Social media marketing is where a business can use social media platforms to communicate with their audience, increase sales and traffic to their site. There are several ways in which a strong social media strategy can be used to aid your brand’s exposure. Below is a more detailed look at how social media marketing works.
There’s no mistaking both the importance and power of social media in today’s accelerated world. What was perhaps, at one point, more of an optional feature for businesses to consider is undoubtedly no longer the case. Brands, great and small, now need a defined and continuous social media marketing strategy to engage with their audience and to grow their brand.
The problem is: not everyone has the time or the practical expertise to use social media to shape the narrative effectively — fortunately, that’s where social media marketing companies come into the picture. Social media marketing agencies, services or tools, in a nutshell, can manage everything for you independently.
How Social Media Marketing Works
The first thing that will need to be ironed out is your strategy. Before uploading and content creation starts, you will need to discuss your social media strategy. This will include examining your business goals and whether you want to use marketing to build brand awareness or drive traffic to your websites. Once the bigger picture has been identified, you can then debate which social media platform you wish to use, for example, Twitter, Snapchat or Instagram.
Research and analytics are a big part of social media marketing; they both inform the best way to run the campaign. Keyword research and SEO (Search Engine Optimization) will be used to understand what works best with your audience and industry. Researching competitors is also beneficial as companies can see the ways their rivals engage with their audience and even learn techniques.
While analytics will track the metrics and performance of each post. Google Analytics and other analytics tools can be used to measure how successful your content is by analysing its reach and engagement. You can also learn more about the demographic of your followers in terms of gender, age and location.
As for the content of your page, this will also be closely examined. Marketing experts will make sure content is published consistently and identify what sort of content works best. For example, videos might gain more interaction than regular text-based posts. Other than the time each post is published might also be taken into consideration as depending on the location or schedule of followers, certain times will invite more traffic. While original content will work best, sharing curated links to other sources can also be used to attract followers.
The Benefits of Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing has proven in helping businesses and brands grow their following, promote content and gathering valuable feedback. Here is some data to show you why you might want to think about social media marketing.
At the start of last year, there were 4.20 billion people on social media; this figure has grown by 490 million from the year before. This means 53% of the worlds total population is on social media, as these platforms continue to grow in popularity, you can expect this number to get larger as time goes by.
According to Ambassador, 92% of customers in the UK have left one business for another due to poor customer service and 33% prefer contacting a company through social media than phoning them. And if they receive good customer service through social media they are 21% more likely to spend.
It’s definitely worth your time to put your brand on social media and market it properly. 53% of social media users use social media to research products. Which can also help interactions as 16% of those decide to share the brand’s post.
Different Types of Social Media Marketing
You might be glad to know that you don’t have to settle for one type of marketing. There are a variety of different strategy models that are available to you. Picking the best one for your brand is key but of course, you can devise a campaign that incorporates most of these strategies. However, to make sure you aren’t wasting resources on an unnecessary campaign, it’s best to learn the difference.
- Community management: This form of social media marketing is for businesses that want to interact efficiently with their users. This strategy focuses on interaction with your followers. This can involve providing feedback and support to your audience. This is a great way of maintaining a positive relationship with your viewers and can help attract new followers. This could be the preferred option if you have a forum, blog or message board.
- Content creation: A more popular type of marketing, this can be used by a wide range of businesses. Virtually every business with an online presence will require content. It’s a great way to grow your following and providing quality posts to your social media. It’s the ideal option if you want to build an online presence on platforms like Instagram and Youtube.
- Social media growth: Similar to content creation, growth will focus on driving traffic and build your following. The key difference is this can involve more promotions and contests. While content creation will involve building posts, growth will focus solely on attracting as many eyes to your brand as possible.
Top Social Media Agencies
- Nara Media - Level up your performance marketing
- The Cirqle - Conversion-driven Influencer Marketing Platform
- Intellifluence - Influencer marketing made easy
Types of Social Media Marketing Agencies
As with the different types of marketing, there are different agencies that will specialise in certain areas.
We provide a social media marketing directory that lists all the major tools, agencies and platforms to help you make your decision. From social media measurement to social ads and engagement these players will help you make the most of channels, including Instagram, Facebook, Youtube, Snapchat, Linkedin and Twitter. You can browse through some agencies by looking at our directory below and decide which one would work best for you.
It’s important to remember, first and foremost, that all social media marketing agencies price themselves differently, and not all of them will offer identical services. With that said, standard services provided through these marketing agencies include the following:
- Social media content creation and publishing
- Finding relevant social content to share across channels
- Creating visual assets and picking and optimising headlines
- Social media account growth, followers, likes, targeting
- Responding to messages/solving questions that customers may have through social media
- Paid social advertising, with ad campaign creation and conversion tracking
The critical point is that it’s the job of a social media marketing agency to effectively communicate the client’s aims in a digestible and relatable way to their audience. The client can then use this extra time to focus on other crucial areas of their business.
How do you go about picking the right social media marketing agency when everyone seems, at face value, to be offering the same service? The good news is we’ve done the hard part for you. Below you’ll find the top social media marketing agencies this year, including their most recognisable clients and the key social media services they offer.
What Do Social Media Marketing Companies Do?
Social media marketing companies are hired to create successful social media marketing campaigns. Benefits of using these agencies include the following:
- They can use creative solutions to produce relatable content and experiences that connect with people across the globe
- They can use their expertise and tech to create mobile campaigns that truly perform
- They can use their research and insights to find new opportunities
- They can monitor engagement and focus on increasing followers and attracting targeted followers
- They can use precise content marketing to help drive more qualified clicks, leads and sales
List of social media marketing companies
| Founded | Employees | Revenues | Social | Traffic |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 10-50 | - | - | - |
We’re the performance marketing agency for a mobile-first world.
We are passionate about helping mobile-first brands grow, and then keep on growing. Our belief is that amazing performance marketing needs personality. It requires a healthy dose of curiosity, creativity, and collaboration. So that’s what we’re here to give you.
- Services: Strategy and campaign planning, Campaign management & optimization, Creative services, Analytics & reporting
- Offices: London, UK
- Tagline:Level up your performance marketing
| Founded | Employees | Revenues | Social | Traffic |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 10-50 | - | - | - |
Intellifluence is the largest warm influencer marketing network in existence with over 100,000 verified creators; each and every influencer has opted-in to work hand-in-hand with brands, saving you time by eliminating the need for cold outreach.
- Tagline: Influencer marketing made easy
- Services: Influencer marketing platform, ASO, social media marketing
- Locations: USA
Learn more about Intellifluence
| Founded | Employees | Revenues | Social | Traffic |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 10-50 | 5M | 2B | 22000 |
The Cirqle uses an estimated impressions number to outline potential reach during a brand’s campaign – this includes engagement, top influencers, posts and platforms. Their campaign brief pages offer a breakdown of pricing, timeline, product selection, deliverables and key messaging. The platform also utilizes feedback loops to improve each campaign with them.
- Price: Free to sign up, price is discussed
- Features: Campaign briefs, analytics, influencer profiles
- Tagline: The only influencer marketing platform that can tie engagement to sales
Learn more about The Cirqle
| Founded | Employees | Revenues | Social | Traffic |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | 10-50 | $15 million | 30000 | 15000 |
NinjaPromo is a leading digital marketing and content production agency based in New York with offices worldwide. NinjaPromo drives all aspects of Digital and SMM strategies by setting up disruptive techniques through outstanding content production, effective community management, paid social advertising, influencer marketing, and more.
Learn more about NinjaPromo
Viral Nation is an award-winning full-service agency with some of the best in the industry marketing programs and strategies. The company specializes in influencer marketing campaign execution and strategy, content creation, performance marketing, paid social, and integrated brand strategy. It operates one of the world’s largest and most impactful Influencer networks, representing gamers, athletes, social celebrities and influential content creators from multiple industries.
- Tagline: We are the secret of influencer marketing
- Locations: Ontario, Canada, Barbados
