Category: Social Media Marketing

2022 Google PPC Trends Marketers Must Not Avoid

Digital Marketing is not only dynamic but encompasses a variety of tactics within it. Pay-Per-Click Advertising, more popularly recognized as PPC, is one of them.

PPC advertisements let users click on them and browse products that are for sale on any website. These digital advertisements are hosted on a publishing site that charges money to the advertiser for each click that directs the customer to their website.

Modern-day marketers consider PPC a mandatory inclusion in their digital marketing strategies. Despite the fact that there is no dearth of cost-effective options in marketing, a significant share of businesses readily engage their marketing budget in PPC advertisements. As soon as PPC advertisements are made active, they can start generating traffic and leads very quickly.

PPC ads are so popular amongst marketers as a study says that approximately 64 percent of customers click on Google Advertisements while browsing shopping sites. However, PPC Strategies are relatively tricky to devise. If marketers can carefully strategize their PPC campaigns, the results are instantaneous.

Given the fact that PPC is highly sought after and gives great results, it is imperative for marketers to stay up to date with PCC related trends each year. Hence, our digital strategists have compiled a list of 2020 PPC trends marketers must not avoid.

This list focuses on the major developments and shifts in the PPC vertical of digital marketing. Let us take a look at how these are going to affect marketing:

Increased Intervention Of Technology:

Every PPC marketer this year is going to strategize the inclusion of technologies such as Automation, Artificial Intelligence, and Machine Learning in their PPC initiatives.

Though this is not something new, the scale of intervention will significantly increase. The main job of PPC marketers would be to optimize the results of PPC advertisements by integrating these technologies.

These technologies are going to help marketers save time spent in tweaking the bids. Yes, this is true! With the integration of Machine Learning technology with Google’s Smart Bidding feature, the rate of conversions can be optimized every time an auction takes place.

Making use of machine learning algorithms, marketers can righteously predict how the influence of bids on conversion rates. The best part is that this technology generates some insights based on which marketers can also adjust the auctions manually. Automated biddings also allow the opportunity to set targets as per the varying objectives of businesses.

Optimization of search bids is possible depending upon the attribution models and data related insights. Targets for device overlap can also be set for desktops, mobiles, and tablets. The Smart Bidding Features also integrates reporting tools through which marketers can analyze the performance of auctions and make adjustments if necessary.

Integration Of Diverse Channels:

It goes without saying that every marketing strategy should be devised after keeping in mind the target audiences across diverse channels. Devising cross-channel plans to optimize PPC campaign performance will be necessary.

This year diversification will play a big role in strategies as the lines between different channels are quickly fading. The surge of relatively newer advertisements platforms such as Amazon will create a stir in the world of digital endorsements. While coming up with digital strategies, marketers should treat all the platforms as one entity. Doing so shall allow in covering all objectives for procuring the desired bottom-line results.

Overlooking the integration of channels can spell instant doom for businesses as far as conversions are concerned. We can consider the example of Google Smart Shopping to determine the importance of channel integration, developing remarketing strategies, and so much more.

Taking a cue from conventional marketing methods, marketers should ascertain how a business can grow holistically. They should then ascertain how their PPC strategies are going to fit the picture with regards to growth as well as conversion.

We have witnessed adoptions of features over social ad channels as well as platforms. However, now is the time that Paid Search and Paid Social features will require integration besides channels.

Improved Targeting Of Consumers:

Throughout a consumer’s journey, brands, as well as marketers, must make it a point to reach out to their customers strategically. The time at which they interact with the customers will also have to be taken into account besides the strategy.

Marketers shall be required to come up with a judicious mix of consumable media, content, and product offerings. Content should be made intent-rich. The focus should shift from hoarding consumers with blogs, social posts, articles, videos, etc. Instead, they should be made to realize how and why a brand’s offerings can be useful for them.

Paying to reach on the top of a search engine result page will no longer be useful. If your content does not align with the intent of the consumers, you can be very conveniently disposed off. All the focus should be on educating customers and growing in a mutually beneficial way.

Google will continue giving priority to audiences. It will keep inducting audience signals on the go and continue to focus on occasional targeting of events as well.

Some of the most amazing examples that we are witnessing are the Microsoft Audience Network where the shopping campaigns have been fully automated. Audience targeting will continue to remain the most important focus of PPC campaigns along with the evolution of keywords.

Increased Use Of Videos Ads:

The fact that videos convey the message better than written content, cannot be contested. In fact, people consume more video-based content than blogs or articles.

In fact, a report by smart insight shows that almost 83% of markets consider videos imperative for marketing and are willing to include it in their marketing strategies.

While looking for reviews of gadgets, products, and services, viewers are more likely to refer to videos instead of any other form of content. Hence, it can be easily assumed that videos are the most pragmatic way to create awareness about brands and their offerings.

Also, video marketing strategy is going to skyrocket in the coming few years. In fact, studies also suggest that millennials are likely to refer to videos twice the number of times instead of reading. Brand can use YouTube advertisements to strategically endorse their products and services in front of an extremely targeted audience.

Hence, videos will be a very important PPC trend for the year 2020.

Aiming At Platforms Other Than Google And Facebook:

Platforms other than Google and Facebook are rising in popularity. Instagram, Snapchat, Tiktok, etc. are already a hit with millennials, and a considerable share of people belonging to other age-groups are quickly catching up. They have also had a major impact on the growth of revenue for businesses.

Hence their inclusion in all marketing strategies cannot be overlooked. It is only likely that brands will shift their marketing initiatives to these platforms.

However, just blindly hoarding these platforms shall not do. Marketers should carefully ascertain which platform is their target audience most likely to use and spend time. Once they figure this out, they should launch a small budget campaign to test how they are performing. Based on the insight gathered through them, they can keep on tweaking their strategies.

Drawing focus to our point number two in this blog, budgets would be spread across diverse channels and media. The nature of the budget distribution will be fluid depending on the outcomes of the platforms.

E-commerce brands should shift their attention towards Instagram checkouts that allow users to purchase products that are featured by brands without having to exit the platform. Instagram currently allows users to access this feature only on organic posts. However, it is likely to be integrated with advertisements within the near future. Such strategies should be mapped ahead of time and marketers should implement them as soon as they see opportunities of implementation that would yield results.

Highly Consumer-Centric Landing Pages:

Customer success and relationship management are the most crucial aspects of the digital world that are fuelled by subscriptions that dwell on inbound marketing strategies for knowledge disseminations amongst consumers.

Search queries are not likely to see any dramatic increase unless a ground-breaking transformation takes place. In view thereof, it is pragmatic to optimize the landing pages to reap the expected outcomes from PPC campaigns.

Jeff Allen, President at Hanpan Marketing says “ The SERPs will continue to rise until we reach a saturation point, a point that the next click is no longer profitable.”

Google Ads have become dynamic as people have started to progress beyond a handful platforms for carrying out research about products and services. Hence, marketers should consider including landing pages that are consumer-centric. They should be made specific to the queries and the needs of the consumers. Creating consumer-centric landing pages will allow easier conversion of the customers as they will get the exact information that they came looking for on the platform.

It is not a hidden fact that Google Ads take relevance into serious consideration. Hence the higher the relevance of a landing page, the lesser price will have to be paid by the advertiser for each click.

Shifting Focus Beyond Brand Recognition:

Marketers will step up their initiatives several notches when it comes to brand marketing. Besides just creating awareness, they will also attempt to influence the customer’s perspective about their brands. This implies that the customer’s experience and response towards a particular brand will be controlled.

It will be imperative for a brand to carve an identity and instead create a rapport with their audience. Hence, brand marketing is also likely to make a big return this year.

Building reliability and authority will continue to be important for brands. Also, it will be wise to avoid endorsing any sort of extremist content on their platforms. The constant monitoring of automated ads will become increasingly important to avoid any goof ups.

So, from high utilization of intelligent technologies, to shifting focus to diverse channels while devising strategies, and focusing on targeted audiences, PPC trends are geared for some major and a few not so major changes this year. The above mentioned shifts are likely taking place as we are writing these blogs.

Like any other digital marketing vertical, marketers should keep themselves updated with the PPC trends for gaining successful outcomes. PPC ads are very useful when it comes to comprehending the intent of consumers. This is one of the other reasons why marketers should verse themselves of the PPC trends from time – to – time.

So, these were a few insights from our specialists about the changing trends of PPC this year. Do let us know how they are going to change the digital economy this year. Also, share this content with peers and colleagues if you find these insights useful.

May 3, 2022
What is Social Media Marketing and How to Use It?
Social Media Marketing has been helping businesses to reach their target audience through the means of social networking platforms for a considerable while. So, if you are not reaching out to your prospects on platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, etc. your business is missing the chance of enhancing their digital growth and multiplying their revenue. Social Media Marketing is capable of driving successful results, enhancing brand loyalty, generating leads, and converting prospects.

Businesses irrespective of their size can invest into Social Media Marketing. A little guidance of What is Social Media Marketing and how to use it can drive them a long way towards business growth. Hence, our experts have decided to share this detailed guide on the topic with all of our readers.

However, it is wise that we start with exploring the roots at the outset. Hence, let us begin with understanding about Social Media Marketing.

Everything You Need To Know About Social Media Marketing

Consider the following statistics:
Now try it to relate it with the definition shared below:

Social Media Marketing is a vertical of online marketing that involves the dissemination of content to a specific target audience through distinctive social media channels. This form of marketing is carried out with the motive of endorsing, creating brand awareness, generating leads, and driving conversions for a business.

The type of content that is shared on social media channels can be in visual or textual form. The social media posts usually include videos, blogs, articles, infographics, etc. The content served to the audience needs to be creative, engaging, and ones that drive traction in large numbers. Besides sharing content, running Google and Facebook Ads is also done extensively on these networking sites.

Coming back to the statistics and correlating it with the definition that we have shared above, it is not very difficult to determine the potential of Social Media Marketing in terms of digital outreach.

Hopefully, we have shared a clear understanding of Social Media Marketing with all our readers. Let us proceed to understand how to get started with your Social Media Marketing endeavor.

Getting Started with Social Media Marketing Strategy

93% Marketers regularly use Facebook Ads as a part of their Social Media Marketing Plans
- Hubspot
Social Media Marketing can only drive successful results when it is preceded by a social media marketing strategy. Without a strategy carrying out your marketing endeavors will be wandering in a new place without any proper direction. You are likely to end up nowhere.

However, a social media strategy may differ from one business to another. Thus, our experts have put together a list of a few basic questions that a marketing manager must ask himself before devising a strategy. Let us take a look at them:
- What are the goals that you are looking to achieve with social media marketing?
- Who are your prospective customers or audience?
- Which platforms do your prospect use and how?
- What message do you want to convey to your prospects with social media marketing?
The answers to all these questions and your social media strategy will be driven by the kind of business you are running.

For instance, a creative business that is into fashion retail or wedding planning will get a lot of traction from its Instagram Account. Similarly, a Business Management Consultant will get high response on Twitter, LinkedIn. Whereas, an advertisement or a news agency will be able to attract their audience on Twitter or Facebook Page.

Once you have found answers to the fundamental questionnaire, here are the steps that you may follow to come up with a promising social media strategy:
1. Identify Your Goals
The first step in devising a social media marketing strategy is to identify and set goals. However, one must remember that goals should not merely be set as a formality. They should be realistic and attainable.

Besides just identifying the goals, a successful marketing strategy requires that they should be plotted to match the business objectives.

To ensure that your goals encompass all the above mentioned mandates, you must set S.M.A.R.T goals. Here is what we mean by this:

S – Specific

M – Measurable

A – Attainable

R – Relevant

T – Time Bound

If you set your goals in accordance with the S.M.A.R.T parameters, they will automatically be in sync with your business objectives.

It is important to determine the metrics that are scalable to determine how your strategy is performing in contrast with your goals. For instance, if you consider metrics such as the number of leads generated or conversions in a month rather than considering the number of comments or retweets on a post, you will have the real – time results.

Furthermore, you must gauge the performance metrics across all the social media channels that you are targeting from time – to – time. You can also distinguish these metrics based on awareness, customer feedback, or even conversions.

The easiest goals should be listed down at the beginning of the strategy. The resources and financials should be budgeted out accordingly. Listing the easier to attain goals at the outset will help in getting approvals from the management. The more ambitious goals should follow the easier ones.
1. Understand Your Prospects
You can develop a promising social media marketing strategy only if you understand your prospects along with their requirements. Different objectives may require you to interact differently with your prospect across a variety of social media channels.

To understand your audience, you must begin with defining their persona. This includes not only understanding their requirements, but also determining their demographics, their social media usage patterns, their buying capacity, and a lot more. After determining all these things, you will have an understanding of the kind of user base you need to target.

Readymade templates are available online for defining your buyer persona. These usually have a set of questions which you can answer to reach the conclusion.

Determining the buyer persona must be followed by identifying the type of content that should be catered to your audience. This step proves helpful particularly while generating traction through the means of paid marketing.
1. Create the Content
The first two steps must be concluded with determining, creating, and catering content that can attract the customers. The type of content that needs to be created depends largely on the social media channel on which you are marketing your brand. This step will help you in choosing between textual or graphic content.

For determining the type of content that needs to be catered, you will have to map where you stand in the buyer’s funnel. The buyer’s funnel consists of three stages, namely:
- Awareness – When you are new in the industry and want to establish your presence.
- Consideration -When you want to distinguish your offerings from your competitors and establish why you are better.
- Conversion – When you wish that a prospect lead should make purchase decisions and transform into your customer.
Based on the above three stages of the funnel, you can decide what type of content you want to share with your audience. However, high quality content must be ensured at each stage of the funner. If you start by targeting a limited number of social media channels, you will be able to regulate the frequency, quality, and the type of content.

Content creation must always follow the rules of the “Golden Circle” which is to establish a problem followed by the solution, and then positioning your offering with the respect to both. This step will also help you in identifying whether you should share detailed blog posts, precise videos, elaborate podcasts, or some other form of content.

Once you have created the strategy, it must be marketed on the right platform. So the next step is to identify a social media channel that you need to target for business success.

Identifying the Right Platforms For Your Business

There are a vast number of social media channels available for marketing. Some of these well-known platforms are Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn. To ensure successful outcomes from your social media marketing endeavors you must identify the platform on which your marketing initiatives will bring your the maximum ROI. In other words, you should market yourself on the platform where your target audience is present.
1. Facebook
Facebook demands an active social media strategy that can spark conversation about your brands, products, and services amongst your prospects. It has very wide demography of users hence, marketing on Facebook is relatively easy. But, as mentioned, you will have to keep serving high – quality content very regularly on Facebook.

At the outset, create a business page to get people to know about your business. However, one thing you must consider is that the organic outreach on Facebook is not very wide. Hence, you should be pragmatic about budgeting your Facebook ad spend.

The type of content that you cater should have an in-formal, friendly, and optimistic tone. Almost, all businesses can market themselves on Facebook.
1. Instagram
Instagram is a platform that has surged very quickly in popularity. Users can share photographs and videos along with concise descriptions on this platform. The demography of Instagram is less wider when compared to Facebook. Users are mostly from the adolescent to the middle-age group.

If you are in a creative business, such as wedding planning or fashion ensemble, Instagram can be a fantastic platform to showcase your offerings creatively. You can also sponsor your posts to gain a wider outreach or use hashtags as an alternative.

The content that you share on Instagram must be creative, concise, and informative.
1. YouTube
YouTube is a platform where audiences can view, share, and livestream videos. YouTube is also the second largest search Engine after Google. People of all age groups use YouTube.

It is a platform that you can use to create awareness about your brands and offerings. Besides that you can also use it for building customer relations. For instance, you can share instructional videos about your products or testimonial videos of your existing clients.

You can also make use of the Analytics Tools available in YouTube to track the performance of your marketing initiatives on the platform.
1. Twitter
Twitter is the best platform for getting your audience to engage with your business by stirring up conversations on trending topics in your industry. The demography of this platform ranges from young-adults to middle-age groups.

You can also use this platform for business networking and getting people to talk about your business.
1. LinkedIn
Gone are those days when LinkedIn was used for job hunting. It has become the biggest platform for endorsing B2B businesses and networking. The user base consists largely of working class people on this platform.

A large number of top executives also use this platform. Hence, if you can market your business directly to the decision makers.

There is no dearth of social media channels where you can market your business. However, starting steadily is the key. The above-mentioned platforms are the best to market your business as these cover mostly all sorts of businesses.

Once you launch your campaigns, do measure its performance on regular intervals. This shall help you in determining if you will be able to realize your goals or not.

So, this was our social media marketing 101 where we taught all the tips and tricks to get you started. If you have any more questions about a social media marketing strategy that you would like our experts to answer, do reach out to us.

Getting successful results from your social media marketing campaign is easier when you collaborate with a SMM agency or consultant. We are a full-service digital marketing firm that can help you get started with social media marketing.
May 20, 2021
Digital Marketing in the Times of COVID-19
Digital Marketing: The Pragmatic Shift For Businesses

Given the prevalent conditions due to the outbreak of COVID-19, a significant number of businesses have started to operate remotely. Business owners are resorting to digital mediums for marketing their brands, products, and services. In the coming days, we all shall see how Digital Marketing is going to help these organizations sail through the current times.

With the already tail spinning economy due to the worldwide lockdowns, even the biggest names in the business sector are suffering. This pandemic has spared no industry. Almost everyone is equally affected. Live events have been canceled, sales have drastically spiraled down, exhibitions and events have been called off snatching away the only chance of annual networking from organizations.

Hence, a ginormous number of organizations are looking at Digital Marketing as the resilience to cope with prevalent challenges that face their business. As everyone is saving the time spent on traveling and other day-to-day activities because of working from home, they are spending relatively more time on the internet and social media. The chances that they would see a Google or Facebook Ad and respond with it are way higher in comparison to a normal day.

Hence, it is pragmatic for companies to shift their marketing strategies to the digital platform. However, one thing that every marketer should remember is that this is not the time to exploit businesses in the name of returns. They should focus on the long-term goals that are mutually beneficial for their clients as well as themselves. And, the COVID-19 outbreak has seemingly opened a lot of doors for every digital marketer.

This is the best time for marketers to carry out a research focusing on the changing behaviors of the consumers. They should launch marketing campaigns focusing on these changes. These campaigns should be used to create awareness amongst business owners regarding the importance of Digital Marketing in the times of COVID-19.

Digital Marketing Strategies To Earn Success During COVID-19

Digital Marketing Strategies To Earn Success During COVID-19

There are numerous ways through which digital marketing strategies can be implemented for the benefit of businesses. A handful of them are as follows:
1. This is the best time where readers are likely to interact with content. Marketers can serve a judicial mix of content as well as other media to their consumers. Podcasts are growing in popularity and can also be easily re-purposed as blogs and videos.
2. The use of social messaging apps is surging. Hence, they can be used by businesses for reaching out to their customers directly. Brands should start marketing their products and services through these applications and use them to offer an enhanced experience to their customers.
3. Brands should integrate voice and image search options into their digital marketing strategies to increase their reach to the audiences. This should also help them in enhancing their brand recognition and visibility.
4. This is the best time to invest in brand marketing initiatives. Since more and more consumers are likely to e-commerce platforms it is imperative for brands to carve an identity for themselves in the online marketplace.
5. Investments in direct-response advertising shall also increase given people are widely using Google and Facebook these days. Both these giants occupy all possible platforms for media sharing and consumption. Hence, marketers should likely increase their digital endorsement budgets in the coming days.
6. Businesses will make use of online webinars and similar modes for business networking. Hence, marketers should devise strategies to generate traffic and leads by hosting such digital events.
Conclusion

While there will be a few digital marketing tactics that will see an instant boom, some will not continue to work as effectively. For instance, big-budget marketing initiatives such as influencer marketing will see a downfall given the heavy investment they demand. Hence, it is imperative for marketers to gauge all the do’s and don’ts.

Do let us about any other way through which you think Digital Marketing can help the economy and the businesses. If you find our suggestions useful, do share with those who you think may benefit from reading our blog.
May 11, 2021
Social Media Marketing And Its Uses
Social Media Marketing has been helping businesses to reach their target audience through the means of social networking platforms for a considerable while. So, if you are not reaching out to your prospects on platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, etc. your business is missing the chance of enhancing their digital growth and multiplying their revenue. Social Media Marketing is capable of driving successful results, enhancing brand loyalty, generating leads, and converting prospects.

Businesses irrespective of their size can invest in Social Media Marketing. A little guidance of What is Social Media Marketing and how to use it can drive them a long way towards business growth. Hence, our experts have decided to share this detailed guide on the topic with all of our readers.

However, it is wise that we start with exploring the roots at the outset. Hence, let us begin with understanding about Social Media Marketing.

Everything You Need To Know About Social Media Marketing

Consider the following statistics:
Now try it to relate it with the definition shared below:

Social Media Marketing is a vertical of online marketing that involves the dissemination of content to a specific target audience through distinctive social media channels. This form of marketing is carried out with the motive of endorsing, creating brand awareness, generating leads, and driving conversions for a business.

The type of content that is shared on social media channels can be in visual or textual form. The social media posts usually include videos, blogs, articles, infographics, etc. The content served to the audience needs to be creative, engaging, and ones that drive traction in large numbers. Besides sharing content, running Google and Facebook Ads is also done extensively on these networking sites.

Coming back to the statistics and correlating it with the definition that we have shared above, it is not very difficult to determine the potential of Social Media Marketing in terms of digital outreach.

Hopefully, we have shared a clear understanding of Social Media Marketing with all our readers. Let us proceed to understand how to get started with your Social Media Marketing endeavor.

Getting Started With Social Media Marketing Strategy

93% Marketers regularly use Facebook Ads as a part of their Social Media Marketing Plans – Hubspot

Social Media Marketing can only drive successful results when it is preceded by a social media marketing strategy. Without a strategy carrying out your marketing endeavors will be wandering in a new place without any proper direction. You are likely to end up nowhere.

However, a social media strategy may differ from one business to another. Thus, our experts have put together a list of a few basic questions that a marketing manager must ask himself before devising a strategy. Let us take a look at them:
- What are the goals that you are looking to achieve with social media marketing?
- Who are your prospective customers or audience?
- Which platforms do your prospect use and how?
- What message do you want to convey to your prospects with social media marketing?
The answers to all these questions and your social media strategy will be driven by the kind of business you are running.

For instance, a creative business that is into fashion retail or wedding planning will get a lot of traction from its Instagram Account. Similarly, a Business Management Consultant will get high response on Twitter, LinkedIn. Whereas, an advertisement or a news agency will be able to attract their audience on Twitter or Facebook Page.

Once you have found answers to the fundamental questionnaire, here are the steps that you may follow to come up with a promising social media strategy:
1. Identify Your Goals
The first step in devising a social media marketing strategy is to identify and set goals. However, one must remember that goals should not merely be set as a formality. They should be realistic and attainable.

Besides just identifying the goals, a successful marketing strategy requires that they should be plotted to match the business objectives.

To ensure that your goals encompass all the above mentioned mandates, you must set S.M.A.R.T goals. Here is what we mean by this:

S – Specific

M – Measurable

A – Attainable

R – Relevant

T – Time Bound

If you set your goals in accordance with the S.M.A.R.T parameters, they will automatically be in sync with your business objectives.

It is important to determine the metrics that are scalable to determine how your strategy is performing in contrast with your goals. For instance, if you consider metrics such as the number of leads generated or conversions in a month rather than considering the number of comments or retweets on a post, you will have the real – time results.

Furthermore, you must gauge the performance metrics across all the social media channels that you are targeting from time – to – time. You can also distinguish these metrics based on awareness, customer feedback, or even conversions.

The easiest goals should be listed down at the beginning of the strategy. The resources and financials should be budgeted out accordingly. Listing the easier to attain goals at the outset will help in getting approvals from the management. The more ambitious goals should follow the easier ones.
1. Understand Your Prospects
You can develop a promising social media marketing strategy only if you understand your prospects along with their requirements. Different objectives may require you to interact differently with your prospect across a variety of social media channels.

To understand your audience, you must begin with defining their persona. This includes not only understanding their requirements, but also determining their demographics, their social media usage patterns, their buying capacity, and a lot more. After determining all these things, you will have an understanding of the kind of user base you need to target.

Readymade templates are available online for defining your buyer persona. These usually have a set of questions that you can answer to reach the conclusion.

Determining the buyer persona must be followed by identifying the type of content that should be catered to your audience. This step proves helpful particularly while generating traction through the means of paid marketing.
1. Create The Content
The first two steps must be concluded with determining, creating, and catering content that can attract the customers. The type of content that needs to be created depends largely on the social media channel on which you are marketing your brand. This step will help you in choosing between textual or graphic content.

For determining the type of content that needs to be catered, you will have to map where you stand in the buyer’s funnel. The buyer’s funnel consists of three stages, namely:
- Awareness – When you are new in the industry and want to establish your presence.
- Consideration -When you want to distinguish your offerings from your competitors and establish why you are better.
- Conversion – When you wish that a prospect lead should make purchase decisions and transform into your customer.
Based on the above three stages of the funnel, you can decide what type of content you want to share with your audience. However, high quality content must be ensured at each stage of the funner. If you start by targeting a limited number of social media channels, you will be able to regulate the frequency, quality, and the type of content.

Content creation must always follow the rules of the “Golden Circle” which is to establish a problem followed by the solution, and then positioning your offering with the respect to both. This step will also help you in identifying whether you should share detailed blog posts, precise videos, elaborate podcasts, or some other form of content.

Once you have created the strategy, it must be marketed on the right platform. So the next step is to identify a social media channel that you need to target for business success.

Identifying The Right Platforms For Your Business

There are a vast number of social media channels available for marketing. Some of these well-known platforms are Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn. To ensure successful outcomes from your social media marketing endeavors you must identify the platform on which your marketing initiatives will bring you the maximum ROI. In other words, you should market yourself on the platform where your target audience is present.
1. Facebook
Facebook demands an active social media strategy that can spark conversation about your brands, products, and services amongst your prospects. It has very wide demography of users hence, marketing on Facebook is relatively easy. But, as mentioned, you will have to keep serving high – quality content very regularly on Facebook.

At the outset, create a business page to get people to know about your business. However, one thing you must consider is that the organic outreach on Facebook is not very wide. Hence, you should be pragmatic about budgeting your Facebook ad spend.

The type of content that you cater should have an in-formal, friendly, and optimistic tone. Almost, all businesses can market themselves on Facebook.
1. Instagram
Instagram is a platform that has surged very quickly in popularity. Users can share photographs and videos along with concise descriptions on this platform. The demography of Instagram is less wider when compared to Facebook. Users are mostly from the adolescent to the middle-age group.

If you are in a creative business, such as wedding planning or fashion ensemble, Instagram can be a fantastic platform to showcase your offerings creatively. You can also sponsor your posts to gain a wider outreach or use hashtags as an alternative.

The content that you share on Instagram must be creative, concise, and informative.
1. YouTube
YouTube is a platform where audiences can view, share, and livestream videos. YouTube is also the second largest search Engine after Google. People of all age groups use YouTube.

It is a platform that you can use to create awareness about your brands and offerings. Besides that you can also use it for building customer relations. For instance, you can share instructional videos about your products or testimonial videos of your existing clients.

You can also make use of the Analytics Tools available in YouTube to track the performance of your marketing initiatives on the platform.
1. Twitter
Twitter is the best platform for getting your audience to engage with your business by stirring up conversations on trending topics in your industry. The demography of this platform ranges from young-adults to middle-age groups.

You can also use this platform for business networking and getting people to talk about your business.
1. LinkedIn
Gone are those days when LinkedIn was used for job hunting. It has become the biggest platform for endorsing B2B businesses and networking. The user base consists largely of working class people on this platform.

A large number of top executives also use this platform. Hence, if you can market your business directly to the decision makers.

There is no dearth of social media channels where you can market your business. However, starting steadily is the key. The above-mentioned platforms are the best to market your business as these cover mostly all sorts of businesses.

Once you launch your campaigns, do measure its performance on regular intervals. This shall help you in determining if you will be able to realize your goals or not.

So, this was our social media marketing 101 where we taught all the tips and tricks to get you started. If you have any more questions about social media marketing that you would like our experts to answer, do reach out to us.

Getting successful results from your social media marketing campaign is easier when you collaborate with a SMM agency or consultant. We are a full-service digital marketing firm that can help you get started with social media marketing.
July 22, 2020
Social Media Optimization Strategy For 2021
[sayit]Social Media has garnered a user base of 3.8 billion as per a digital report published in 2020 by Hootsuite in partnership with We Are Social. Looking at that statistics almost half of the world’s population is using Social Media platforms. So, it may be quite easy for marketers to envision the scope of Social Media Marketing in the year 2020. [/sayit]

Brands have been making use of social media channels to interact with their customers, advertise their products and services, generate leads, grab opportunities for sales, and earn revenue for a very long time. However, witnessing the surge in the number of users, it has become more significant to refine and update the social media optimization (SMO) strategy for marketers.

However, for several years, Search Engine Optimization or SEO has been at the forefront of Online Marketing. Users look at achieving almost similar goals through SEO or SMO which is to generate high-quality traffic and create brand awareness. However, SEO is focused on enhancing a brand’s visibility or ranking on a search engine result page so that users are likely to spot it easily.

SMO is becoming equally popular amongst social media marketers and in some cases, they consider it more effective in strengthening a brand’s position by creating awareness, generating leads, and enhancing its visibility in the digital world.

The most popular platforms in recent times for Social Media Marketing include Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, Snapchat, Pinterest, etc.

Through Social Media Optimization, marketers can redirect their target audience from their social channels of a brand directly to its website. More information about the business can be offered to potential customers once they are on the website. For instance, an automobile brand may run an advertisement campaign on their social channels to educate consumers and when they get redirected to

As social media is growing day-upon-day new trends are emerging with respect to SMO strategies. And, it is imperative that marketers stay abreast with trends in order to ensure a maximum online presence for their brand through social media marketing.

In view thereof, we have interviewed our social media marketing experts. And, we are presenting their insight on Social Media Optimization Strategy for 2020. These strategies are very fundamental, easy to implement, and exhaustive. By implementing these expert social media optimization strategies to businesses, marketers can ensure highly relevant traction, conversions, and returns.

So, let us proceed towards discussing these strategies:

It Is Not Enough To Have A Strategy

Yes, that is right. Almost 28 percent of brands think that not having a strategy for social media optimization is a challenge. The reason is that SMO is relatively not as popular as SEO. However, that is not where the problem ends. Social Media is versatile and extremely dynamic. Hence, it is important that marketers also map and refine their strategies from time to time. In order to achieve this, it is important that the strategy is laid out with clear goals and objectives.

Besides just focusing on an optimization strategy focused on increasing presence and generating leads it is pragmatic to aim for scalable results. Here are 7 steps by considering which marketers can ensure a fail-proof SMO strategy:
1. Ensure that a strategy is created with a focus on solving challenges.
2. Spread efforts horizontally across the organization.
3. Concentrate on channels that can generate relevant results.
4. Figure out opportunities for business on social platforms.
5. Do not avoid, instead engage.
6. Gauge, refine, and endorse the initiatives.
Once a strategy is created, marketers should map their performance against it. Wherever the strategy is lagging, they should add action points in those gaps.

Keyword Research Is Important

Most of us understand the relevance of keyword research. For the unversed, it includes researching the key phrases that your potential customers are likely to use while submitting their queries on search engines so that you can include them in your content.

Keyword research for Social Media Optimization required you to identify what hashtags, topics, or phrases your audience is likely to use so that you can serve them content which is highly relevant. Including them in the content will increase your rate of visibility when a user searches content that is similar to your brand’s.

For instance, you own a restaurant specializing in Continental Cuisine in India. The users posting content using hashtags related to #continentalrestaurantindia, #continentalcuisine, #india on social platforms like Instagram are your target audience. Hence, you should post content on social media with the aim of showing up in the search results of your these target audiences.

So, how can you do keyword research?

Keyword research can be done using tools such as:
1. Google Adwords: Keyword Planner
2. UberSuggest
3. SEMrush
4. Soovle
By researching your keywords you will be able to create content that correlates with the queries of your potential consumer base. It is pragmatic to include those keywords which have a high search volume. By high search volume, we mean those keywords that are highly searched by users. However, that does not imply you should not focus on keywords with lower search volumes. The key is to include a combination of keywords with varying search volumes to get the best results.

Update Social Media Pages

It is important to properly optimize a website in Search Engine Optimization. Search Engine crawlers determine the content of your website. Whenever users search for topics similar topics, search engines recommend your website to them. Likewise, social media optimization includes the optimization of your brand’s social media profiles in order to increase its visibility to the users.

For the users interacting with your business through social media, your profile page will be the first-ever touch-point for them. Hence, it is important that you create an engaging first impression on them. Although, a seemingly simple task, most businesses fail in creating an effective profile page. Here, what must be kept in mind:
1. Profile Picture: In case your profile page represents a business, it is wise to include the brand logo. Freelancing professionals or consultants can include their headshots.
2. Username: This is rather simple. If you are a business then you may use it as the username. We agree that username availability is becoming a challenge. In case your username is not available, try including keywords with high search volume relevant to your business.
3. Profile Bio: Your bio needs to be a precise and crisp description of what your business represents. It is wise to include a website link in your bio to redirect your audience. Including relevant keywords will enhance your visibility.
Although, filling out the information in profile pages on social media platforms can be tedious, make sure you complete it. You may want to skip questions but if you will believe us that is not the best thing to do. Think of it this way – every question you leave is every potential customer you are likely missing out because it may just impact your visibility.

Keep updating your profile page from time to time and see if any information is missing.

Take Care To Optimize Your Content

We cannot emphasize enough that “Content is the King.” Whether it is Search Engine or Social Media Optimization, this saying is true in both cases. Until you are sharing quality and relevant content, your business is not reaching places PERIOD!

The two types of content used on Social Media platforms are:
1. Original content
2. Curated content
For a fail-proof optimization strategy, a balanced mix of both is necessary.

So what is Original and Curated Content?

Original Content: Original content specifically includes the content that is created for social media usually as a part of any campaign. Consider Netflix’s example of the #NetflixCheating campaign. Everything from the graphics to the content was original.

Curated Content: Curated content includes identifying interesting content for your audiences from diverse sources on the web and sharing it on your page thereafter. However, there is more than just re-tweeting or sharing such content. For achieving the desired results from curated content, it is important to ascertain its relevance for your target audience. Focusing on quality is the key while sharing curated content on your social media page. You can make use of digital analytics to find out which kind of content can lead to maximum engagement with your audience.

Fortunately, content curation for social media has become relatively easier than in the past few years. You can make use of various content curation tools available online. One such tool is the “Curator” by Twitter.

When you are publishing content on Social Media platforms, consider doing the following things:

Tweak the Headlines: When you are resharing your posts on Facebook or Twitter, don’t use the same headlines again and again. The readers who have read it once are likely to ignore it the second time around. And, maybe they would think that your feed is faulty. Hence, consider tweaking your headlines every time you are resharing the same post again on your social media page.

Enrich with Graphics: Using images is one of the best ways for optimizing social media content as per this post.

So you know, it is useful to include images in your content whenever you get the chance. Various resizing tools are available using which you can resize the graphics to fit the feeds of different social media platforms. Make sure you are not including pixelated graphics in your posts or content.

Include #Hashtags: Hashtags are the easiest ways of enhancing the visibility of your content. They can be used on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and almost any other platform you can think of. Using #hastags in your post makes it easy to include trending topics in your content or categorize it according to the interests of your audience. For instance, your business does Event Management. In case you are arranging the event for a celebrity singer and he/she is supposed to sing rock music in the concert, using relevant #hashtags such as #RockMusic or using the name of the celebrity singer as #hashtag can get your posts quality traction.

It may seem that very little to know efforts go behind selecting #hashtags but marketers have to indeed plan a strategy before including the. Here are a few things you should keep in mind while choosing #hashtags for your posts:
1. Follow influencers in your domain to determine the hashtags they are including in their posts.
2. Follow other trending hashtags and see if you can correlate them with your domain or brand.
3. Create unique hashtags for enabling your audience to track specific campaigns. However, make them relevant.
Mind the post lengths: Platforms like Twitter have a word limit for each post (280 characters). It is obvious that you do not have to go beyond that but is it necessary to consume the limit entirely? It is important to determine the length of each content that you share. This will help in increasing the engagement rate between your audience and the content.

Use Analytics for Tracking Progress

Last but quite obvious. It is important to map the progress of the Social Media Optimization initiative just like Search Engine Optimization. There are several digital analytics tools available for this purpose. The most preferred amongst marketers is Google Analytics. Based on these reports you can optimize your initiatives or campaigns for the best results.

Besides just tracking your initiatives, you must also determine how many of these opportunities are leading into returns to determine the real impact that your campaigns are delivering.

Do spend some time analyzing the performance of your content that may include blog posts, videos, podcasts, etc. You can then determine which kind of content is being largely consumed by your audience and include that in your strategy more frequently.

So, with that, we have approached the end of this article. Including the above-mentioned steps in your social media optimization strategy will definitely enable you to exceed your objectives. The key is to refine your approach and the ways to do that are endless. However, starting with these fundamental steps will give your guaranteed results.

Do let us know your thoughts and tips on how you optimize your social media strategy. If you liked this article, do not forget to share it with your colleagues.
July 14, 2020
How to Easily Attract Customers Online?

If you are selling your products or services from a virtual storefront, a strong presence in the digital world along with a potent marketing strategy is mandatory for attracting customers and retaining the old ones.

By using a combination of pragmatic techniques, you can generate both quality and quantity traction for your digital business. You can also increase the conversion rate of the visitors and meet your organizational objectives.

Although, there is no dearth of tactics to attract more customers on a site, to identify the one that leads to the greatest impact can be challenging.

And, to help you deal with this challenge we bring some insights from the leading digital marketers of the industry. These tips, when combined with your digital marketing strategy, will show you how to easily attract customers online?

Easy Ways to Attract Customers Online

Once you have launched your website, endorsed your services, you can start practicing these steps to gain traction online.

1. Leverage the Power of Social Media

Internet users spend a considerable share of their active hours surfing social media websites, browsing through product endorsements, and watching sponsored videos. Hence, it will not be incorrect to say that social media channels play an impactful role in influencing the purchase decisions of the audiences.

Hence, if you overlook the importance of social media in attracting your customers online, there is no chance you will succeed in the pursuit. You can begin by reaching out to your connections on any social media channel. These connections turn into your customers easily as the level of awareness and reliability is already high.

You can post creatives related to your products at regular intervals. Or you could also resort to the Direct Message Marketing method where you sell online by reaching out to people through direct messaging.

You can also look for fan pages that endorse the products or services which are your primary offering. The followers of these pages are your desired audience base. You can reach out to the admins of the fan pages for collaboration. These usually happen on a paid basis but prove to be way cheaper than running advertisements.

You can also run targeted ads on platforms like Facebook. After carrying out a little research with respect to demography, buying patterns, geography, etc. you can run a couple of Facebook advertisements. These ads besides generating leads have a high conversion rate as well because they target a very niche community of users. You can reach out to marketing agencies who can strategize an advertisement campaign for your online business.

2. Build a Strong Content Strategy

You can start writing blogs about the products and services that you offer and post them on your website. You can create topics around the interests of your audience base. For example, if you are dealing with tech products, you can post gadget reviews and tutorials. While you ask your viewers for their opinion, remember to add a CTA with your blogs. Once you have built the appropriate authority in your domain, you can introduce your own brand and products on the platform.

If your content appeals to your viewers, they will automatically get converted into customers by consuming it.

Furthermore, posting these blogs on other platforms besides your websites such as social media channels and other digital publishing platforms such as Medium or Joomag. These sites not only increase the authority of your content but also widen the scope of the audience to which it can reach and create an impact. Sharing blogs on these sites will also create awareness and consideration for your brands and products.

Keep updating your website at frequent intervals and make sure that whatever content you are hosting reflects your brand values, proposition, ethics, vision, and mission very clearly. And, more than anything else, make your content relevant for your audience.

Before you create your content, make sure to list out the objectives that you are expecting the content to deliver. While you chart out these objectives make sure to align them with the organizational goals simultaneously. For instance, you can be aiming to create awareness, generate leads, or convert them into customers. Your content should be curated in a manner to cater to your requirements.

Divide your content as per the stages of a buyer’s cycle and create accordingly. These three stages are awareness, consideration, and conversion. Also, try to repurpose your content as much as you can. For instance, the content for a video can also be used for creating podcasts. Your blogs can be repurposed as social media bytes and there is so much more that could be done.

3. Lure Customers with Referral Incentives

Offering referral incentives to customers is a great way to generate new leads. Providing them the opportunity to recommend or introduce their family, friends, or colleagues to your brand and rewarding them in return is the referral incentive method of digital marketing.

However, it is important that you introduce your referral strategy at the right time to your customers. For instance, if a customer has just made a purchase from your site but the product was not up to the mark, the chances are very less that he would want to recommend your brand to someone else. And, asking for a referral at such a time might simply be the worst move you could pull. Hence, timing your referral strategy correctly is imperative. One of the ways of doing this would be to launch a small customer satisfaction survey or take some time out to review and respond to your customer feedback and solve the concern of your patrons.

The other best time to offer a referral incentive is just as a user visits your website. As the customer is on his way to learn about your brand, you can trigger him into the consideration funnel by introducing a referral reward.

The incentives in the referral program can be offered in many forms. It is important to make sure that whatever you are offering to your customers is relevant and useful for them. For instance, if you are introducing a referral incentive to your potential customers when they visit your website, you can ideally offer them discounts coupons or offers such as BOGO (Buy one Get One). Alternatively, if you are asking for referrals once they have made the transaction on your website, you can offer them some cashback, reward points or e-wallet money.

4. Make use of Technology

One of the sure-shot tactics to attract more customers is to make use of technology. AI, Machine Learning, Predictive Analysis, Voice Search, etc. are examples of such technologies. You can incorporate chatbots on your website to address the frequently asked queries of your visitors. Paying attention to such small details would not only ensure conversion but make sure that your customers keep coming back to your website repetitively.

You can also make use of predictive analytics to forecast the performance of your new launches and foray into markets. Combine it with digital analytic tools and get elaborate reports of consumer behavior, demography, purchasing capacity, etc. Predictive analytics can help marketers in gauging the type of response they are aiming at while hosting a campaign. Hence, they can also predict the returns accurately.

Incorporate voice search methods in your marketing strategy to enhance your visibility and reach to your customer base. Since voice-search technology makes use of AI, the customers searching for results through it are likely to get relatively personalized recommendations from the search engine. The key to successfully leverage voice-search technology is to curate intent rich content for customers. Intent rich content is growing in popularity amongst users as well as search engines. Hence, focusing on your content can definitely get you a lot of traction.

5. Connect through Email

Email Marketing must be a familiar concept to most of you reading this blog. It involves interacting with your audience through email communication. You can carry out a survey to identify your niche consumers and create a bulk email campaign for them.

You can also share invitations for newsletter subscriptions to your audience. This is a great way to attract online customers whenever you launch a new product. You can also keep them updated about the ongoing discount and price cuts that you may be offering on your services.

Through emails, you can announce events such as meet and greets, exhibitions, and even giveaways to attract new customers. You can also use email to map the customer satisfaction rate and ask them to refer you further.

However, you must remember to not go overboard with email marketing as it could be really off-putting for your client base.

Combining the above-mentioned methods can certainly help you in attracting more and more customers online.

Carefully though techniques will help you in the generation as well as retention of new leads. However, we hope that the ones we have suggested turn out to be helpful for you. If they do, let us know how exactly have you benefited from them. Also, do not forget to share these tips with those who you think might benefit from implementing them.

May 24, 2020
How to create WhatsApp Catalog?

WhatsApp was created in the year 2009 by two former Yahoo employees, Brian Acton and Jan Koum. WhatsApp is known for its simplicity and performance. WhatsApp has around 2 billion active users in 180 countries. Alone United States has 68.1 million active users on WhatsApp.

Facebook acquired WhatsApp for $19 billion in 2014 and it is the most popular messaging app in the world. As per current study users spend approximately 195 minutes on WhatsApp each week.

India alone has 400 million active WhatsApp users, which is the highest in the world.

January 2018 WhatsApp launch “WhatApp Business” another standalone app to support small business owners. WhatsApp Business reached 5 million users within one year of its launch.

November 2019 WhatsApp Business added an amazing feature of Whatsapp Catalogs for small business owners. Using this feature business owner can create the catalog which can be shared with people on WhatsApp. Communication can be direct and faster.

How to use WhatsApp catalog on WhatsApp Business

May 19, 2020
Best Social Media Marketing Strategy 2020
Social Media Marketing is one of the relatively prominent verticals of Digital Marketing. It involves the use of social media channels for communicating with a brand’s target audience, carrying out its marketing initiatives, generating traffic on its websites, endorsing its products and services, running endorsements, publishing content, and performing other digital marketing activities.

Some of the notable platforms for Social Media Marketing includes YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Besides these platforms, there is a diverse range of tools available for social media management. These tools help digital marketers to reap the best outcome from the strategies. Although the focus of organizations was on publishing content in the initial days, social media marketing has progressed exponentially. In recent times, its uses are unfathomable.

Businesses can use it to understand people’s opinion of their image by mapping the social conversations which revolve around their brand. They can also enhance customer engagement by responding to their queries. Awareness about new products and services can also be created through social media marketing. Business performance could be analyzed by using a set of analytic tools and reach to a niche set of audience can be enhanced by running targeted advertisements on social media platforms. There are many possibilities that social media marketing offers.

The whole essence of social media marketing is extremely appealing. However, in the absence of an effective marketing strategy, it is of not much significance for the marketers. Like any other marketing vertical, the need of having a strategy is equally important in social media marketing. Hence, we shall discuss the steps of building a strong marketing strategy in this article today. These tips are based on the insights of our social media marketing experts. Hence, you must make sure to go through each one of them to learn how to build the best social media marketing strategy.

However, we should first briefly understand what is a Social Media Marketing Strategy?

Having a strategy is like knowing the secret ingredient in the recipe of Social Media Marketing. It is a summary of the objectives that marketers need to accomplish on social media platforms. It is a blueprint that drives the action of marketers and helps them ascertain their success or failure. It defines the purpose because of which the market initiatives are being undertaken in the first place.

The effectiveness of the execution is directly relatable to what extent can a marketer concentrate his marketing strategy. Broad goals are often unattainable. It is wise to start with small, specific, and attainable goals in the beginning. But that’s just one part of it. We are going to take you through all the steps of building an effective marketing strategy.

Steps to Build a Fail-Proof Social Media Marketing Strategy

The world of social media marketing can be overwhelming. Picking a strategy that drives maximum results can be intimidating. Following the steps mentioned below will ensure that you stay on top of your social media marketing game. Let us take a look at our fuss-free guide for building the most effective digital marketing strategy for 2020.
1. Set Goals
Not just while devising a marketing strategy, setting goals is imperative in any walk of life, whatsoever. Besides just setting goals it is also necessary to ensure that they are attainable.

However, setting goals for a marketing strategy is different by a notch as it requires marketers to align them with organizational objectives.

All of these above-mentioned factors can be covered if marketers set S.M.A.R.T goals. Setting S.M.A.R.T goals implies that they should be:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Attainable
- Relevant
- Time-Bound
Once you have mapped your goals against all these parameters, they will help you in achieving results that are in alignment with your organizational demands.

Furthermore, to determine the performance against each of these goals, it is important to track real-time metrics. Instead of focusing on metrics such as retweets which has no real value, marketers should focus on gauging scalable metrics such as traffic rate, referrals, and lead conversion rate.

It becomes important to audit different metrics across different social media platforms. Metrics can be differentiated on the basis of awareness, engagement, conversion, and customer feedback. For instance, a particular brand may carry out its awareness initiatives through paid campaigns but resort to organic marketing for creating engagement.

Marketers can start by listing down the easiest goals. They should not miss out on aligning these goals with the overall strategy. This shall help them to secure the buy-in from the management. Once these goals are achieved, they can gradually build up on the following ones.
1. Target One Platform
As mentioned at the outset of this blog, there are multiple platforms available for social media marketing such as YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, Snapchat, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Reddit, etc. However, extending marketing efforts across all these platforms at once might not translate into the desired results. Although it is natural for marketers to get overwhelmed at the opportunities that all these platforms could offer, identifying the channel that could drive maximum results is very important. Failing to do so can lead to the failure of social media marketing campaigns and effect a brand’s presence of social platforms.

This may happen due to several reasons.

Different platforms require marketers to publish varying forms of content. Hence, developing the content and monitoring its performance at the same time can spell a real challenge for them. Even if the content is repurposed, it would have to be made suitable to meet the objectives of the platform on which it is being published. Marketers will not only need to tweak the content, but they will also have to structure it in accordance with the platform’s best practices as well as a presentation format.

Furthermore, each of these platforms has a varying type of audience, with diverse interests who are from different age groups. This implies that a piece of content that you have created considering a certain platform might not be suitable for repurposing on others.

Focusing one platform at a time lets marketers learn as well as master its dynamics holistically. Once, they do they can skip to the second platform of their choice.

Marketers prefer platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn for B2B marketing. Similarly, one platform should be identified at a time that could deliver the maximum results with respect to social media marketing initiatives.
1. Study the Target Audience
In order to devise a successful social media marketing strategy, it is important to study the target audience. If a marketing strategy is focused on increasing presence in the social platforms, marketers might have to interact with the audience differently over distinctive channels.

The first and foremost step in studying the target audience is to create a persona. This implies listing out the traits, demographics, and purchase patterns of the customers. This step must be followed by identifying the type of social media channel that these ideal customers may be using.

You can create an in-depth buyer persona by referring to different online sources.

Once a marketer has understood the type of audience that he wants to target, he should work on creating content for communicating with them. Following this step also helps marketers to derive maximum benefits from their paid marketing initiatives for generating traffic.

Before creating content, it is pragmatic for marketers to map the stage of the buyer’s cycle that their audience is likely to be at. The three stages of the “Buyer’s Cycle” are broadly categorized as Awareness, Consideration, and Conversion stage. If a customer is at the awareness funnel the content should be focused on educating them about the brand and its offerings. If they are at the awareness stage, the content should be focused on educating them on how a brand is superior to its competitors and informing them how the solutions can curb their challenges. And, if they are at the conversion stage, the content should be compelling enough so as to influence a customer into buying the services or products of a brand.
1. Analyze the Competition
It is highly likely that the competitors of a brand might already be present on social media platforms. And, in case their social marketing strategy looks successful, there might a lot to learn in terms of what they are doing.

Marketers can begin by preparing a comparative analysis of all the competitors. Making use of digital analytics, they can also gain insight on which of their marketing activities are performing extraordinarily. Carrying out a comparative analysis will also help marketers in understanding the demands of the industry. Based on these insights, marketers can refine their own marketing initiatives.

Carrying out an analysis also helps marketers in identifying opportunities for market penetration. In case a competitor has established a presence on Instagram, then the marketers can promote their client’s brand on some other platform rather than competing in a domain that is already dominated.

While conducting the analysis it is wise to keep an eye on which type of content is performing well amongst the audiences. Marketers can also study the patterns in which their competitors use a particular platform. They can map the frequencies and types of content that the competitors are publishing on these platforms. They can determine how many blog posts, videos, or creatives posts are shared online in a month.

Performing all these steps will help marketers to improve their own goals and plans.
1. Decide What to Share
The last step in creating an effective social media marketing strategy is to finalize the type of content to be shared with the audience. This will depend on the platform that is being targeted by the brand for marketing. While blogs and articles may dominate one platform, users may go to consumer video content on another.

No matter what the content type, marketers should make sure that consistently high-quality content is being offered to their target audiences. As mentioned in point number 3 of this content, it is also important to offer content to your customers in accordance with the stage of the buyer’s cycle which they are at. Targetting a limited number of platforms, in the beginning, will help in the regulation of the content quality.

It shall help in putting some research into the type of content that your audience is highly likely to consume. For instance, if you are promoting yourself on a podcast platform, it will make sense to only share podcast media with your audience and likewise.

Marketers should always start by posting content that establishes thought leadership. After gaining recognition, they can proceed with introducing a brand and its offerings to customers.

And, before a marketer can post content online, he should always remember to measure it against the business goal he is trying to achieve.

Marketers can combine all the above-mentioned steps in building the best social media marketing strategy. These steps for social media marketing will ensure success, scale, and expansion for organizations.

Though we have tried to keep our blog very specific, we would like to know if we have missed out on any important parameter. And, if you liked the blog do leave us a comment and do not forget to share it with your industry peers.
May 6, 2020