You want to be a social media marketer.
You heard social media marketing strategies are effective.
You know you don’t need a budget to market on social media sites.
There are many sites you can pick. Do you know how to choose a site?
Will you choose all the sites? Will you choose just one social media site, and if so, which one?
I saw a question this morning on Quora.com. The question asked, “Which is the best site for social media marketing?
This guide attempts to answer that question.
The investigation into which social media site to use for marketing takes different steps.
Table of Contents
Social Media Marketing Strategies
Step 1: Follow the shotgun effect.
The shotgun effect has you trying all the mainstream social media sites and seeing which sites bring you the most traction.
You might wonder why the sites have to be mainstream. Mainstream social media sites have the greatest number of users.
You can’t ignore the power of these massive built-in audiences.
The goal of a marketer is to convince people to use their products and services or read their content. The larger the audience, the greater the chance that people will see your content and purchase from you.
Think of marketing like a funnel.
You want to market to the broadest number of people. The people you initially market to are called “cold leads.” As they go through your marketing funnel and express interest and near purchasing, the leads become “warm leads.”
Here are descriptions of the mainstream social media sites.
With three billion users, you won’t find a bigger audience than Facebook.
Facebook’s value to marketers takes various forms:
Facebook business pages
Here you can advertise your products and services without appearing like a spammer to your friends and family to follow your Facebook feed.
Facebook groups
Facebook groups allow daily and weekly promotions. If you promote your products and services on #PromoDays, you won’t be accused of spamming.
Search using the Facebook search bar for groups in your niche.
Facebook ads
Today, you need to “pay to play.” 50% of marketers pay to boost visibility in the form of sponsored content.
When you log into Facebook, you’ll see the words “sponsored” on the right. This means a marketer paid to boost the content’s visibility.
Facebook ads are called “Facebook dark posts” since your Facebook friends won’t know that you paid to boost your content.
Before investing in Facebook ads, make sure you know your target demographic so you can narrow the range you want to see your ad. You need to narrow your target audience demographics or your budget can go quickly.
Related Reading: Here is more information about the advantages and disadvantages of Facebook.
With one billion members, Instagram is the second largest social media site.
Instagram users are enthusiastic and often purchase right on the site. In fact, I have purchased products I saw advertised on Instagram.
If you have a that sells itself through photos, Instagram is perfect for you.
You can display your images on Instagram in a number of places:
- Instagram Feed Post
- Instagram Story
- IGTV
All of these give you a place to show your products with a promotional text. Make sure you use hashtags so interested people can find your content. Also, put your link to purchase in your bio or on your story. Instagram doesn’t allow live links in captions.
Do you use videos to promote? If your videos are long, you might want to make an IGTV. You don’t even need 10,000 followers to put a live link in an IGTV as you do in an Instagram story.
Like Instagram, Pinterest is also ideal for busy professionals who want to market products and services that photograph well.
Related Reading: Here you will find more information about the pros and cons of Instagram.
In contrast to Instagram, if you have a product that doesn’t show well visually or a service, consider Twitter marketing.
In January of 2021, Twitter had 192 million members.
Twitter allows you a pinned tweet that sits at the top of your account.
Marketers would be wise to put a link to their product, service, or book at the top of their account. You can have a sign-up link in your pinned tweet as well.
The beauty of Twitter lies in the hashtags. You can have hashtags in your tweets (your promotional text) so people interested in your content can find you. In contrast to Instagram where people use up to 30 hashtags, only use 2-3 hashtags in your tweets so you don’t look spammy.
Also, the character count is limited to 180 so you don’t have a lot of room to write. Use the characters wisely. People who use Twitter are in a rush. Make your words count. Include “Please retweet” as a part of your 180 so your promotions get shared.
Also, Twitter accounts have promotion days on Saturdays and Sundays. For instance, “#ShamelessSelfPromoSunday” and so forth. Vary your wording in the search bar to find what you need. Note: Capitalize each word in the hashtag to ease legibility.
Like Twitter, LinkedIn is also ideal for busy professionals who want to market products and services that don’t photograph well.
MeWe
MeWe is considered a Facebook alternative. In January, the site reported 16 million members. MeWe’s membership has been on the rise since Facebook shut down some of the conservative groups. Since Parler, another site for conservatives, was banned, political conservatives are flocking to MeWe. As a result, MeWe’s membership doubled since June.
MeWe is considered the “anti-Facebook.” In 2018 and 2019, Facebook sold users’ data. Fearing their personal information isn’t safe, people left Facebook for MeWe. MeWe rebranded as a Facebook alternative.
MeWe is also called a “Facebook alternative.” Like Facebook, MeWe has groups you can use for marketing or networking. MeWe has content uploads. For instance, you can upload emojis, text, and videos. MeWe also has groups like Facebook. The image shows you MeWe group suggestions.
Related Reading: More information about MeWe can be found in these MeWe reviews.
Step 2: Analyze your marketing results
Google Analytics tells you which social media sites send the most traffic to your website.
Go to Analytics.Google.com. Click Acquisition/Social and scroll down to see which social media sites send you the most traffic.
Continue to promote at those sites. How many depends on how many you have time for. I recommend continuing promotion at your top 3 sites.
Wrapping Up: How to Pick Social Media Marketing Sites
In closing, this article defined a marketing funnel and reviewed the mainstream social media marketing sites you can use for marketing. In addition, the guide to social media marketing explained how to narrow your focus and hone in on the sites that bring you the most traffic.
Follow these steps to save time and boost your ROI (Return on Time Invested).
Readers, please share so social media marketers become aware of these strategies.
Related Reading:
More From Ezine Blog: These Social Media Trends Shouldn’t Be Missed in 2020
Author Bio: Janice Wald is the founder of MostlyBlogging.com. She is an ebook author, blogger, blogging coach, blogging judge, freelance writer, and speaker. She was nominated as the 2021 and 2019 Best Internet Marketer by the Infinity Blog Awards and in 2017 as the Most Informative Blogger by the London Bloggers Bash. She’s been featured on Small Business Trends, the Huffington Post, and Lifehack. Join us at MostlyBlogging.com for more marketing tips.
