Back to basics: is your business on the right social media channels?
Each social channel uniquely caters to specific business needs. Lauren Gray of Digital Ethos breaks them down, explaining how to market on social media.
What social media channels should your business be on in 2023? / Joshua Mayo via Unsplash
Today’s social media landscape has expanded far beyond its origins as a way for friends to connect digitally. More than half of the world now use social media, with 49% of customers worldwide using it as their main channel to research brands, products and services online before making a purchase.
Brands of all sizes can optimize their social media marketing, so long as they understand their industry, and use each platform to its potential. To best target potential traffic for sales and increase brand awareness among target consumers, brands should focus their efforts on the platforms most popular with their core demographic audiences.
Without an informed strategy (and measurable goals in place), it will be challenging for businesses to benefit optimally from social media marketing.
Facebook is the most used social platform in the world, with 2.29 billion daily active users and a wide demographic range; users span age groups, genders, and interests.
Key functionalities include business pages to increase awareness and reach, and e-commerce shopping to directly engage customers. Businesses can also use the platform to advertise across meta-platforms, using audience insights to collect data and inform marketing approaches.
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As a visual platform with a great variety of creative functionalities, Instagram is the perfect platform for businesses looking to showcase their products and services. 83% of consumers say they use Instagram to discover new brands; 90% follow at least one business.
Instagram offers shoppable posts, checkouts, and live shopping directly on the app, bringing the customer experience journey into one platform. Businesses can employ a dynamic range of content features and interactive capabilities to enhance engagement and awareness, such as polls, questions, quizzes, reels, and stories.
With 830 million users, LinkedIn marketing can be used to strengthen a brand’s professional presence and credibility.
For businesses, LinkedIn offers product pages which can highlight tools or services, and interactive functionalities (posts, polls and LinkedIn Live) to directly engage consumers. LinkedIn is particularly useful for sharing downloadable content with a multitude of call-to-action links available, leading users back to your website.
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Social listening
Social listening provides key insights into public conversations, creating an opportunity to expand knowledge of the industry, competitors, and customers. Businesses can see which topics are relevant and trending; deduce sentiment around specific campaigns; and identify opportunities to stand out from competitors.
Combining findings from social listening with key industry insights and content analytics can provide a small business with a strategic edge, which can develop into a data-backed social media marketing strategy.
Building an online community
Building a social media presence can help to increase a brand’s online credibility. Engaging content can translate into an online community, which can lead to an increase in sales.
It is vital to focus just as much effort on producing quality content as on elevating the business profile across social channels. This includes clear and recognizable branding and brand values, cohesive across all activities.
Optimizing social commerce channels
With a stronger online presence and informed awareness of your audience’s interests and needs, businesses can effectively optimize their sales by taking advantage of the various e-commerce channels available on social media, including:
Native social media shopping solutions (such as Instagram Shopping)
Marketplace sales
Curated shopping lists
Live shopping events
Shoppable posts and AR filters
Social commerce has streamlined the customer journey into one platform, enabling customers to move from discovery to purchase in a single channel for an innovative and engaging shopping experience.
Businesses can use analytics to effectively target their audiences, gain valuable insight into their advertising efforts, and adapt to new trends and e-commerce functions.
Content by The Drum Network member:
Digital Ethos
We're an integrated digital consultancy that uses the latest technology, our strategic skills, passion for data and creativity to develop industry-leading marketing campaigns that blow the competition out of the water.
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