How to start a career in social media marketing
It slowly crawled into our lives by taking small steps until it carved a niche for itself and started living with us or we started living with it.
Any guesses what it is.
Well, it is none other than the social media where we feel free and live in an alternative world.
It has now become an integral part as we have got addicted to spend time on it. On average, Indian users spent 2.4 hours on social media, in line with the global average.
The numbers itself speak that it is our new means on enjoyment.
Then how can this means of entertainment turn as means of career option.
You must be thinking that how can this medium of recreation is related to marketing.
Is there really something called social media marketing.
Because when you hear the word marketing the first thought that comes to your mind is something related to business.
So, how can social media fit with the word marketing?
Though social media has captured our hearts but how can it really be a method to start a job.
Because you have always considered social media as a pastime.
No you are not imagining it is a real career path.
Let’s understand it in details by knowing its definition .
What is social media marketing?
Well who likes to know the typical bookish definition of social media marketing.
If I’ll give you the boring definition you will surely loose your interest in it.
Moreover social media in itself is a common phrase and I need not restrict it to a mere definition to tell how big it is.
So in simple terms social media marketing is to do marketing on the platform of social media.
You create content with the aim of promoting your business or product through various social media channels such as facebook,instagram , linkdin, twitter etc.
Social media marketing includes activities like posting text and image updates, videos, and and other content that drives audience engagement, as well as paid social media advertising
You engage your customers through social media.
There is a beautiful quote that defines social media aptly
“Social media is about the people! Not about your business. Provide for the people and the people will provide you.” – Matt Goulart
In short, social media serves as the channel of marketing because it is the new mode of communication. This is where most of the people are so this is where you should be.
The big why?
Till you don’t find the motivational reason to begin something you don’t start it.
So, here are some eye-opening statics to watch.
Facebook has 2.2 billion active users every month
Pinterest? 150 million people are using this popular platform every month
Instagram is the second biggest social media network
It is like a large pond where you can easily find your targeted audience.
Well, you may be thinking it as an easy source of income where you post something and you’ll get paid .
It’s not that simple.
Social media networks:
You must have heard that be where your audience is.
But you must be still confused that as it is a large pond which is your fish
Here are few examples of social media networks that meet our requirements of marketing.
Face book: It was developed only for students of Harvard back in 2004 by Mark Zukerberg and his co-fouder.
In 2006 it was opened for all and rest is history how it became the biggest name.
Almost One third of the population uses it.
For promoting their business more than 65 million businesses use Face book pages.
So, you can create your business page to make people aware about your brand. You can also customize your page for future.
On your Facebook Page there are four main types of posts you’re likely to publish
- Photos
- Videos/Stories
- Text updates
- Links
According to a study by Buzzsumo on 880 million Facebook posts published by brands and publishers, videos get, on average, twice the level of engagement than other post types
YouTube: It is the largest platform for video sharing.
We have become habitual of spending most of our time searching videos.You must have noticed that whenever you are watching something dozens of adds come saying video will play after so and so seconds thus the moment you see skip add you feel relieved and click it instantly.
But do you know these advertisements are a part of social media marketing and they target the users through youtube.
You can also use this platform to advertise about your brand.
Another way is to create youtube channel for your brand wherer you can get subscribers.
In 2014, to promote the Nudes Palette Maybelline collaborated with 13 influential YouTube beauty vloggers.
This campaign itself managed to rack up over 1.4 million clicks.
LinkedIn: LinkedIn is hybrid version of face book as it is mostly used by professional to develop professional relations.
It is not just a job search platform but a platform to build connections.
For, instance you are a blogger so your followers may also follow you on LinkedIn where you may share about your workshops or webinars. You can promote your long form content from other sources by repurposing your content.
LinkedIn advertisers tend to be B2B, and if that’s your audience, you should definitely be testing ads here.
Moreover, you get advertisement options such as sponsored ads, sponsored mail, text ads.
Quora: Quora is like the mature, authoritative big brother of Yahoo Answers.
You have always regarded quora as a question-answer medium. But it is also used for marketing.
Confused how?
Quora is a method to know what issues are concerning your relevant users.So, you can use this information for future and craft niche for your product.
By answering Quora questions relevant to your industry, you can demonstrate your expertise in the space and improve your company’s brand image.
Linking up your Quora account with your Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Tumblr, or WordPress accounts allows for easy social sharing of your answers.
Pinterest: A picture is worth a thousand words is a saying.
It is ideal medium for B2C where you promote your product with the help of pictures.
You can create pins according to your product and then you can target your audience who follow your pins.
- More than 52% of Pinterest users report that Pinterest helps them find items to buy; and
- 61% say they’ve discovered new brands and products from Promoted Pins.
These statistics show that pinterest is also a key player when it comes to marketing.
Instagram:The heart of instagram is content with an average of 95 million pictures and videos shared daily.
But you need to create a profile solely for the purpose of building your brands’ image.
The ad which you run on facebook you can run on instagram by click the Instagram ad placement button and select “Feed,” “Stories,” or both.
The hashtag is ultimate driving factor which prompts people to take call to action.
You need to keep in mind that though there are a number of social media networks to promote content but for every network the approach is different.
Differernt strategy works for different kind of network as it has different set of audience.
Make sure that these networks are for promoting your brand so you should make business account.