When you hear the word marketing, you may think of traditional methods such as sending postcards in the mail, billboards, cold-calling, or even TV ads. The goal of traditional marketing has been to cast a wide net and get as many people as possible to see your advertisement, in hopes that a few of those people may be looking for the service you offer.
Social media is different from traditional marketing in several ways. The goal with social media isn’t to reach everyone, like with traditional marketing. Instead, the goal with social media is to reach the right people who may be potential customers for your specific business. Instead of spending $30,000 to send 40,000 mailers and maybe get 1 or 2 customers, social media aims to reach a specific target audience of somewhere around 100 to 1,000 people at a time, by spending $50 or $100, but every single person you reach is a potential customer.
Social media marketing focuses on building real community around your brand, and harnessing that trust to create ongoing and future growth for your business. Some potential customers will see a targeted ad on Facebook and call immediately, while others could find your Facebook page, click on a link to see your website, read a few blogs, and decide to use your business when they’re ready to spend money in a month or two. Social media and digital marketing (also called online marketing) can bring you new customers now, through target ads and boosted posts, and create trust around your brand by providing content on Facebook and in blogs, which will create customers for you in the future.
Another difference between traditional marketing compared to digital marketing, is that with traditional marketing, you focus your message on advertising to your audience. “Get 50% off your first service!” “Call now and get a quote!” “Buy one, get one free!” But just like you may check your mailbox and throw away a handful of junk mail before ever reading it, this constant message of buy, buy, buy, can turn off consumers, especially on social media. When someone is on Facebook, they want to see pictures of their loved ones, interesting blog articles, and fun videos. If they go to your company Facebook page and see nothing but advertising, chances are they won’t want to follow your page, interact with your content, or give you their business. But if they go to your Facebook business page and see friendly posts, valuable information in blog posts, and pictures that show the human side of what you do (like images of finished projects or pictures of you with happy clients), you can earn their trust and find a future customer.
Social media marketing can entail different things depending on your company. Usually you’ll need regular posts, which can mean 1 or 2 posts per week; these should be friendly, relevant, and helpful. You may also want custom banners that are swapped out monthly or seasonally; this keeps your page looking fresh. Another amazing social media marketing tool is paid advertising, or boosted posts. Targeted ads are used to show advertisements to a specific audience of people who you think could be potential customers. You design an ad graphic, choose the right message, and pay for the ad to be run on Facebook, Instagram, or other social media platforms. Boosted posts are another great option, this means putting a little money behind a specific post so that it gets shown to more and more potential customers.
At Hello Human Media, we understand social media and digital marketing on the front end and the back end. We can set your website up for success, with the right keywords so people find your company on Google search results (Known as SEO, or Search Engine Optimization), we can make sure your blogs have original and useful content (which improves brand trust and helps improve your website’s position in online searches), and we can curate a friendly, down-to-earth social media page with custom posts to reach your customers.
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