on platforms that work and deliver your desired results. Placing all of your stake in something new if you’re just getting started can do more harm than good.
Recommended Tools and Resources
- A Marketer's Guide to Snapchat for Business
- 50 Facebook Ad Examples We Actually Clicked
- YouTube for Business: A 30-Day Roadmap for Growth
- How to Use Twitter for Business (+ Follower Tracking Template)
- 12 Pinterest Templates for Business
Step 4: Establish your most important metrics and KPIs.
Your social media strategy should be data-driven, regardless of your goals or industry.
That means focusing on the social media metrics that matter. Rather than focus on vanity metrics, dig into data that aligns directly with your goals.
What metrics am I talking about? Check out the breakdown below:
- Reach. Post reach is the number of unique users who saw your post. How much of your content actually reaches users’ feeds?
- Clicks. This is the number of clicks on your content or account. Tracking clicks per campaign is essential to understanding what drives curiosity or encourages people to buy.
- Engagement. The total number of social interactions divided by the number of impressions. This shows how well your audience perceives you and their willingness to interact.
- Hashtag performance. What were your most-used hashtags? Which hashtags were most associated with your brand? Having these answers can help shape the focus of your content going forward.
- Organic and paid likes. Beyond a standard “Like” count, these interactions are attributed to paid or organic content. Given how much harder organic engagement is to gain, many brands turn to ads. Knowing these differences can help you budget your ad spend and the time you invest in different formats.
- Sentiment. This measures how users react to your content, brand, or hashtag. Did customers find your recent campaign offensive? What type of sentiment do people associate with your campaign hashtag? It’s always better to dig deeper and discover how people talk or feel about your brand.
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Step 5: Get to know your competition.
Whether you’re just starting with social media marketing or have years under your belt, it’s always important to understand the current state of your industry, especially when it comes to your competitors.
This is where I call your attention to a trusty competitive analysis: it allows you to understand who the competition is and what they’re doing well (and not so well). You’ll get a good sense of what’s expected in your industry, which will help you set your own social media targets.
It will also help you spot opportunities. Say, for example, my main competitor is dominant on Facebook but puts little effort into Twitter or Instagram. Rather than solely focusing on winning fans away from a dominant player, I can also look to networks where my audience is underserved. I’m not abandoning Facebook (because I know it works), but I’m diversifying my strategy and building a presence where an untapped audience is ready to hear from me.
Pro Tip: I recommend monitoring your competitors’ customer reviews to gain insights into what their customers like and dislike about them. Pay attention to common complaints or recurring themes to understand their pain points, and aim to solve those pains in your own strategy.
Recommended Tools and Resources
- What's a Competitive Analysis & How Do You Conduct One?
- A Marketer's Guide To Competitive Intelligence
- How to Monitor Your Competitors' Every Move in Social Within HubSpot
Step 6: Create unique and engaging content.
With billions of social media users around the globe, there's no question that at least some of your followers — or the people browsing your profile — have also seen your competitor's content or that of other businesses in your industry.
This is why it’s important to have engaging social media content that stands out and provides viewers with a reason to click that "Follow" button and interact with your brand. If your content keeps them engaged, social media algorithms will also work in your favor and prioritize showing them your content because they’ve demonstrated an interest in it.
This is entirely true of my social media experience. I follow quite a few brands on Instagram, but I only regularly see content from 3 or 4 because they have the most engaging content that inspires me to interact. The algorithm learns what I like and prioritizes their posts over others, so I only get to their Stories when I’ve relentlessly tapped through every other story (doesn’t happen that often) or scrolled to the bottom of my feed (happens even less).
Not sure what's considered engaging? Morgan has a recommendation.
"My number one tip to brands for creating engaging content on social media is to do market research first because what will be engaging depends on the audience," Morgan said. "When you know what your audience likes and needs to know, you can create content that engages those interests."
Want some hard facts about what content to create? Here’s some insights directly from consumers, thanks to my teammate Max Iskiev's research into consumer trends:
- Consumers spend the most time engaging with visual content, specifically images/photos/infographics (53%) and short-form video content (44%)
- Millennials spend the most time engaging with short-form video content
- Gen Z, Millennials, and Gen X enjoy video content the most, and Boomers enjoy images/photos/infographics.
- Relatable content is the most memorable content overall among consumers. For Gen Z and Millennials, funny content is the most memorable.
Another tip to help you get creative is to consider the content your competitors are sharing and how you can uniquely promote your products.
Also, take advantage of the features offered by the platforms you use. For example, you can create live videos on Facebook to share the latest details about a product launch or conduct a giveaway.
You can also use your current customers' and promoters’ content (user-generated content) and re-post their content or encourage them to use a hashtag to share their experiences and pictures with your products.
Lastly, leverage trends. Social media trends are always coming up, especially on short-form video platforms like TikTok. Don't be afraid to join in but you still have to be intentional about how you do it.
"If the trend started happening three weeks ago, you've probably missed the boat," Morgan said. "Catching the trends early is the best way to capitalize on it without coming across as inauthentic or like you're trying too hard, or worse [as] 'chuegy' – see Gen Z for that one."
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Step 7: Organize a schedule for your posts.
Using a social media management solution is one of the easiest ways to ensure your content is shared as planned. These tools let you write captions, prepare pictures and videos, and schedule posts in advance. Some even automatically share your content on schedule and monitor post interactions and engagement.
I recently tested a few social media content calendar tools (you can check out my tests here), and I can’t recommend them enough. They were all extremely easy to use, and the time-saving benefits are a worthwhile investment for any social media marketer looking to optimize their process and save time.
Here are a few examples of some of your options.
HubSpot
HubSpot offers a social media tool — as part of the marketing software — to help you publish and monitor your content and create real connections with your followers. You can schedule and publish your content in advance and compare in-depth reports on your posts’ engagement to understand the performance of various platforms, types of content, and posting times.
Sprout Social
Sprout Social is a social media marketing and management solution designed to help your team organize and plan content creation, manage campaigns, understand engagement, and review content reports and analysis.
Hootsuite
Hootsuite is a social media management platform for finding, scheduling, managing, and reporting on your content. You can schedule posts in advance on all of your channels at once and measure your ROI with comprehensive content analysis.
How often should you post on social media?
As a rule of thumb, you should only post on social media when you have quality content to share (meaning that there’s a reason you’re posting it). This can help you strike the right balance when it comes to posting frequency.
Morgan says the top mistake she sees brands make regarding social media marketing is focusing on quantity of content instead of the quality of content.
"They think they need to post every day, so they force themselves to create posts to fill up the calendar," she said. "Odds are, every single one of those posts isn't going to be very valuable to the ideal customer, I've coined this 'clutter content.'"
Instead, she recommends downsizing in quantity and upping the quality.
"It's better to post two or three times a week with super valuable content, versus posting seven times a week with only one or two valuable posts," said Morgan.
There are plenty of studies and resources available explaining social media post frequency standards by industry and platform for you to follow. Every business is different, so find what works for your audience.
I do have a cheat code for you, though. Iskiev, who I mentioned above, asked marketers how often they post on social media, and they most commonly said multiple times per week. This can be a guiding metric but, as always, make final decisions based on your audience.
Look at your analytics to see when you get the most engagement, and create a posting schedule that speaks to those times. Then, you can begin experimenting with more or fewer posts – as well as other factors such as the time of day you're posting on social – to determine what provides the highest level of engagement.
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Step 8: Review and adjust your strategy.
Social media is always evolving, so it’s important to periodically check in and make sure your strategy is still effective.
I recommend setting a regular cadence for reviewing your social media strategy. This could be monthly, quarterly, or annually, depending on your business needs and resources. Use these reviews to determine what's working, what needs improvement, and what new opportunities to explore.
When conducting these reviews, take the time to assess whether you're making progress toward your social media goals and objectives. Compare your actual performance against the benchmarks and KPIs you established. Then, identify any gaps or areas that need improvement.
It’s also important to keep up with the latest trends. Be sure to monitor changes in social media algorithms, user behavior, or new features, as well as emerging platforms and technologies.
For instance, if you heavily use Twitter as part of your social media strategy, consider the implications of the platform's rebrand to X and the new competitors since Elon Musk purchased it.
Before we dive into analyzing your social media marketing efforts, lets take a look at key social media platforms to give you a sense of how social media strategies look on different platforms.
Social Media Marketing Platforms
- Users: 2.8 billion daily active users worldwide
- Audience: Cusp of Gen Z and Millennials (most users aged 24-35)
- Industry impact: B2C
- Best for: Brand awareness, advertising, community building
Facebook is the largest and most established social media platform. Since its launch in 2004, it has become an invaluable tool for B2C businesses, offering advanced advertising tools and organic opportunities.
Featured Resources:
- Facebook Marketing: The Ultimate Guide
- How to Run Facebook Ads: Step-by-Step Guide to Advertising on Facebook
TikTok
- Users: 1 billion active monthly global users
- Audience: Primarily Gen Z followed by Millennials
- Industry impact: B2C, then B2B
- Best for: Short-form, creative video content, user-generated content, building brand awareness
When you think of short-form video, you probably think of TikTok. The platform rose in popularity in 2020 and shows no signs of slowing down. It's one of the best platforms for community building, with marketers ranking it in third place behind YouTube.
Featured Resources:
- How to Use TikTok: A Step-by-Step Guide
- How Does the TikTok Algorithm Work?
- 13 Best TikTok Tips & Tricks, According to HubSpot’s Social Team + Marketer Data
- Users: 1 billion monthly active users
- Audience: Nearly even distribution of Gen Z and Millennials
- Industry impact: B2C
- Best for: High-quality images and videos; user-generated content; advertising
Instagram launched 13 years ago and has taken the world by storm. When it comes to sharing visually compelling content, Instagram is where brands go. Another thing that sets the platform apart is its advanced eCommerce tools.
Today, users can discover brands, browse their products and/or services, and complete a purchase without leaving the app – making Instagram a hard platform to beat. In fact, consumers say Instagram offers the best in-app shopping experience, and Instagram Shops is the most popular social selling feature among social media marketers.
Featured Resources:
- Instagram Marketing: The Ultimate Guide
- How to Gain Your First (or Next) 1,000 Instagram Followers - 31 Tips
- 41 Instagram Features, Hacks, & Tips Everyone Should Know About
X (formerly Twitter)
- Users: 550 million daily active users worldwide
- Audience: Primarily Millennials
- Industry impact: B2B and B2C
- Best for: Public relations, customer service, community building
While Instagram focuses on visuals, X (formerly Twitter) focuses on words. Since the early days of 140-character Tweets (the limit is now 280), the platform has now expanded to include an audio tool called X Spaces, a community-building tool for creators called Twitter Subscriptions, and Twitter Blue for those interested in an elevated Twitter experience.
Featured Resource:
- Users: 770 million active users worldwide
- Audience: Older Gen Z (24+), Millennials (largest user base), and Gen X
- Industry impact: B2B
- Best for: B2B relationships, business development, and social selling
LinkedIn is Facebook's professional cousin. It's perhaps the only platform where its audience is clearly defined: Working professionals looking to network and seek out new opportunities.
That makes it the ideal platform for B2B companies looking to identify key decision-makers and build an industry-specific community.
Featured Resources:
- The Beginner’s Guide to LinkedIn Marketing
- Social Selling on LinkedIn: The Ultimate Guide
- How to Craft the Perfect LinkedIn Profile
YouTube
- Users: Over 2.4 billion users worldwide
- Audience: Primarily Millennials but has a strong audience across gender and age demographics
- Industry impact: B2C and B2B
- Best for: Brand awareness, long-form entertainment, how-to and explainer videos, SEO, advertising
YouTube is the second most visited website in the world. In addition, marketers name it the second-best platform to build community.
In addition to being an incredibly popular platform, its users tend to stay longer because it features mostly long-form content – making it an ideal platform to share educational content.
Featured Resources:
- YouTube Marketing: The Ultimate Guide
- YouTube Ads for Beginners: How to Launch & Optimize a YouTube Video Advertising Campaign
- YouTube Demographics & Data to Know
Snapchat
- Users: 406 million daily active users worldwide
- Audience: Primarily Generation Z
- Industry impact: B2C
- Best for: Brand awareness, advertising, location-based marketing
When Snapchat came out in 2011, leading the charge in ephemeral content. It introduced content that you could share with your friends and that would expire after 24 hours.
Many thought the brand would disappear once Instagram introduced Stories, the same feature with a different name, but it continues to be popular among young adults.
Featured Resource:
- Users: 482 million monthly active users worldwide
- Audience: Primarily Millennials with a solid audience in Gen Z
- Industry impact: B2C
- Best for: Visual advertising; inspiration
Think of Pinterest as a visual storyboard that allows users to get inspiration for everything from fashion to home decor.
85% of Pinners say Pinterest is where they go to start a new project. In addition, 80% of weekly Pinners say they've discovered a new brand or product on the platform. So, not only is it a great discovery tool, but it's also a way for brands to build their narrative through visual stories.
Featured Resources:
Clubhouse
- Users: 10 million weekly active users worldwide (according to latest data from 2022)
- Audience: Primarily Millennials
- Industry impact: B2B and B2C
- Best for: Visu
Clubhouse made a strong impression as soon as it entered the social media world in 2020. The audio-only platform allows people to start interesting conversations with followers as well as strangers and build community.
The platform also gained some buzz for its invitation-only set up when it was in beta testing. Today, the platform is open to everyone globally and on both IOS and Android devices. Another big selling point to this platform is that it works well for both B2B and B2C businesses and leverages audio, which has made a huge comeback in recent years.
Now that we've detailed the fundamentals of each social media network, how to analyze your results once you use them.
How to Analyze Your Social Media Marketing Impact and Results
One of the most important aspects of social media marketing is ensuring your efforts are successful in helping you meet your goals. To determine this, you'll need to keep track of your posts on every channel. You can do this by reviewing and managing your social media metrics.
Social Media Metrics
Social media metrics are data related to the success of your posts and your impact on your audience and customers on various platforms. These metrics may include data about levels of engagement, likes, follows, shares, and all other interactions on each platform.
These are the ten most important metrics I recommend tracking:
- Engagement: This includes clicks, comments, likes, and replies on your social media posts. There are also platform-specific types of engagement, such as "Saved" posts on Instagram and "Pinned" posts on Pinterest.
- Reach: The number of people who have seen any content associated with your page or profile is your reach.
- Followers: This is the number of people who have clicked your "Follow" button and regularly see your content in their feeds.
- Impressions: This is the number of times a post is seen, regardless of interaction. Impressions usually come from someone scrolling through their feed.
- Video views: On Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, or any other social channel with video capabilities, this is the number of views each gets.
- Profile visits: The number of people who have visited your profile is the number of profile visits.
- Mentions and tags: This is when someone mentions your brand, business, or profile in their own post. Someone might add your profile’s hand to a piece of their content with a direct tag, usually using the “@” symbol. For example, “loving these new shoes from @nike.”
- Reposts: This is when a member of your audience posts a piece of your content on their profile.
- Shares: This is the number of times people have shared content from your profile to their own or with their network.
You can influence all of these metrics, increase your social following, and improve overall engagement on your profile by using the same tactics you use to generate leads and boost conversions.
Morgan adds that the metrics you focus on will depend on your business’ level of maturity:
- If you're new, focus on building an audience and awareness. Key metrics: reach, impressions, audience growth.
- If you're growing, focus on building trust. Key metrics: Likes, saves, comments, DMs.
- If you're established, focus on retaining and nurturing. Key metrics: Likes, saves, comments, DMs.
- If you're launching something, focus on selling. Key metrics: DMs and clickthrough rate
How to Measure Social Media Metrics
There are multiple ways to monitor your social media metrics. Some platforms even have built-in analytics tools for you to use:
You might also choose to use an analytics and tracking tool such as Google Analytics. I view it as a great option if you want to track your social media and website metrics. Lastly, many social media scheduling solutions — as we reviewed earlier — have built-in monitoring and analytics tools.
Any metrics tracking tool you use will give you a better understanding of what your followers and audience respond well to and what you should consider modifying to improve engagement.
Now that we've reviewed the benefits of social media marketing and how to build your strategy, let's go over additional resources available to help you along the way.
Social Media Marketing Resources
There are a plethora of social media marketing resources out there that can help you build a social strategy for your company. Let’s go over some high-quality options.
Social Media Marketing Courses and Training
Here are two ways to earn an education in the field of social media marketing if you feel it's necessary for your specific business situation.
1. Earn a certificate administered by a company.
A certificate is a quick and simple way to gain a deep understanding of social media marketing courses.
HubSpot offers a free social media certification course, which teaches you how to engage with your customers and improve conversions. You'll also get a better understanding of how to develop your strategy, extend your reach, and measure your social media ROI.
LinkedIn Learning is another platform where you can earn a certification and share it on your profile.
2. Leverage YouTube university.
YouTube is a goldmine of educational content.
With a quick search, you'll find hundreds of long-form videos offering in-depth courses on social media marketing. Granted, you can't connect with a live educator. However, it's free and can be a great starting point before you dive into a paid course.
Social Media Marketing Books
Reading relevant content about social media marketing is another great way to learn more about the field. Here are a few examples of some highly-regarded books on the topic.
1. Likable Social Media, Third Edition: How to Delight Your Customers, Create an Irresistible Brand, and Be Generally Amazing on All Social Networks That Matter by Dave Kerpen
This New York Times Bestseller covers the reasons why being likable and engaging with followers on social media is one of the most powerful ways to grow your base of customers and promoters.
The book teaches you how to make impactful content for your followers to interact with and share with their networks. Author Dave Kerpen also describes why you need to ensure you're consistently delighting your followers to avoid losing them at any point in time.
2. Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook: How to Tell Your Story in a Noisy Social World by Gary Vaynerchuk
According to author Gary Vaynerchuk, the key to social media marketing success isn't about pushing out a lot of content — it's about pushing out specific content tailored towards your target audience and using the right platform to do so.
In his book, Vaynerchuk covers how to do this as well as connect with your followers and customers on a deeper level through social media. You'll learn how to create memorable and unique content that stands out in comparison to the competition's content.
3. The B2B Social Media Book: Become a Marketing Superstar by Generating Leads with Blogging, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Email, and More by Kipp Bodnar
HubSpot's CMO, Kipp Bodnar, writes about the ways B2B businesses can generate more leads and conversions through social media marketing.
There are actionable methods you can take to increase your base of followers and drive leads as well as understand the ROI of various B2B social media marketing strategies.
Emerging Social Media Platforms
Recent HubSpot Blog Research found that marketers are constantly on the lookout for new or emerging platforms.
Though it can take a while for platforms to take off, once they do, you’ll want to have a plan of attack.
Chipotle, for example, was one of the first brands to try sharing short-form video content on TikTok, and it now has a strong presence on the platform. Other brands haven’t been so lucky and still struggle to find their place. (TikTokers don’t shy away from telling brands when they don’t like something and won’t mince their words).
Emerging platforms can offer a new avenue to reach your target audience in a way that may be more effective than what you're doing now. In 2024, Threads and Lemon8 are among some of the most popular emerging platforms, and Bereal is also working to make its mark.
Want to learn more about what's out there? Check out this article on social media platforms to keep an eye on this year.
Start Marketing on Social Media
Considering there are billions of people on social media today, it's easy to see why so many businesses and marketers use the channel to promote their products and engage with customers.
Although determining your company's social media course of action may seem daunting, you can avoid feeling overwhelmed by understanding how social media marketing works and leveraging the resources available about the topic (like this piece!)
Start working on your business’s social media marketing strategy today to increase your followers, improve engagement, and boost conversions.
Editor's note: This post was originally published in March 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.
from Marketing https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/social-media-marketing
Marketers’ top goal with social media marketing is increasing engagement. However, their top challenge is creating content that inspires the engagement they look for.
Since social media plays such an essential top-of-the-funnel role, it’s important to understand how to use the platform to meet your goals.
In this post, we'll dive into all things social media marketing — what it is, its benefits, and how to build a social media marketing strategy that drives the results you want.
Social media marketing is all about meeting your target audience and customers where they are and as they socially interact with each other and your brand.
While social media marketing is incredibly valuable and beneficial to your business growth (as you'll see in the following section), your strategy will differ based on which social networks your audience spends their time on.
Before we dig deeper into social media marketing, let's segment the strategy by platform.
Benefits of Social Media Marketing
To illustrate the benefits of social media marketing, let's take a look at the experience from the user's perspective. Well, my perspective, to be exact.
As I scroll through my Instagram feed every day (cough, cough...multiple times a day), I consistently notice new posts and stories by The Frye Company. I’ve always been a fan of their boots, clothing, and accessories, but I also love the content they share on their Instagram profile.
All of their photos have the same filter to ensure they match — this makes their profile look professional, artistic, and organized when visitors, like myself, browse their page.
Frye’s account also encourages interaction between the company and its followers by providing them with a specific hashtag to use so they can be featured on the page when they post photos with Frye products.
Frye’s Instagram account is a great example of successful social media marketing — it’s attractive, distinctly Frye, engages their ~200K followers, and promotes their products.
But why is social media marketing so important? And how do you build a social media marketing strategy that’ll work for your business?
There are a variety of reasons why your company should use social media marketing. We've created a list of the most beneficial reasons to consider.
Let's dive in.
1. Increase your brand awareness.
Due to the sheer number of people on social media, you're missing out on the potential to reach thousands, and even millions, if you don't have a presence.
In fact, social media has proven to boost brand awareness by driving up engagement, including things like comments, likes, shares, reposts, and saves.
It also helps you increase brand awareness by directing traffic straight to your site. You can do this by including links to your website and other offers in your profile, bio, and posts.
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2. Generate leads and boost conversions.
Promoting and sharing your products on social media is a simple way to improve lead generation, boost conversions, and increase sales because you're advertising to people who have opted to engage with you by following your account.
Here are some examples of ways to use social media to generate more leads.
- Create contests for your visitors and followers to participate in on your social media profiles.
- Include links to your website and offers in the bio sections of your profiles.
- Host live videos to announce new products and provide updates or details about exciting news at your company.
- Implement a social media marketing campaign on one of your channels.
- Sell your products through your social profiles. For example, you can enable Facebook's Shop Section or Instagram's Shopping feature on your profiles. These features allow your visitors and followers to click on products you've shared in posts to view price, material, and size information. Then, visitors can easily proceed to checkout through the platform and buy the product directly from you.
3. Foster relationships with your customers.
Connecting and engaging with your social media followers can build lasting relationships between them and your business. You can do this by interacting with them on your posts, responding to their questions and comments, and providing them with any help they may need.
You can also ask your followers questions about your products and their pain points or create giveaways to help you build trust and show them how much you value their input and support.
4. Learn from your competitors.
Social media is a great way to keep tabs on your competitors — whether it's their social media tactics, the products they're promoting, the campaigns they're implementing, or their level of interaction with followers.
Social media allows you to look at what is and isn't working for your competition and, therefore, helps you decide what should or shouldn't change regarding your company's approach.
Lastly, reviewing your competitors' social accounts can help you make sure your marketing stands out and is unique to your brand.
Learn how to conduct a competitive analysis to discover how you can beat the competition.
Now, let's talk strategy — there are several steps to ensure your social media marketing plan is sustainable and positively impacts your business.
Although social media constantly evolves, most foundational steps to succeed stay the same. Essentially, you're following the same steps you would take to create a marketing strategy and narrowing it to a specific channel.
I'll cover these steps in more detail so you can begin applying them to your business.
Step 1: Set clear goals.
The first step to creating a social media marketing strategy is to define your social media goals and ensure that they align with your overall business objectives.
Ask yourself: What do you want to achieve through your social media efforts? Examples could be increasing brand awareness, driving website traffic, generating leads, boosting customer engagement, or improving customer satisfaction.
Once you've set your high-level goals, break them down into smaller, actionable steps. This helps you identify the specific actions and strategies needed to achieve your goals.
For example, if my goal is to increase website traffic through social media, helpful, actionable steps could include increasing posting frequency, optimizing content for sharing, or running targeted ad campaigns.
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Step 2: Research your buyer personas and audience.
Whatever Thoreau once said about building castles and setting foundations under them is absolutely true.
Okay, yes, he was definitely not talking about social media marketing, but bear with me — you’ve set your goals (built castles), and now you need to define how you’ll meet them (the foundation). Your goals will mean nothing without the foundation that helps you meet them.
That’s why, after establishing your goals, the next step is to outline how you’ll meet them, and one of the best ways to start is to determine who your buyer personas and audience are so you can target their needs and interests appropriately.
Without knowing who they are, you won’t be able to share the content they’re looking for to entice a response from them that helps you meet your goal.
To do this, consider the people you're trying to reach, why, and how you would classify them as a group. For example, if your company sells trendy leggings and joggers, you might classify your target audience as millennials who like to wear stylish athletic apparel regularly — a style known as athleisure.
By considering your buyer personas and audience, you'll then be able to determine what content will attract the type of followers and customers you hope to gain. Plus, learn how to create engaging content to keep your followers interested.
Pro Tip: I recommend gathering feedback from your followers to get insights into their preferences, pain points, and satisfaction levels. This data can help you identify areas for improvement and refine your buyer personas.
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Step 3: Determine which social platforms you'll market on.
As a social media marketer, it’s important to determine which platforms you’ll use.
I can’t give you a yes or no list regarding which social channels your business should use — it's more about the needs of your target audience, where they spend their time, and the kind of content you want to create.
"It's important to be where your audience of potential customers is today, and where they might be tomorrow," said Andrew Delaney, former social media marketing manager at HubSpot. "It's better to be ahead of the curve than behind."
For example, Gen Z is all about TikTok. If that’s your primary audience, I would consider it a best practice to use that platform and meet them where they already are.
If you're going for that target audience of athleisure-loving millennials, you may want to focus most of your social media efforts on Instagram — millennials are the largest user base on the platform.
Stephanie Morgan, founder and CEO of Social Lock, a top social media agency, echoes this sentiment.
"Think about their behaviors and where they hang out online. If that's Pinterest, use that platform for your brand. If that's TikTok, use that platform for your brand," Morgan adds. "Don't waste time on a platform that your ideal client avatar is not very active on."
When it comes to the content you want to create, consider what each platform specializes in. For example, if you want to share video-forward content, a platform that favors that, like YouTube, is your best bet.
All of this to say, you aren’t restricted to best-fit channels. Having a presence on multiple platforms is important, and I always encourage experimentation on emerging platforms or platforms that don’t entirely align with your social media marketing needs. Not only does it diversify your strategy, but it also helps you interact with the unique audiences and requirements of each platform.
However, I can only recommend this type of experimentation for businesses with established marketing strategies on platforms that work and deliver your desired results. Placing all of your stake in something new if you’re just getting started can do more harm than good.
Recommended Tools and Resources
- A Marketer's Guide to Snapchat for Business
- 50 Facebook Ad Examples We Actually Clicked
- YouTube for Business: A 30-Day Roadmap for Growth
- How to Use Twitter for Business (+ Follower Tracking Template)
- 12 Pinterest Templates for Business
Step 4: Establish your most important metrics and KPIs.
Your social media strategy should be data-driven, regardless of your goals or industry.
That means focusing on the social media metrics that matter. Rather than focus on vanity metrics, dig into data that aligns directly with your goals.
What metrics am I talking about? Check out the breakdown below:
- Reach. Post reach is the number of unique users who saw your post. How much of your content actually reaches users’ feeds?
- Clicks. This is the number of clicks on your content or account. Tracking clicks per campaign is essential to understanding what drives curiosity or encourages people to buy.
- Engagement. The total number of social interactions divided by the number of impressions. This shows how well your audience perceives you and their willingness to interact.
- Hashtag performance. What were your most-used hashtags? Which hashtags were most associated with your brand? Having these answers can help shape the focus of your content going forward.
- Organic and paid likes. Beyond a standard “Like” count, these interactions are attributed to paid or organic content. Given how much harder organic engagement is to gain, many brands turn to ads. Knowing these differences can help you budget your ad spend and the time you invest in different formats.
- Sentiment. This measures how users react to your content, brand, or hashtag. Did customers find your recent campaign offensive? What type of sentiment do people associate with your campaign hashtag? It’s always better to dig deeper and discover how people talk or feel about your brand.
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Step 5: Get to know your competition.
Whether you’re just starting with social media marketing or have years under your belt, it’s always important to understand the current state of your industry, especially when it comes to your competitors.
This is where I call your attention to a trusty competitive analysis: it allows you to understand who the competition is and what they’re doing well (and not so well). You’ll get a good sense of what’s expected in your industry, which will help you set your own social media targets.
It will also help you spot opportunities. Say, for example, my main competitor is dominant on Facebook but puts little effort into Twitter or Instagram. Rather than solely focusing on winning fans away from a dominant player, I can also look to networks where my audience is underserved. I’m not abandoning Facebook (because I know it works), but I’m diversifying my strategy and building a presence where an untapped audience is ready to hear from me.
Pro Tip: I recommend monitoring your competitors’ customer reviews to gain insights into what their customers like and dislike about them. Pay attention to common complaints or recurring themes to understand their pain points, and aim to solve those pains in your own strategy.
Recommended Tools and Resources
- What's a Competitive Analysis & How Do You Conduct One?
- A Marketer's Guide To Competitive Intelligence
- How to Monitor Your Competitors' Every Move in Social Within HubSpot
Step 6: Create unique and engaging content.
With billions of social media users around the globe, there's no question that at least some of your followers — or the people browsing your profile — have also seen your competitor's content or that of other businesses in your industry.
This is why it’s important to have engaging social media content that stands out and provides viewers with a reason to click that "Follow" button and interact with your brand. If your content keeps them engaged, social media algorithms will also work in your favor and prioritize showing them your content because they’ve demonstrated an interest in it.
This is entirely true of my social media experience. I follow quite a few brands on Instagram, but I only regularly see content from 3 or 4 because they have the most engaging content that inspires me to interact. The algorithm learns what I like and prioritizes their posts over others, so I only get to their Stories when I’ve relentlessly tapped through every other story (doesn’t happen that often) or scrolled to the bottom of my feed (happens even less).
Not sure what's considered engaging? Morgan has a recommendation.
"My number one tip to brands for creating engaging content on social media is to do market research first because what will be engaging depends on the audience," Morgan said. "When you know what your audience likes and needs to know, you can create content that engages those interests."
Want some hard facts about what content to create? Here’s some insights directly from consumers, thanks to my teammate Max Iskiev's research into consumer trends:
- Consumers spend the most time engaging with visual content, specifically images/photos/infographics (53%) and short-form video content (44%)
- Millennials spend the most time engaging with short-form video content
- Gen Z, Millennials, and Gen X enjoy video content the most, and Boomers enjoy images/photos/infographics.
- Relatable content is the most memorable content overall among consumers. For Gen Z and Millennials, funny content is the most memorable.
Another tip to help you get creative is to consider the content your competitors are sharing and how you can uniquely promote your products.
Also, take advantage of the features offered by the platforms you use. For example, you can create live videos on Facebook to share the latest details about a product launch or conduct a giveaway.
You can also use your current customers' and promoters’ content (user-generated content) and re-post their content or encourage them to use a hashtag to share their experiences and pictures with your products.
Lastly, leverage trends. Social media trends are always coming up, especially on short-form video platforms like TikTok. Don't be afraid to join in but you still have to be intentional about how you do it.
"If the trend started happening three weeks ago, you've probably missed the boat," Morgan said. "Catching the trends early is the best way to capitalize on it without coming across as inauthentic or like you're trying too hard, or worse [as] 'chuegy' – see Gen Z for that one."
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Step 7: Organize a schedule for your posts.
Using a social media management solution is one of the easiest ways to ensure your content is shared as planned. These tools let you write captions, prepare pictures and videos, and schedule posts in advance. Some even automatically share your content on schedule and monitor post interactions and engagement.
I recently tested a few social media content calendar tools (you can check out my tests here), and I can’t recommend them enough. They were all extremely easy to use, and the time-saving benefits are a worthwhile investment for any social media marketer looking to optimize their process and save time.
Here are a few examples of some of your options.
HubSpot
HubSpot offers a social media tool — as part of the marketing software — to help you publish and monitor your content and create real connections with your followers. You can schedule and publish your content in advance and compare in-depth reports on your posts’ engagement to understand the performance of various platforms, types of content, and posting times.
Sprout Social
Sprout Social is a social media marketing and management solution designed to help your team organize and plan content creation, manage campaigns, understand engagement, and review content reports and analysis.
Hootsuite
Hootsuite is a social media management platform for finding, scheduling, managing, and reporting on your content. You can schedule posts in advance on all of your channels at once and measure your ROI with comprehensive content analysis.
How often should you post on social media?
As a rule of thumb, you should only post on social media when you have quality content to share (meaning that there’s a reason you’re posting it). This can help you strike the right balance when it comes to posting frequency.
Morgan says the top mistake she sees brands make regarding social media marketing is focusing on quantity of content instead of the quality of content.
"They think they need to post every day, so they force themselves to create posts to fill up the calendar," she said. "Odds are, every single one of those posts isn't going to be very valuable to the ideal customer, I've coined this 'clutter content.'"
Instead, she recommends downsizing in quantity and upping the quality.
"It's better to post two or three times a week with super valuable content, versus posting seven times a week with only one or two valuable posts," said Morgan.
There are plenty of studies and resources available explaining social media post frequency standards by industry and platform for you to follow. Every business is different, so find what works for your audience.
I do have a cheat code for you, though. Iskiev, who I mentioned above, asked marketers how often they post on social media, and they most commonly said multiple times per week. This can be a guiding metric but, as always, make final decisions based on your audience.
Look at your analytics to see when you get the most engagement, and create a posting schedule that speaks to those times. Then, you can begin experimenting with more or fewer posts – as well as other factors such as the time of day you're posting on social – to determine what provides the highest level of engagement.
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Step 8: Review and adjust your strategy.
Social media is always evolving, so it’s important to periodically check in and make sure your strategy is still effective.
I recommend setting a regular cadence for reviewing your social media strategy. This could be monthly, quarterly, or annually, depending on your business needs and resources. Use these reviews to determine what's working, what needs improvement, and what new opportunities to explore.
When conducting these reviews, take the time to assess whether you're making progress toward your social media goals and objectives. Compare your actual performance against the benchmarks and KPIs you established. Then, identify any gaps or areas that need improvement.
It’s also important to keep up with the latest trends. Be sure to monitor changes in social media algorithms, user behavior, or new features, as well as emerging platforms and technologies.
For instance, if you heavily use Twitter as part of your social media strategy, consider the implications of the platform's rebrand to X and the new competitors since Elon Musk purchased it.
Before we dive into analyzing your social media marketing efforts, lets take a look at key social media platforms to give you a sense of how social media strategies look on different platforms.
Social Media Marketing Platforms
- Users: 2.8 billion daily active users worldwide
- Audience: Cusp of Gen Z and Millennials (most users aged 24-35)
- Industry impact: B2C
- Best for: Brand awareness, advertising, community building
Facebook is the largest and most established social media platform. Since its launch in 2004, it has become an invaluable tool for B2C businesses, offering advanced advertising tools and organic opportunities.
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- Facebook Marketing: The Ultimate Guide
- How to Run Facebook Ads: Step-by-Step Guide to Advertising on Facebook
TikTok
- Users: 1 billion active monthly global users
- Audience: Primarily Gen Z followed by Millennials
- Industry impact: B2C, then B2B
- Best for: Short-form, creative video content, user-generated content, building brand awareness
When you think of short-form video, you probably think of TikTok. The platform rose in popularity in 2020 and shows no signs of slowing down. It's one of the best platforms for community building, with marketers ranking it in third place behind YouTube.
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- How to Use TikTok: A Step-by-Step Guide
- How Does the TikTok Algorithm Work?
- 13 Best TikTok Tips & Tricks, According to HubSpot’s Social Team + Marketer Data
- Users: 1 billion monthly active users
- Audience: Nearly even distribution of Gen Z and Millennials
- Industry impact: B2C
- Best for: High-quality images and videos; user-generated content; advertising
Instagram launched 13 years ago and has taken the world by storm. When it comes to sharing visually compelling content, Instagram is where brands go. Another thing that sets the platform apart is its advanced eCommerce tools.
Today, users can discover brands, browse their products and/or services, and complete a purchase without leaving the app – making Instagram a hard platform to beat. In fact, consumers say Instagram offers the best in-app shopping experience, and Instagram Shops is the most popular social selling feature among social media marketers.
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- Instagram Marketing: The Ultimate Guide
- How to Gain Your First (or Next) 1,000 Instagram Followers - 31 Tips
- 41 Instagram Features, Hacks, & Tips Everyone Should Know About
X (formerly Twitter)
- Users: 550 million daily active users worldwide
- Audience: Primarily Millennials
- Industry impact: B2B and B2C
- Best for: Public relations, customer service, community building
While Instagram focuses on visuals, X (formerly Twitter) focuses on words. Since the early days of 140-character Tweets (the limit is now 280), the platform has now expanded to include an audio tool called X Spaces, a community-building tool for creators called Twitter Subscriptions, and Twitter Blue for those interested in an elevated Twitter experience.
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- Users: 770 million active users worldwide
- Audience: Older Gen Z (24+), Millennials (largest user base), and Gen X
- Industry impact: B2B
- Best for: B2B relationships, business development, and social selling
LinkedIn is Facebook's professional cousin. It's perhaps the only platform where its audience is clearly defined: Working professionals looking to network and seek out new opportunities.
That makes it the ideal platform for B2B companies looking to identify key decision-makers and build an industry-specific community.
Featured Resources:
- The Beginner’s Guide to LinkedIn Marketing
- Social Selling on LinkedIn: The Ultimate Guide
- How to Craft the Perfect LinkedIn Profile
YouTube
- Users: Over 2.4 billion users worldwide
- Audience: Primarily Millennials but has a strong audience across gender and age demographics
- Industry impact: B2C and B2B
- Best for: Brand awareness, long-form entertainment, how-to and explainer videos, SEO, advertising
YouTube is the second most visited website in the world. In addition, marketers name it the second-best platform to build community.
In addition to being an incredibly popular platform, its users tend to stay longer because it features mostly long-form content – making it an ideal platform to share educational content.
Featured Resources:
- YouTube Marketing: The Ultimate Guide
- YouTube Ads for Beginners: How to Launch & Optimize a YouTube Video Advertising Campaign
- YouTube Demographics & Data to Know
Snapchat
- Users: 406 million daily active users worldwide
- Audience: Primarily Generation Z
- Industry impact: B2C
- Best for: Brand awareness, advertising, location-based marketing
When Snapchat came out in 2011, leading the charge in ephemeral content. It introduced content that you could share with your friends and that would expire after 24 hours.
Many thought the brand would disappear once Instagram introduced Stories, the same feature with a different name, but it continues to be popular among young adults.
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- Users: 482 million monthly active users worldwide
- Audience: Primarily Millennials with a solid audience in Gen Z
- Industry impact: B2C
- Best for: Visual advertising; inspiration
Think of Pinterest as a visual storyboard that allows users to get inspiration for everything from fashion to home decor.
85% of Pinners say Pinterest is where they go to start a new project. In addition, 80% of weekly Pinners say they've discovered a new brand or product on the platform. So, not only is it a great discovery tool, but it's also a way for brands to build their narrative through visual stories.
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Clubhouse
- Users: 10 million weekly active users worldwide (according to latest data from 2022)
- Audience: Primarily Millennials
- Industry impact: B2B and B2C
- Best for: Visu
Clubhouse made a strong impression as soon as it entered the social media world in 2020. The audio-only platform allows people to start interesting conversations with followers as well as strangers and build community.
The platform also gained some buzz for its invitation-only set up when it was in beta testing. Today, the platform is open to everyone globally and on both IOS and Android devices. Another big selling point to this platform is that it works well for both B2B and B2C businesses and leverages audio, which has made a huge comeback in recent years.
Now that we've detailed the fundamentals of each social media network, how to analyze your results once you use them.
How to Analyze Your Social Media Marketing Impact and Results
One of the most important aspects of social media marketing is ensuring your efforts are successful in helping you meet your goals. To determine this, you'll need to keep track of your posts on every channel. You can do this by reviewing and managing your social media metrics.
Social Media Metrics
Social media metrics are data related to the success of your posts and your impact on your audience and customers on various platforms. These metrics may include data about levels of engagement, likes, follows, shares, and all other interactions on each platform.
These are the ten most important metrics I recommend tracking:
- Engagement: This includes clicks, comments, likes, and replies on your social media posts. There are also platform-specific types of engagement, such as "Saved" posts on Instagram and "Pinned" posts on Pinterest.
- Reach: The number of people who have seen any content associated with your page or profile is your reach.
- Followers: This is the number of people who have clicked your "Follow" button and regularly see your content in their feeds.
- Impressions: This is the number of times a post is seen, regardless of interaction. Impressions usually come from someone scrolling through their feed.
- Video views: On Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, or any other social channel with video capabilities, this is the number of views each gets.
- Profile visits: The number of people who have visited your profile is the number of profile visits.
- Mentions and tags: This is when someone mentions your brand, business, or profile in their own post. Someone might add your profile’s hand to a piece of their content with a direct tag, usually using the “@” symbol. For example, “loving these new shoes from @nike.”
- Reposts: This is when a member of your audience posts a piece of your content on their profile.
- Shares: This is the number of times people have shared content from your profile to their own or with their network.
You can influence all of these metrics, increase your social following, and improve overall engagement on your profile by using the same tactics you use to generate leads and boost conversions.
Morgan adds that the metrics you focus on will depend on your business’ level of maturity:
- If you're new, focus on building an audience and awareness. Key metrics: reach, impressions, audience growth.
- If you're growing, focus on building trust. Key metrics: Likes, saves, comments, DMs.
- If you're established, focus on retaining and nurturing. Key metrics: Likes, saves, comments, DMs.
- If you're launching something, focus on selling. Key metrics: DMs and clickthrough rate
How to Measure Social Media Metrics
There are multiple ways to monitor your social media metrics. Some platforms even have built-in analytics tools for you to use:
You might also choose to use an analytics and tracking tool such as Google Analytics. I view it as a great option if you want to track your social media and website metrics. Lastly, many social media scheduling solutions — as we reviewed earlier — have built-in monitoring and analytics tools.
Any metrics tracking tool you use will give you a better understanding of what your followers and audience respond well to and what you should consider modifying to improve engagement.
Now that we've reviewed the benefits of social media marketing and how to build your strategy, let's go over additional resources available to help you along the way.
Social Media Marketing Resources
There are a plethora of social media marketing resources out there that can help you build a social strategy for your company. Let’s go over some high-quality options.
Social Media Marketing Courses and Training
Here are two ways to earn an education in the field of social media marketing if you feel it's necessary for your specific business situation.
1. Earn a certificate administered by a company.
A certificate is a quick and simple way to gain a deep understanding of social media marketing courses.
HubSpot offers a free social media certification course, which teaches you how to engage with your customers and improve conversions. You'll also get a better understanding of how to develop your strategy, extend your reach, and measure your social media ROI.
LinkedIn Learning is another platform where you can earn a certification and share it on your profile.
2. Leverage YouTube university.
YouTube is a goldmine of educational content.
With a quick search, you'll find hundreds of long-form videos offering in-depth courses on social media marketing. Granted, you can't connect with a live educator. However, it's free and can be a great starting point before you dive into a paid course.
Social Media Marketing Books
Reading relevant content about social media marketing is another great way to learn more about the field. Here are a few examples of some highly-regarded books on the topic.
1. Likable Social Media, Third Edition: How to Delight Your Customers, Create an Irresistible Brand, and Be Generally Amazing on All Social Networks That Matter by Dave Kerpen
This New York Times Bestseller covers the reasons why being likable and engaging with followers on social media is one of the most powerful ways to grow your base of customers and promoters.
The book teaches you how to make impactful content for your followers to interact with and share with their networks. Author Dave Kerpen also describes why you need to ensure you're consistently delighting your followers to avoid losing them at any point in time.
2. Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook: How to Tell Your Story in a Noisy Social World by Gary Vaynerchuk
According to author Gary Vaynerchuk, the key to social media marketing success isn't about pushing out a lot of content — it's about pushing out specific content tailored towards your target audience and using the right platform to do so.
In his book, Vaynerchuk covers how to do this as well as connect with your followers and customers on a deeper level through social media. You'll learn how to create memorable and unique content that stands out in comparison to the competition's content.
3. The B2B Social Media Book: Become a Marketing Superstar by Generating Leads with Blogging, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Email, and More by Kipp Bodnar
HubSpot's CMO, Kipp Bodnar, writes about the ways B2B businesses can generate more leads and conversions through social media marketing.
There are actionable methods you can take to increase your base of followers and drive leads as well as understand the ROI of various B2B social media marketing strategies.
Emerging Social Media Platforms
Recent HubSpot Blog Research found that marketers are constantly on the lookout for new or emerging platforms.
Though it can take a while for platforms to take off, once they do, you’ll want to have a plan of attack.
Chipotle, for example, was one of the first brands to try sharing short-form video content on TikTok, and it now has a strong presence on the platform. Other brands haven’t been so lucky and still struggle to find their place. (TikTokers don’t shy away from telling brands when they don’t like something and won’t mince their words).
Emerging platforms can offer a new avenue to reach your target audience in a way that may be more effective than what you're doing now. In 2024, Threads and Lemon8 are among some of the most popular emerging platforms, and Bereal is also working to make its mark.
Want to learn more about what's out there? Check out this article on social media platforms to keep an eye on this year.
Start Marketing on Social Media
Considering there are billions of people on social media today, it's easy to see why so many businesses and marketers use the channel to promote their products and engage with customers.
Although determining your company's social media course of action may seem daunting, you can avoid feeling overwhelmed by understanding how social media marketing works and leveraging the resources available about the topic (like this piece!)
Start working on your business’s social media marketing strategy today to increase your followers, improve engagement, and boost conversions.
Editor's note: This post was originally published in March 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.
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