SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

At its core, marketing involves four steps:

 understanding and studying the audience or customers for a product,
 creating messages related to or promoting the product,
 getting these messages in front of the right people, and
 evaluating and optimizing the impact of your message.
We refer to some of the marketing messages that are created in this process as
advertising. Marketing is the art and science of selling goods and services that provide
value.
Ads are those messages marketers pay for to get them in front of their audience. While
people will mention advertising and marketing in one breath, advertising is a subset of
marketing.
What are my customer’s or potential customers' needs, and how can my product help
them?

Understanding your audience is the first step in marketing.

(Facebook-Coursera)
Then based on these insights, create your messaging. You may want to tell specific
aspects of your soap that you think will appeal to your audience, and you can
accompany it with images that you think the audience may like to create your ad.
Next, you'll want to consider how to get your ad in front of your audience. You may
decide the right place to show your ads on TV, on billboards, on a few blogs, and
Facebook. Now finally, after your ads run, you can evaluate whether they affect sales.
Are you seeing more interest in your soap? You may find that a particular ad of yours
did well, while other ads did not move the needle as much. You can use that information
to optimize your future campaign strategies and focus on the types of ads that work.
Now, here is an example of an ad from the legendary Dove Campaign for Real Beauty.

Example of an ad from the legendary Dove Campaign for Real Beauty.

The marketers behind this campaign relied on extensive research to help them
understand what goes through people's minds when it comes to selecting beauty and
personal care products. The campaign was based on insights from a study involving
more than 3,000 women. Dove's research study found that only 4% of women find
themselves beautiful. Based on this insight, marketers created a campaign that focused
on helping women reassess what beauty means. This broader campaign served as the
backdrop for the introduction of several new products by Dove. Marketers for Dove got
their message in front of their audience through ads in magazines, billboards, television,
social media sites, and so on. The campaign was wildly successful. Based on results
and specific insights, the marketing teams could then further optimize the message, and
where the ads were shown to further increase their impact on sales. Marketers rely on
different channels to put ads in front of potential customers. Television, radio,
billboards, magazines, and newspapers are all popular channels. We refer to these as
traditional marketing channels as opposed to the newer digital marketing channels, or
the channels that relate to the online world like search engines, social platforms, and so
on. To get their message in front of the right people, marketers go where their
audience is. They follow the eyeballs so to speak. Over the years, as people have
started to spend an increasing amount of time online, marketers’ attention has shifted
to digital channels, with an increasing portion of their advertising budgets now
spent on online advertising. In the US in 2019, more money was spent on digital
channels than on traditional channels, and the digital portion is predicted to keep
growing. Marketers want to advertise in the channels where people spend their time.
But that's hardly the only reason for the attraction of digital media channels.

Introduction to Digital Marketing

Digital marketing is marketing that uses digital technology or digital media. It has
revolutionized marketing because it's uniquely powerful.
Digital marketing is unique in that it allows you to specifically target your message to
the people that may be interested, and it lets you measure the effectiveness of
your message
Another key feature of advertising online is that you can:
measure your ad's effectiveness on the behavior of the people who saw your ad. That's
extremely important for marketers, as this kind of measurement capability helps to
spend your marketing dollars more efficiently. You can measure what works, and
adjust your campaign when you find there are options for improvement.

Content marketing
is another form of digital marketing. It's a strategic marketing approach in which content is
created and distributed to attract customers to a product or service, but without overtly
advertising the product. Content marketers will often focus on informational or educational
content to encourage interest in a product.

So people will think more favorably of the brand in the future or will check out what else
the brand has to offer on their website for instance.

Introduction to Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is a form of digital marketing that uses social networking
platforms or websites to promote a product or service.
Two core elements typically define social media platforms. They let people connect
and they let people create or share content. The connection is crucial, and that was
the big innovation in six degrees. By bringing people together in one big network, people
could connect and use that connection to communicate or to share information and
links. When people start to share information, they become content creators.
That's another innovative element in social media. Social media has made it much
easier for people to create and distribute content online. As a result, content creation is
no longer in the hands of a few large publishers. From blogging networks where people
share long-form content to video networks like YouTube and TikTok, where creators
upload and share their videos to platforms like Instagram or Pinterest, where people can
grab or take pictures and share them. All of these platforms have put users in the
driver's seat when it comes to the content that gets created and shared.

Social media marketing is often split into two different categories.

There's organic or free social media marketing and
paid social media marketing also called social media advertising.
Organic social media marketing,
Mainly involve establishing a business profile
refers to all social media activity that businesses can engage in without paying a fee. It's an
important part of marketing as social media users have come to expect that their favorite brands
or the businesses they interact with are present on social media. Organic social media
marketing typically involves establishing a business profile, or a business presence in the
social media channels that matter to users. For instance, setting up a Facebook business page,
or an Instagram account for business. Engaging with users on social media to post tweets,
comments, sharing, and so on. Connecting with customers through messaging platforms
like WhatsApp, for instance, is often used for more individual customer service.

Importance of Social Media Platforms.

Social media platforms are the virtual spaces used for social networking and marketing the
brand digitally. These platforms make it easy for the brands to reach their potential customers.
Each platform has its targeted audience and you reach a large audience in seconds. It allows
you to tell your brand story to the world and inspire them. Social media paltforms help you to
interact with your audience easily and understand them and attract the right customers at a low
cost.

Every business has its competitors and learning about competitors is important. With the help of
social media analysis, competitor research, and online promotions you can learn about your
competitors. Social media platforms are the game-changer. These platforms give power to the
common man. It can help you to understand what people saying about your business. Social
media platforms are the most important for marketing to get success for any business.
Businesses can share promotional content, ads but they don’t have to forget that social
media is about connecting with people. Charlene Li, a prominent social media
consultant, and author wrote in her book, Groundswell,
“Companies need connections to their markets to create long-term loyalty.”
For now, it's good to remember that businesses can participate as long as they
focus on connecting, not promoting.