the essential guide to social media marketing

SOCIAL MEDIAMARKETINGTHE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO

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ContentsIntroduction

Social Media in 2015

Popular Channels for 2015

Social Media Plan 2015

Instagram

Facebook

YouTube

Influencers

Cross-channel strategy

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Did you come across the video that recently went viral on YouTube or the latest tweet that was trending across Facebook pages? Ever wondered how such simple content pieces (videos, articles, and blogs) become so popular? On occasion, such simple content pieces have turned the fortunes of struggling campaigns around. That’s the power of social media in today’s always-connected world!

In traditional marketing textbooks, one will not find any traces of the term ‘social media’ marketing. The traditional marketing mindset has given way to engagement-driven marketing channels like social media. It is only in the past five to ten years that social media has found its way onto every marketer’s checklist. The social media buzz is so strong that in a recent survey1, it was found that 87% of marketers want to understand how to measure return on investment of social media.

On the consumer front as well, 70% of consumers trust brands that are recommended by their friends over social media. This means that if there are two products of equal price and quality, consumers will prefer buying products that are trusted by their friends. Engagement and trust is what wins trusted customers for your businesses.

Before we throw caution to the winds for branding and advertising, a small, key fact: Social media is more a platform for networking and interaction than a place to display ads. People are likely to share content on social media if it has a practical value. By definition, Social media marketing refers to the process of gaining website tra�c or attention through social media sites, as stated by Mashable. In the broad sense of the term, social media is the platform (mobile or web) that facilitates interaction, engagement, and sharing of content created by users (and businesses as well).

As far as social media marketers are concerned – impressions, reach, frequency, clicks, click through rates, likes, comments, shares, etc. – are a few metrics with which the return on investment of social media strategies may be monitored!

1 http://www.adweek.com/socialtimes/files/2014/01/revolutionized-marketing.png

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Active mobile socialaccounts globally

1.65billion

in connectedness foremployees using social

business tools

39%increase

population is activeon social media

29%of world’s

90%customers

trust personal rcommendationswhile 33% trust ads, Nielsen

report suggests


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3.65 billionmobile-users have access to Internet via mobile-devices (smart-phones, tablets)

Non-English speaking social networks like Qzone in China and Russia have user-bases that exceed those of Twitter, Instagram, and Google+!

Apple Pay will bring about a major shift in commerce that will benefit social media across the mobile channel.

39% of global web tra�c is from mobile devices with one-third of all webpages served on mobile devices.

The world of social media marketing has now reached puberty, with social giant Facebook turning 11 this year! Other biggies of social media like Twitter, LinkedIn, WhatsApp are trying to outdo one another to become the market leader. As far as marketers are concerned, the increasing smartphone penetration has opened up new avenues to spread the word for their brands. 2015 is a combination of mobile as well as web social-media marketing.

Social Media in 2015


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Republishing updates several this year because any Facebook page reach has reduced significantly in the last couple of years.

Social media is expected to earn $8.3 billion from advertising revenueby the end of 2015.

Video will dominateas the most-preferred social-media content format.

The average social media user spends 2 hours and 25 minutes per day on social networks and microblogging websites.

Facebook plansto reduce the amount of promotional content in the news feed!

Integrated marketing is a must this year, and marketers need to focus on multiple social media networks, using power combinations of the same.



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Up until the last few years, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, and YouTube were the only popular channels that were targeted by social media marketers. In 2014-15, other channels such as Instagram, WhatsApp, SlideShare, SnapChat, Pinterest, etc., have risen, providing tough competition to the old guard and, in a few cases, even outperforming them!

Popular Channels for 2015

Instagram grew 50% from March – December 2014, and now has 300 million Instagrammers, making it bigger than Twitter!

Organic search on Facebook dropped to an average of 6% and for pages with more than 500k Likes, it dropped to 2%.

YouTube (11.3 billion) has been overtaken by Facebook (12.3 billion) for the most number of video views.


SnapChat is growing at 56% (2014) a year, while WhatsApp has 600 million users. WeChat (China) already has 400+ million members.

Tumblr’s active user-base grew by 120%, while only 2% growth was recorded for Facebook.

88% Pinterest users purchase a product that they’d pinned, and with 70 million users, product sales on this platform can increase exponentially.

LinkedIn recorded a growth rate of 44% from the last period, with a revenue of $643 billion.


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Social Media Plan 2015

Instagram

The right combination of channels, content, influencer posts and advertising, will result in a successful social media plan for 2015. With integrated-marketing taking the front seat, it is important to understand the key channels and focus on power combinations to achieve the perfect social media marketing plan.

This October 2010 mobile photo-sharing app currently has over 200 million monthly users with 60 million photos posted daily and an average of 1.6 billion likes every day. In the past 9 months, i.e., from March 2014 to December 2014, Instagram has grown by a factor of 50. With the app crossing the 300 million users mark, Instagram is now bigger than Twitter! And this is the reason why about 86% of top brands are on Instagram and by the end of 2015, this number is expected to rise. This app, acquired by Facebook, is surging to new heights with its growth rate.

Conduct thorough research on which segment of industry the majority of customers on Instagram belong to and what content appeals to them. Ensure that your brand or voice is in sync with the same.

Make it a point to tag other handles in your posts on Instagram. On average, posts that are tagged get 56% more engagement

Location tagging your posts can increase your user-engagement – but use them wisely

Use at least one hashtag in your posts. Reports suggest an increase of 12.6% in engagement when a single hashtag is used.



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Pro-Tip: include no more than 4 – 5 hash - tags in a single post!

This is hygiene – DO NOT forget to add a website link to drive tra�c to your site.

FacebookFacebook, the original social media leader, introduced the ‘Trending Topics’ tab which included the most popular topics and hash tags. These topics were displayed based on the Pages that one likes, their location, and trending topics on Facebook. This has helped a lot of marketers push their content on this platform and generate leads as well as sales. The Behavioral feature of Facebook Ads allows advertisers to target the audience on various parameters such as charitable donations, finance, digital activities, mobile device users, purchase behavior, residential profiles, and travel. This new feature focuses on targeting users who have previously taken some action on similar ads.

Facebook recently announced the addition of a Buy button on the ads and Page posts from select retailers in the US. This means that users can purchase products on Facebook itself, without having to leave the social network. This feature opens up new avenues for marketers to promote as well as sell their products via Facebook ads!

Create content around the most talked-about topics. The Trending Topics tab on Facebook can help you find such topics.

Use relevant keywords and/or hash tags in your posts to capitalize on the buzz generated for such trending topics.



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Invest in the ads that appear below the Trending Topics tab. Make sure these ads address a need or answer a question that appears in the trending content.

Keep track of Facebook Techwire (like FB Newswire), the newest kid on the social network. This is the go-to place for technology journalists and newsrooms to share their content pieces.

Avoid developing lengthy video content because it is observed that 45% of viewers stop watching the video after one minute and 60% viewers stop after two minutes. If the content demands lengthy videos, make sure you have grabbed the viewer’s attention in the first sixty seconds.

Use di�erent marketing channels to draw tra�c to your YouTube channel. You can include the video in your email marketing campaigns. Studies have proved that an introductory email that includes a video is likely to get an average click-through rate of 96%. That’s a huge number for an introductory email campaign!

YouTubeAccording to a recent survey, YouTube has become the number two search engine, globally. With most psychological studies hinting that videos increase people’s understanding about one’s product, investing some money into creating and distributing video content is essential, in 2015. Though Facebook served up more video views than YouTube in June 2014, YT is still the preferred site for viewing and sharing videos.



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If you have a lengthy video, you can create snippets and teasers and post it not only on YouTube and Facebook, but also on Instagram and on your own blog. This way, you are reaching a wider audience base, and also testing the kind of video that works best for your industry.

Identifying the right influencers is very important. You need to either hire an agency to do this, or perform a social media analysis to identify people who are interacting with your brand. Have an o�ine discussion with these people and ask them to further promote your brand on regular basis.

While getting in touch with social media influencers, you need to focus on three parameters, i.e.-

Influencer’s popularity, Klout score, and follower audience size

Relevance of influencer’s expertise with your brand’s goals and identity

Whether the influencer is engaging in conversations with his audience

You can get in touch with these influencers via email or even social media channels like Facebook and Twitter. Contacting them via phone is not a preferred option.

InfluencersThe marketing scenario in 2014 showcased the importance of influencer marketing and, in 2015, this trend is going to increase exponentially. As discussed earlier, Nielsen’s report suggested that 90% of customers trust brands recommended by their friends, while only 33% trust ads! Popular bloggers, journalists, friends, & people with a lot of followers have thus become all the more important for social media marketers.



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Create content pieces that will give your social media audience something to discuss about and share if it is to their liking. Don’t forget to use trending hashtags, wherever possible.

Maintain consistency across all the marketing channels; however, what you expect from these channels should be flexible. You should set di�erent goals and benchmarks for each network. You may develop a video content piece for Facebook, share it on Instagram with a link to your product, and use Twitter to gather feedback and cultivate discussions related to the campaign.

Have channel-specific metrics for all your marketing campaigns. By comparing all the channel metrics side-by-side, you will be able to judge which channel needs to be optimized, which one has high user-engagement, and which would be the best channel for content performance.

Cross-channel strategyCross-channel strategy is the key to social media success this year. Brands began to use this strategy in 2014, but in 2015, this type of marketing is picking up pace. Cross-channel strategy essentially implies going all-out with your marketing strategy on all the existing channels. Depending on your industry and the budget in-hand, build your marketing campaigns across Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, apart from using the traditional marketing channels like television and radio and also exploring new channels that are available.

The social media platform is rapidly changing, and it is up to social media marketers, experts, and analysts to discover how and why this change can be beneficial to their organizations. Right from investing in content creation and marketing to finding new channels for positive ROI results, new age trends of social media will require marketers to continuously improve their measurement metrics and strategies. Put apps like Bu�er, HootSuite, etc, to good use to ensure a seamless cross-channel strategy.



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To make the most of this social media revolution and drive tra�c (and sales, of course!) to your website, it is essential to understand the nuances of each of the aforementioned strategies. At Simplilearn, we understand this market demand, and have carefully built our training module on these grounds.

25+ Hours of High Quality e-Learning Content

Online Progress Quiz

Downloadable Workbooks & Exercises

Practice Tests

Topics on Viral marketing, Micro blogging, Social Media Measurement

Comprehensive and Up-to-Date Content

Exam Fee Included

Industry recognized OMCP Certificate

Good Luck!


the essential guide to social media marketing

Marketing

social media plan

social media sites

power of social media

investment of social

social media buzz

term social media marketing

traditional marketing

essential guide