Social Media Marketing Made Simple

We don’t think we need to tell you how big social media is. Usage of social media is the fastest-growing trend in the history of the world. It has even grown faster than the internet itself. There are approximately 3.6 billion people on social media, who have an average of 8.8 social media accounts. Additionally, the average person spends nearly two and a half hours checking social media every single day.

With such widespread use, social media presents an incredible marketing opportunity.

In this post, we are going to walk you through basic Social Media Marketing definitions, trends, and FAQs.

First, let’s go over some definitions.

Social Media Marketing Definitions

Here are some common terms you need to know when developing your social media marketing strategy.

Content

Content is whatever you post. It can be a Facebook status update, a photo on Instagram, a tweet, and so on. Content comes in many different forms, and you need to tailor it to each platform. What’s even more important than content, though, is context.

Context

Gary Vaynerchuk said, “Content is king, but context is God.”

For instance, you can have a great joke. But if you place it somewhere inside a 3,000-word blog post, very few people are likely to see it. On Twitter, however, that same joke as a tweet might crush it. And anyone can get in on the fun. When looking at the most retweeted, funniest Tweets ever, we can see even the CIA sees the value in using social media to create some positive buzz.

The opposite is also true. Packaging your entire blog post into one tweet is hardly possible, so try a good call to action with some relevant hashtags instead. And that brings us to hashtags.

Hashtags

By now, you probably know that hashtags are a very common tool that people use to add meta information on almost all social media channels. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest all use hashtags to let you describe the topic of your content or mark it as part of current trends.

They make your content easy for users to discover and therefore more likely that they’ll share it.

Shares

Shares are the currency of the social media world. When people engage and interact with your content, that’s good. But when they share it, that is the time to celebrate. There are some great social media tools to measure shares and the overall impact of content.

The more shares, the more people love your content. Shares are the best form of engagement that people can have.

Engagement

This is a general term referring to how people interact with the content that you produce. It can be a like, a reaction, a comment, or a share. All of these are good, but the shares are where it’s at.

Now that we’ve covered some definitions, let’s take a look at some social media marketing trends.

Social Media Marketing Trends

The social media world changes faster than any other online space. Keeping up with it isn’t an easy task. So here are a few trends you’ll want to keep in mind. Most likely, these trends will impact not just this year, but also the future.

Here’s what they are.

Organic Reach is Down

Once upon a time, a social media user could post compelling content and easily grow their social media following. After a few months, they’d receive loads of friend requests, comments, shares, and “likes,” all because of their amazing content. But today, that’s not so much the case. In fact, most social media platforms are making it increasingly difficult to build an organic following. And it’s not unintentional. Here’s why. As the ability for organic superstars to shine goes down, something else goes up.

You guessed it: Ad spend.

They make it more difficult for users to grow organically so businesses have to spend more money on advertisements. In fact, one change that Facebook made caused a 52 percent drop in organic reach per post in just a few months.

Remember: At the end of the day, social media platforms are businesses.

Social Is Becoming “Pay to Play”

As organic reach becomes more difficult, businesses have to pay to play. That’s not very surprising, really. Social media companies make practically all of their money from advertisements. In other words, social media is only free for users because advertisers are paying loads of money to reach those users.

The user is the product. But to reach them, you have to pay.

The good news is the investment is often worth it. Most social media sites still have very reasonable advertising costs, and with so many people using social media, you reach audiences you may not be able to tap into otherwise.

Channels Are Merging

As entrepreneurs create social media websites, the possibilities become increasingly endless. And that trend isn’t slowing down. As new ways of communicating, reaching customers, and pulling leads develop, so do strategies that are equally innovative. Take, for instance, cart abandonment emails.

Once, the only place to send and receive cart abandonment messages was through email.

Now, however, Facebook Messenger and a swath of other messaging platforms are equally viable.

So, what’s the point of all this? Channels are changing, and the way marketers use them is changing even more. As more and more social media sites find their footing, expect the merging of different marketing channels to happen even more than it already has.

Tools Are Merging

But it’s not just the channels that are merging. The social media tools we use are also merging.

How many times this week, for example, have you logged in to a SaaS product with Google or Facebook instead of creating new login credentials?

As more tools flood the Internet, all of it becomes cluttered for the users of those tools. Fortunately, marketing tools all around the Internet are working to integrate seamlessly with the giants of advertising.

Take MailChimp, for example. With MailChimp, an email marketing software, users can create Facebook and Instagram Ads natively from their MailChimp accounts. They can then preview their ads and post them to their chosen platform.

The more that this happens between social media platforms and SaaS companies, the easier time you’ll have marketing to your target audience.

Social Media Marketing FAQs

What is meant by “social media marketing?”

Social media marketing means marketing your brand on social media channels through organic, paid, and networking strategies.

How do I know which social media channel to market on?

Determine your target audience, then find out which platforms that demographic spends the most time on.

Which social media channel has the most users?

Facebook has the most users of any social media platform.

What are some social media marketing blogs I can read to learn more?

Neil Patel, Search Engine Journal, and HubSpot Marketing Blog are all great blogs with content about social media marketing.

Rubicom Company provides the best social media marketing services specifically catered to your business.

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