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Social media marketing is considered an efficient and cost-effective marketing channel. Accordingly, it should not be missing in your marketing portfolio for your company. In order to reach your target group in social media and use your resources efficiently, we will tell you here what is important in social media marketing!
What all belongs to social media marketing?
What are the channels for social media marketing?
How does social media marketing works?
Why is social media marketing effective?
What should you look for in social media marketing?
How can you use social media marketing for your business?
B2B social media marketing – how does it work?
How do you measure success in social media marketing?
To take a long story short – Conclusion
The term social media marketing covers all measures for communicating corporate messages and interacting with users via social media. Social networks can be platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Xing or LinkedIn. In recent years, social media has become one of the most important marketing channels, as there is hardly an Internet user who does not use a social network.
The world of social media has greatly expanded and multiplied over the past few years. Each channel pursues its own philosophy and target group tactics. To give you a brief overview, we have summarized the most popular social media channels in Germany below:
| Social media channel | Description |
| Facebook is a social network where every user has a profile. The user can share pictures and videos via his profile. Companies can also create corresponding company profiles on Facebook and publish content via these profiles. This can be pictures, videos, links or status messages. The creation of an account is free of charge. | |
| Instagram is a social media platform that specializes in images and videos. Unlike Facebook, you don’t share status updates with your “followers” here, but only provide information about the imagery or recorded videos. Creating a profile is free of charge. | |
| TikTok | TikTok is a network for publishing videos. These videos often involve dancing or lip-syncing small sketches. The fun factor is very much in the foreground on this platform. Here, too, the creation of an account is free of charge. |
| YouTube | YouTube is also a platform for watching, sharing and uploading videos. This social media channel is often used to publish music or to provide tutorials to followers. This can be, for example, a video tutorial on how to properly clean a particular coffee maker. Registration on YouTube is free of charge. However, there are some subscription options available here, so that users don’t have to watch ads between videos. |
| Twitter offers users the possibility to publish short messages with maximum characters280 (as of 28.02.2022). It is considered a blogging service and social network. The focus on Twitter is not on pictures or videos, but on written text. A post on Twitter, unlike Facebook and co. is not called a post, but a “tweet“. Joining this social media channel is free of charge for all users. | |
| In contrast to the social media channels already presented, XING is a social network for professional contacts. It offers the opportunity to network with professionals from all industries and to present one’s own company. In addition, cooperation partners or potential employees can be found there. XING is mainly used by users from the DACH region. Registration is free of charge and can be supplemented by paid subscriptions. | |
| LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network and, like Xing, allows people to connect with colleagues and business partners. Since LinkedIn is an international platform, many postings and contacts are in English. The social network invites you to make contacts globally and can be very helpful in internationalizing your business. Registration on LinkedIn is free and can be extended with paid subscriptions. |
In order not to have to create the desired content in each platform individually, some platforms give the possibility to create the content only on one of these networks and duplicate it in the two others:
Social media is considered one of the most cost-effective marketing channels of our time. Your social media presence should be strategically planned so that you can generate a so-called follower or fan from a reader. A follower/fan is a user who permanently follows your presence and gets your content displayed. The more followers your page has, the more reach your posts have, even without paid ads.
In social media marketing, several components, such as sales, advertising and PR are linked together to make potential new customers and existing customers aware of your products and services.
Social media is particularly popular in the 16 to 64 age group. Due to this age range, there are many opportunities to reach the desired target group via a wide variety of social marketing channels. This can be done, for example, through regular posts with meaningful and interesting content. Another option gives you the cost-effective option of promoting your brand, products or service through paid ads, known as social ads.
The daily usage times of social media are also very interesting for your marketing campaign. According to the latest evaluations by Statista, the daily, worldwide usage time of social media is 147 minutes. In Germany, we use social media for an average of 89 minutes, or just under 1.5 hours, per day. At the top of the statistics with a daily usage of 247 minutes (just over 4 hours), is Nigeria. The USA is in 23rd place with 134 minutes.
These usage rates show: You should definitely include social media marketing in your portfolio to avoid wasting potential.
A large proportion of users in Germany spend several hours a day on social networks.
You also need a defined marketing strategy in the area of social networks. Depending on which social media channels you want to use, you should also individualize the type of your postings. Content that you publish on Facebook and Instagram is not suitable 1:1 for platforms such as XING and LinkedIn. Think in advance about what you want to achieve with the posting. A definition of the goals according to the S.M.A.R.T. principle is suitable as an aid for social media marketing.
It is also very helpful to create a social media calendar. In it, you record when you want to post which content on which platform. This can also be a simple Excel spreadsheet in the form of a calendar. The advantage for you is that you can also record possible ideas in this document and always have everything collected at a glance. This also makes it easier for you to plan paid ads for your products or services.
Especially as a company, it is important to offer your followers and fans added value. Think about a meaningful and informative content. This can be, for example, new product presentations or the unique selling point for your service. Even though many marketing experts always talk about very high reach, quality is more important than quantity. An extremely high reach will not help you and your company if no conversion can be generated by your postings. You can gain another advantage by responding quickly to inquiries in the social networks. Users have the opportunity to contact your company directly via Messenger because they have a question, for example. If you respond competently and professionally within a short time, your trustworthiness with this user increases and can lead to a purchase. You should also not ignore unpleasant questions or comments under your postings. Always respond in a factual and competent manner and, if necessary, offer a direct solution. Deleting comments or messages on social networks simply because they are unpleasant is a “no go“.
You can find out how to design your content sensibly in our article on the topic of social media content.
Investing in social media also makes perfect sense in the B2B sector. The development of the marketing strategy is actually the same as for the B2C area. Many companies can now be found on social networks. Especially platforms like XING and LinkedIn are suitable for networking with other companies. Here, too, you can publish regular posts about your company and your services. Always tailor the content to your target group. For example, if you offer a certain software, you can point out the advantages of this software in the form of a small advertorial.
Every social network now offers the user the possibility to evaluate the posted content. For simple posts, you can see how many likes you have received, how many people have seen your post and how many users have been on your profile. Whether your marketing strategy is successful depends on which KPIs are set in advance. When using social ads (paid ads), the reach and the click-through rate can be evaluated again additionally depending on the ad. To avoid having to evaluate each social media platform individually, it is advisable to use UTM parameters for your advertising campaigns. These can be conveniently and collectively evaluated by you via the Google Analytics tool.
Whether it’s a small business or a large brand… Social networks offer a multitude of opportunities to reach the desired target audience and potential new customers due to their daily presence in our lives. With the right social media strategy, the visibility of your company can be increased within a very short time. All your activities in social networks require careful planning and should not be done on the side – that’s how it works with the growth of your conversion rate. 😊
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