Social Media Marketing FAQs

Social media marketing, or SMM, is the on-going process of promoting your brand, products and services on some of the world’s most popular social media platforms. Social media combines organic promotion, community building and paid ads to accomplish specific goals, like raising brand awareness or generating leads.

Social marketing agencies are specialized digital marketing companies with a strong focus on SMM. Some agencies only work on these platforms, while others, like Oneupweb, have a dedicated social media department. As a part of a fully integrated marketing team, the social media team can pull in expert copywriters, videographers and other skill sets to create more engaging content.

SMM teams provide social media marketing support, strategy, management and content creation – plus a liberal dose of creativity. Depending on the client’s needs, a social media agency will handle:

• Social post creation
• Social media auditing and strategy
• Social listening and community management
• Reporting on all your channels
• Hashtag and platform research

Social media strategy connects your business goals to your social media priorities. Once you define how social media fits into your overall business strategy, you can make important decisions on tactics, such as:

• What social platforms do we need to focus on?
• What social platforms are not a priority?
• What sort of content performs well on these platforms?

Your strategy should serve as a source of truth. As you create posts or allocate resources, a strong social media strategy is a crucial gut check. Include information that:

• Defines social media “buckets,” or content themes
• Records core demographics and customer personas
• Establishes brand values that should be represented on each platform
• Shows clear goals and the key performance indicators (KPIs) that illustrate progress

A social media consultant or agency will likely provide a personalized estimate based on the scope of your social media strategy needs, the number of social platforms and what other marketing services may be involved.

Social media offers brands access to billions of potential customers to increase brand awareness and stay in front of past customers. It also provides an unparalleled way to target specific demographics and audiences and build trust and community, all at a fraction of the price of a 30-second TV spot.

The social media metrics your company uses to measure success or find opportunities should be based on your business goals. These are common metrics used to measure social media marketing performance:

• • Impressions – Are you growing the number of people who see your brand on social?

• • Engagement – Are people joining the conversation and sharing your posts?

• • Mentions – How often are people talking about your brand?

• • Social Referral Traffic – How many people click through to your website?

• • Followers – How many people are in your immediate social networks?

To get the best picture of how social media is benefiting your company, look at social media metrics in tandem with the other channels. For example, are leads from social media referrals more qualified than those from paid media?

It’s easy to get caught up in the hype about new social media platforms, but every social channel you adopt requires time, energy and budget to effectively meet your business goals. To start, choose one or two that make the most sense, and really capitalize on them by making frequent, high-quality posts. Read our blog about choosing the right social media platforms for your business to see more specific tips.

When your social media properties are managed appropriately, you’ll see growth through targeted boosts or ads, carefully crafted copy, highly shareable resources and captivating imagery. We believe in the value of gaining quality followers and qualified traffic, meaning your new followers should be members of your target audience – not just anyone with a Facebook account. Avoid buying followers or using other questionable tactics, as it’s unlikely to help your business. When a social media account has vibrant, consistent and engaging content, quality followers grow naturally.

Very. Your company’s social media strategy should absolutely include video, especially for platforms like Instagram and YouTube. Every mainstream social media channel can support video assets, and 81 percent of businesses use video marketing to boost brand awareness and sales. Try to incorporate a mix of live and produced (scripted and edited) videos into your social media strategy. These days you can create social media–worthy videos with just a smartphone and an editing app – and there are free apps out there to help with this. If you’re looking for a more professional-grade video, perhaps with an optimized landing page, hire an agency like ours that offers video marketing and production supported by other digital content experts.

Many businesses fail to curate content specifically for each platform. While cross-posting on Facebook and Instagram may be convenient, we recommend at the very least optimizing your posts’ descriptions for each platform. Another common issue we see is the improper use of hashtags on each platform. By making sure your content is optimized for specific platforms, you align with user expectations. This makes your brand appear proficient in social media, which is a form of social proof.

Social media is now an integral part of an effective digital marketing strategy. Many brands use social media for top-of-funnel marketing and then utilize paid advertising on social media to drive middle-of-funnel or bottom-of-funnel efforts. It has heavily influenced design and video strategies, as users today expect to get information very quickly. For example, videos that can be understood while muted are popular now, as people want to consume that content while in public.

At the very least, social media is great for increasing brand awareness and building a community of prospects. At most, social media can be a major revenue driver. It’s a facilitator of conversation. It’s one of the best ways to make an audience feel like a part of your brand, which drives purchases. Finally, audience targeting is a great reason to invest in social. Boosted posts and display advertising are great ways to launch a retargeting or brand awareness campaign.

Above all, social media costs you time. It’s important to spend time creating your assets, writing description copy and participating in community engagement (answering comments, sharing content to your story, etc.). There are true costs associated with social media marketing if you pay for professionally designed assets, hire an agency to manage your channels for you, or utilize advertising or boosting capabilities. Cost varies drastically by vendor, and you get what you pay for if you go too cheap. It might be best to break down the cost of social media marketing into a few buckets: Social media strategy – Costs can vary, but starting your renewed social media efforts with an audit or professional guidance will save you money in the long run! Social media content creation – Time to make the internet! Whether internal or outsourced to an agency, you’ll need to invest time and resources into design, video and implementation. Social media tools – Social scheduling platforms like Buffer and Hootsuite can save time, but you’ll likely need a paid plan to get all the features you need. The average cost for social media marketing tools like these is usually around $200 per month, but pricing varies. Social media boosting and ad budget – Grow your account, increase brand impressions and drive conversions with a dedicated paid media budget. We’ve got some folks who can help with that! To help you focus your efforts on aspects of your social media platforms that will get the highest return on investment, we recommend auditing your social media platforms. We offer a free social media audit checklist so you can identify your top priorities.

An effective social media marketing strategy involves many moving parts. We recommend using a planning tool like our free social media calendar so you can keep track of all your assets in one place. There are other options available, like Oneupweb’s Condario calendar, which can include design, content and other execution support. You may also benefit from social management tools like Loomly or Sprout Social, which allow you to automate future posts.