Digital Marketing Unit-2 (chapter-2)

Social media marketing

What is Social media?
Social Media is a platform that lets us participate in social networking. We can share
our posts on various social media platforms to improve business visibility. Currently it is the
best source for news updates, marketing, education, and entertainment.
Social media marketing:
- Social media marketing or SMM, is the use of social media and other social networks
to market a company, its products, and services.
- SMM allows companies and brands to interact with customers, reach new ones and
promote their mission or culture.
- Common social media sites used for social media marketing include: Instagram,
Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, LinkedIn, You Tube and so on.

Social Media platforms and their features

Social media platforms refer to online platforms and tools that allow people to create,
share, and exchange information and content with others. Examples of social media platforms
include Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter etc.
1. Social networking
2. Blogs and micro-blogging
3. Visual media sharing
4. Professional networking
5. Reviews and ratings
6. Discussion forums

1. Social networking:
• These are sites mainly used for connecting with friends and family.
• They focus more on person-to-person conversations.
• These platforms accommodate the different types of content formats from text
to photos, videos, and other creative forms of content.
• Some of such platforms include Facebook, WhatsApp, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

- Facebook: Launched in 2004, Facebook remains the world's most used and biggest
social media platform, with almost 2.9 billion Facebook users. Features:
• Profiles and Pages: Users can create personal profiles or business pages.
• News Feed: Centralized stream of updates, posts, and content from friends and
pages.
• Groups: Communities for discussions and shared interests.
• Events: Users can create and discover events.
• Ads and Business Pages: Robust advertising platform for
businesses.
- Twitter: Launched in 2003, Twitter now has over 200 million users and was almost
bought by Tesla founder and billionaire, Elon Musk. Features:
• Tweets: Short messages limited to 280 characters.
• Retweets and Likes: Users can share and like tweets.
• Hashtags: Used to categorize and discover content.
• Lists: Curate and organize Twitter accounts.
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• Moments: Curated stories or collections of tweets.

- WhatsApp:
• Founded in 2009, WhatsApp has over 2 billion active users every month,
making it the most popular messaging app.
• Though mainly launched for texting purposes, many businesses have started to
use it to promote their products or services.
• WhatsApp Business and WhatsApp Business API apps allow users to build a
branded profile and add a catalog, website URLs, store locations, and
promotional information.
• The platform allows users to voice call or video call their friends, family, and
other contacts.
- Instagram
Key feature:
• Photo and Video Sharing: Users can post photos and short videos.
• Stories: Ephemeral content that disappears after 24 hours.
• IGTV: Platform for longer-form videos.
• Explore Page: Discover new content based on interests.
• Shopping: Integration for e-commerce and product tagging
- TELEGRAM
Key Features:
• Messaging: Individual and group chats.
• Channels: Broadcasting messages to a large audience.
• Secret Chats: Encrypted, self-destructing messages.
• Bots: Automated accounts for various tasks.
• File Sharing: Share files and media

2. Blogs and micro-blogging

• Platforms like Tumblr and Medium allow users to create a community where
people with similar interests can follow them and read all they have to say
about certain topics through blogs.
• Blogs can offer an opportunity to organizations that have rich content to share
or have products and services that can be promoted to highly relevant blog
sites.
• Micro-blogs such as Twitter and Sina Weibo offer a great deal of advertising
potential to an audience that is limited on time and looking for interesting
content to share and absorb.

3. Visual media sharing:

A number of social platforms have been developed that focus on visual media. E.g.: of
video sharing site is YouTube; popular photo or image-sharing sites include Pinterest,
Flickr and Instagram.

a. YouTube
You Tube is a video-sharing platform that was launched in 2005 and. Users may
start a channel wh8ere they post videos about themselves or their business, its services,
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and procedures. Businesses can run paid ads and use the YouTube Discovery Ads feature
to reach the target audience. The platform also launched YouTube Shorts in 2021 to
compete with TikTok.
Key Features:
• Video Hosting: Platform for uploading and sharing videos.
• Channels: Personal or business profiles.
• Monetization: Partner Program for content creators.
• Live Streaming: Broadcasting live video content.
• YouTube Shorts: Short-form video platform.
b. Snapchat: launched in 2016.
- Here the user 'snaps' a photo or a video, adds a caption, and then sends it to a friend
— the twist being that the image/video disappears after a few seconds. Snapchat
was the first app to introduce a disappearing feature.
- Other features include adding filters to photos, using AR-based lenses, and sharing
live locations on Snap Map

c. Vine: creates short, looped video clips.

d. Pinterest
Pinterest is another visual social media platform.
Key Features:
- Pinboards: Users create boards to pin and organize content.
- Pins: Visual bookmarks for images and videos.
- Discover Feed: Algorithm-driven content discovery.
Shopping: Buyable pins and product tagging.
v/ Ideas and Inspiration: Platform for finding and sharing ideas.
4. Professional networking
Professional networking sites are, largely for the business or academic world.
example LinkedIn
a) LinkedIn: LinkedIn as a professional social media platform gives you opportunities to
reach the people who can make decisions about implementing your products and
services. LinkedIn contacts remain up to date regardless of the number of job switches
a person may have.
Key Features:
- Professional Profiles: Emphasis on career and professional achievements.
- Connections: Building a network of professional contacts.
- Company Pages: Businesses can create profiles.
- LinkedIn Pulse: Platform for publishing and reading professional content.
- Job Listings: Job search and recruitment features.

b) document-sharing sites:
Example SlideShare and Docstoc, which are both useful for publishing more formal
content and researching an opportunity. These can play a part in your content strategy.
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5. Reviews and ratings

Reviews and ratings sites answer a very basic human need peer approval. We don't
like to make mistakes when purchasing goods and services and, in this, peer reviews
have always been important.
One of the best-known review sites is TripAdvisor, which covers over 4.5 million
accommodations, places and attractions and operates in 45 countries.
The power of consumer reviews has encouraged brands to offer customers the ability
to review their products/services on-site.
6. Discussion forums
Discussion forums are very essential because they allow users to ask questions and get
answers from different people.
These platforms are designed to spark conversations based on shared interests or out
of curiosity.
Examples of such platforms include Quora and Reddit.
Quora: Quora is a question-and-answer site that focuses on knowledge sharing.
It requires users to use their real names and rewards then with a top writer.
Reddit: Reddit is a discussion and social news aggregation forum that focuses on
entertainment and news. It allows users to remain anonymous and uses a voting
system to rank content.

Creating and optimizing social media profiles

Social media profile:
A social media profile is a digital representation of yourself or your brand on social
media platforms. It includes information about you, such as your name, bio, profile
picture, header image, and other relevant details.
Social media profiles are essential because they are often the first point of contact
between you and your audience.
Therefore, it's important to have a well-optimized social media profile to make a good
first impression.

Profiles can be made on social media platforms like

o Instagram
o Facebook
o X (Twitter)
o Google business profile
o YouTube

Optimizing social media profiles

1. Perfect your profile picture

Keep the same profile picture, cover photo and bio across all social media sites. That
way you're easier to recognize on different platforms.
For businesses use company logo or professional headshot as your profile picture and
make sure it isn't cropped or cut off.
The image should be of high resolution
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2. Design what you can

Design images other than the profile pictures that tell your brand story
For example, Twitter 's banner or Facebook's cover images.
Make sure everything you post fits your visual identity, giving the whole page a sense
of cohesion.
On Instagram, you can even plan your entire grid to fit a unified theme or colour
scheme.
3. Write the perfect bio
Social media bio must be interesting and brief. We can use that space to drop a slogan,
highlight latest promotion etc.
We can Include relevant keywords for search optimization.
And add a link to your website or a specific landing page.
Also include your contact information and address if needed. Finally, you can finish
your bio with a simple call to action.
4. Pin what's important
Pin your favourite or most relevant posts to the top of your profile and change it whenever
needed.
5. Your Social Media Username and URL
On most social networks, your username is included in your URL, and it's often
different from your display name. Usually, you can't change your username, so
choose it carefully.
Try to keep it same across platforms
6. Set your interests and choose your allies
It is important to add extended information like our interests or likes in our profile.
On sites like Facebook, you can also like other pages with your brand page. This is a
great way to establish your brand's niche.
Also, how our brand account interacts with other brand accounts will determine how
the algorithm treats our profile. It will start suggesting our page to relevant people and
promoting our material organically.
7. Set your privacy
For social media posts to reach the maximum number of people, we should make
sure they're all set to public and are easily shareable.
8. Keep it clean
Untag yourself from unflattering or inappropriate photos and delete inappropriate
comments.
Making sure you keep an eye out for spam, which should also be reported and deleted.
A clean social media profile sends the message that you're a legit brand that cares
about how you're perceived.
9. Cross-promote your posts
Cross-promote your other social media profiles whenever possible.
Example: re-upload a TikTok video as a Reel on Instagram or a YouTube short.
Make use of tools like Link tree which allows you to create an easy landing page with
links to your other social profiles as well as your online shop, home page, contact
form etc
10. Test all your links
Audit your social media links
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Example: i.e. try logging in from a different account on a different browser and click
around for a while.
Do all the links go where they're supposed to, or did something weird happen with the
formatting?
The email that's included in your Twitter bio is it loading into the mail app properly
when you click it?
11. Build trust
Check your typing and grammatical errors.
Post just enough
Get verified- It depends on the platform. This way the users can rest assured that they
can trust you.
12. Your Social Media Promotion
Promote your social network profiles to help more people find and connect with you.
Add profile links to your website, email signature, and business card.

Social Media Content Strategy

A social media content strategy is a plan that contains all the ins and outs of how you
will use content to grow your brand and reach your goals on social media platforms.
Strategy is documented so that we refer to it as we carry out the tasks associated with
creating social media posts, publishing them and tracking results.

Seven Steps to Build Social Media Content Strategy

1. Set Goals That Align with Your Brand

Every strategy should start with setting one or two goals for what you want that
strategy to achieve.
Some of the goals are:
o Grow awareness of your brand: Track your followers, post shares/mentions,
and post reach.
o Earn more leads: Measure email sign-ups, lead magnet downloads, and clicks
that came from social media.
o Increase engagement with your brand: Pay attention to likes, comments, and
shares per post. Track mentions and replies to your Stories.
2. Research Your Audience and What Platforms They Use
Define your audience before creating content and try to know what will engage
them. Every post we create should engage them on some level.
We can find out directly from them with methods like: Interviews, Social
listening, Surveys.
Also, Audience research will also help you determine which platforms your
brand should be using.
3. Optimize Your Social Media Profiles(s)
Make sure your profiles are engaging, informative, and appropriately branded
so you can help leads discover more about you.
An unprofessional, sloppy, or off-brand profile will not help visitors understand
who you are or what you sell.
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4. Choose Your Topic Areas and Post Types
Choose your topic areas of focus (core content areas) for your social media
content as well as what types of content you'll post to each channel.
i.e. What topics does your audience want to hear about?
This will make your social profiles cohesive and relevant.
5. Set Up a Content Calendar and Publishing Schedule
Be Consistent in publishing your content.
Publishing regular, high-quality content increases your visibility and gives
your audience more chances to engage with your posts.
That's why, maintain a social media content calendar and create a posting
schedule.
Plan everything from what you'll post to the day and time it will be posted.
6. Create a Plan to Engage with Others
Keep the conversation going by engaging with audience and with your wider
community.
Add an engagement plan to your strategy, to make it easier to stay
accountable.
Example:
o "Like and comment on two to three community posts per day."
o "Engage whenever you see an opportunity to connect."
7. Keep Track of Your Social Media Content Strategy Performance
Once we start creating and posting content according to the strategy, we can
start tracking metrics.
Some important metrics include:
o Reach, Impressions, Engagement (including likes, comments, saves,
shares, etc.),
o Follower growth, Brand awareness,
o Click-through rate (CTR), Brand sentiment.

SOCIAL MEDIA ADVERTISING AND ANALYTICS

Social media advertising
Social media advertising is a type of digital marketing strategy that uses social
networks, such as LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and Instagram, to
deliver paid ads to your target audience.
More and more companies including the world's top-performing brands rely on social
media ads to grow their business and attract prospective customers.
Best platforms for social media advertising include: LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook,
Twitter, TikTok and Instagram etc.

Benefits of social media advertising

1. Achieve a wider reach: With social media ads, we can reach not just our current
followers but also potential customers who meet your demographic criteria.
2. Refine your target audience: We can customize our ads to reach the right people at the
right time based on location, interests or online behaviour etc
Example: our ideal target audience would be
- i.e. potential leads who have visited your website
- customers who have previously purchased from your brand
- prospects who are interested in your brand's products or services.
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3. Improve engagement: Ads create opportunities for meaningful engagement with our
audience. Whether it's likes, comments, shares or clicks, social media ads encourage your
audience to act and connect with your brand.
4. Attain measurable business outcomes: Using analytics tools, we can know exactly
how many people saw the ad, clicked on it and even made a purchase. This, provides us
with the necessary data to fine-tune our campaigns for optimal results, saving time and
money.
5. Save's a considerable amount of money: Social media advertising costs a fraction of
what we generally spend on traditional advertising methods. This affordability has made
social media advertising a popular choice for businesses of all sizes.
6. Formats: social media ads support a wide range of formats and media types

How do social media ads work?

1. Auction style: social ads are an auction-style of PPC where an algorithm determines
placements and costs based on a number of criteria including ad quality, maximum bid,
and past performance.
2. Campaign objectives: Usually there are three objectives to represent top, middle, and
bottom level ads
l. Reach/awareness
2. Leads/engagement
3. Conversion/sales
3. Targeting: We can target users on each platform by demographics, interests, and
behaviours as well as create retargeting and lookalike audiences.
4. Account structure: Each social platform has an account structure that allows you to
organize ads into groups and then organize groups into campaigns.

Social media analytics

• Social media analytics is the ability to gather and find meaning in data gathered from
social channels to support business decisions, measure the performance of actions
based on those decisions.
• There are two distinct areas of social media that can be measured
- content
- promotion.

Steps in SM Analytics
• Social media analytics uses specifically designed software platforms that work
similarly to web search tools.
• Firstly, a goal is developed to perform analytics.
Example: increasing revenue, pinpointing service issues etc
• Next, Data about keywords or topics is retrieved through search queries or web
'crawlers' that span channels.
Lastly, Fragments of text are returned, loaded into a database, categorized and
analysed to derive meaningful insights.
When social media is used as a channel for promotion, the metrics may be very
different.
If we use social as an acquisition tool then we would want to include clicks, visits
and conversions.
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Finally, to measure broader metrics that are beyond our control social listening tools
are used as a part of analytics portfolio. Listening is monitoring social channels for
problems and opportunities.

Why is social media analytics important?

It helps companies address these experiences and use them to:
- Spot trends related to offerings and brands
- Understand conversations what is being said and how it is being received
- Derive customer sentiment towards products and services
- Identify high-value features for a product or service
- Uncover what competitors are saying and its effectiveness
- Map how third-party partners and channels may affect performance

Some of the key metrics that should be considered are as follows

1. Reach: the total users mentioning your brand plus their followers.
2. Engagement: the people taking an action on your content.
3. Average engagement rate: the average rate of people who took action versus people
who saw your content.
4. Impressions: the number of times your content has been seen.
5. Visits: the total number of times people have been to your site/page.
6. Unique visitors: the total number of individuals who have been to your site/page.
7. Bounce rate: people arriving and then leaving without visiting another page.
8. Click-through rate: the percentage of people who see your content and click through to
the end location.
9. Conversion rate: the percentage of people who buy versus those who arrived on your
site or began a purchase journey.
10. Sales: total number of sales.
11. Response rate: the percentage of people who have in some way responded to your
content.
12. Mentions: the number of times that your brand has been mentioned.
13. Followers: the number of followers you have on any or all networks.
14. Buzz: combination of a number of factors that suggest how popular you are right now.
15. Share of voice: the number of conversations about you versus your competition.
16. Sentiment: reviewing the types of messages about you for positive and negative
sentiment.

Examples of tools:

• Twitter Analytics is a simple but effective native tool for measuring success on Twitter.
• Brand watch is a social media monitoring company that is widely used globally for social
listening.
• Facebook Insights is the native Facebook analytics tool for tracking activity on your
page.
• Radian 6 is part of the Salesforce marketing cloud and is a strong tool for monitoring
and managing social posts from both influencers and detractors