How to Win at Social Media Marketing

With the ubiquity of social media – the way it has and continues to work its way into every nook and cranny of our lives – it’s no wonder that brands, big and small, have taken to this ever-present medium to advertise their products and services, and do everything they can to wrangle as many potential customers as possible. 

And with more than half the world’s population now on social media, it has now become an elemental part of the business marketing campaign. But what is it exactly? How should businesses go about it? And is it something worth leaving to a professional digital agency in Sydney? In this article, we break it all down. 

What is Social Media Marketing?

Simply put, social media marketing is a means of creating and distributing content amoung different social media platforms to advertise a business’s product or service. But it’s also just as much about cultivating a community within your target audience and driving traffic back to your site. Essentially, it’s all about capitalising on the lucrative, brand-bolstering potential of social media to the benefit of your business. 

The Social Media Marketing Process

To give you a general idea of how a social media marketing strategy may look, here are a few of the fundamental phases you can expect. 

Social Media Audit

The starting point of any half-decent social media management strategy is to conduct an audit.

This is the first step in giving you a clear picture of how your business is fairing across your social media platforms. Super important of course because it will tell you exactly what’s working, what isn’t, where your business needs to improve, and where it can be taken to the next level. 

The process itself requires an overview of all your business’s social media channels, using analytics tools to assess things like follower growth and engagement, most popular posts, audience data, referral traffic, shares, impressions etc. 

Pick Your Goals and Establish Your Metrics

Once you have a clear understanding of your social media performance you can now begin to think about how you want to improve. Driving brand awareness and increasing community engagement have been shown to be the most common business goals for social media. 

But how will you know if you’re on track to reaching these goals? Answer: Metrics and Key Performance Indicators. Keeping tabs on things like clicks, engagement, hashtag performance, reach and likes (paid and organic) is the kind of data-driven approach that is key to any digital marketing campaign. 

Create Your Content

The type of content you create will depends on three things: Brand + Audience + Goals. 

But obviously the main thing you’re going for here, regardless of industry, is quality! In fact, 83% of marketers favour quality over quantity when it comes to social media posts. 

As for the type of content – a recent poll of marketers showed that 85% of them believed short-form videos to be the most effective, with 58% of marketers planning to leverage Instagram Reels in 2022. 

Hiring a Social Media Marketing Agency

While it might be tempting to resign your business’s social media marketing efforts to an in-house team, chances are it won’t be nearly as effective as the strategy of a dedicated agency. A social media marketing company is a group of specialists after all. They have the expertise and experience to achieve the goals your brand is after. 

They’re no stranger to Twitter and Facebook analytics or Instagram insights. And they’re not at a loss when it comes to scouting out the competition to create content that sets your brand apart. Identifying consumer personas, measuring your ROI and sticking to a routine posting schedule are all part and parcel for a dedicated social media agency in Sydney.