Imagine you are sitting in your lounge, getting bored, using your phone. Now just think what do you do with your phone? Apart from talking to our friends and family either scrolling any social media platform feed or watching a video, right?  

Another question… 

Ever happened that you’re scrolling down your Facebook or Instagram feed and a brand’s page that you may have followed or not shows you a product that you wanted and planned to buy? Then you checked the brand’s page and website properly and bought the desired product. Or in the other case, ever happened while scrolling that you see a product, liked it, and bought it? Completely unplanned?  

This happens because the brands out there know the importance of social media and they are utilizing it the right way. 

WHAT IS SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING? 

Using social media platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, Instagram etc to meet the needs of your customer, to create a direct connection with your customers, and to reach potential customers globally is Social Media Marketing. 

WHY WE SHOULD USE SOCIAL MEDIA  FOR MARKETING? 

We all know that in today’s world social media is a very big part of our lives. And keeping this in mind smart entrepreneurs use social media platforms for marketing. It is the fastest way of marketing nowadays. Some of the most useful social media platforms for marketing are Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube. Social Media Marketing includes connecting to your current customers and reaching more people. An increase in reach increases the chance of new potential customers. You have to take care of what your customers want from you, your response should be immediate to your customers, advertising on social media is also an important part of social media marketing. But for the progress of social media marketing, you have to manage your accounts wisely and actively. And for that, you have to hire a manager who can manage your social media accounts professionally and help your business to grow. 

DOES EVERY BUSINESS NEED TO HIRE SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER? 

No, initially when we start a business we do not have many financial resources to fulfill our business financial needs. So at that time what we can do is choose 1 social media platform which should be effective for marketing and try to manage it properly. But with the passage of time, our business grows and so do our responsibilities, and then we can not manage social media marketing all by ourselves. Business growth means financial growth and that is the time when we should hire a professional Social Media Manager to keep our Social Media Marketing managed because now we have grown and people know us, we need to focus on our marketing more than ever.  

The good thing about social media marketing is it is way more pocket-friendly and effective than traditional marketing and that is why we should not have any second thoughts before choosing social media for marketing. 

SOME SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS WHICH ARE GOOD FOR YOUR BUSINESS: 

Now when we know that what is social media marketing and why should we try it for our business the question is which social media platform should we choose? 

Here are some top social media platforms which are used worldwide for marketing by small and large businesses. 

1. INSTAGRAM  

Before discussing any details about Instagram have let’s look at some important statistics of Instagram. 

|The second most downloaded application from the Apple store is Instagram| 

|The Potential Marketing Reach of Instagram is 849 million users| 

Source: Instagram Statistics (2021) – Quantum Marketer 

|1 billion people use Instagram worldwide in 2021| 

Source: 10 Instagram Statistics You Need to Know in 2021 [New Data] (oberlo.com) 

Above mentioned statistics are the latest 2021 statistics of Instagram. With the help of this information, we can assume the popularity of Instagram in the life of our customers. People from the age of 13 to 60 use Instagram and this indicates the fact that we can use Instagram for every business type because we can find people of every age there. If we log in to our Instagram account we can see that people are already using this platform for promoting every type of product and service. We can see food bloggers there, fashion designers, educationists, influencers, artists, photographers, and many more.  

Instagram has very interesting features which we can use for business awareness. We can post pictures, long and short videos, share stories, we can also advertise on Instagram. Instagram also has the feature to turn your private account into a business account so you can have special features which a normal account can not have. With well-developed businesses Instagram also takes care of small businesses, it gives the opportunity to make an online community and helps to reach people worldwide in a very little time period. So if you are thinking about choosing any social media platform for marketing you should definitely try Instagram. 

1. YOUTUBE 

Some important YouTube 2021 statistics are: 

|YouTube has 2.3 billion users worldwide| 

|97% of internet users have YouTube account| 

|After Google, YouTube is the second most popular search engine| 

|YouTube is available in more than 100 countries| 

|YouTube is available in 80 different languages| 

|62% of businesses use YouTube| 

Source: 10 Youtube Statistics That You Need to Know in 2021 (oberlo.com) 

YouTube is used for sharing and watching videos. Nowadays people like to watch more than they like to read. Video industry is at its peak and it’s a good opportunity to use this fact to grow your business. On YouTube people like to watch hours long videos as well as short videos. You can use this platform for brand awareness by sharing videos or by advertising. YouTube video sharing is a very good feature for descriptive content. If you want to share the importance of your business and how  you do it, the small details and informations about how your business works, educate the world about your field then YouTube would be the best for you. 

1. FACEBOOK 

Some 2021 statistics about Facebook are: 

|1.84 billion users visit Facebook daily| 

|More than 200 million small businesses are on Facebook| 

|Facebook reaches 59% of the social media users| 

Because of its large number of users, it has the widest reach. It has some very good business features which different businesses use to grow. It also has many community groups which play a very important role to reach different people. If you’re new to social media marketing then you should start with Facebook. It will help you choose your audience and it helps you reach more people at a low price with its advertising tool. So if you are thinking to start social media marketing then Facebook is the best option and you should start with it. 

These three are the top social media platforms for marketing you can use all of them or any one of them for your business. Each of them has some unique features so if you are starting social media marketing then start with anyone and when you think that you can manage more, then utilize the other two too. There are many social media platforms other than Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram but because these are the most popular we should start with these and then grow gradually. 

BENEFITS OF SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING: 

It increases brand awareness and brand recognition. 

Since so many people use social media accounts so being on social media makes you visible for many people. So many people start knowing you through social media. 

It increases business reach. 

Due to the large audience, you can reach so many people. Using more social media platforms increases the chance of reaching more people. 

It is easy and consumes less time than traditional marketing. 

We have to use a single laptop and we can be at home, doing social media marketing. Whereas for traditional marketing we have to leave our comfort. Social media marketing also consumes less time than traditional marketing because through social media marketing we can connect many people at a time. 

It is budget-friendly. 

Social media marketing is way cheaper than the traditional marketing strategy. And the biggest example is advertising. Even the new businesses which are not well developed yet can use social media advertising tools.  

It is more efficient than traditional marketing. 

More work can be done by using fewer resources such as time, money, labor. 

It has no boundaries because you can reach people worldwide. 

People use social media in the whole world. You can be in one part of the world and the world can see what you offer. Now your business is not limited to your town or country.  

SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING MISTAKES: 

The biggest social media mistake that marketers do is they focus on selling more than connecting to the audience. Due to this audience lose interest. We should always try to engage with the audience through stories and posts. Once we build the trust they will automatically buy from us. 

Talking of trust, the most important thing is not showing what you can not deliver. Many social media marketers just to attract people offer what they do not actually can deliver. We can say that they over-exaggerate their products or services. For example, I have a clothing brand and I offer dresses. Just to attract the audience I use effects that makes my dresses look more beautiful and this can change the actual color. When the customer will from me and will not get what he sees then he will never buy again from me. Because of the falsity, I will gain a customer for once but I will lose a customer forever.  

Quantity over quality is never a good idea. We have seen many people buying followers so that their social media profiles can look rich. But the business actually grows by more engagements and not more followers.