How to Start a Social Media Management Home Business
Social media is a networking tool wherein people share their ideas, thoughts, and exchange information in virtual communities. Through social networking, people can interact with one another and share and discuss their views and idea about various topics. Organizations depend on communication as a means to make people aware of their products. Due to its easy accessibility organizations are increasingly using social media to promote their products. This is where social media marketing comes into play.
Social media marketing is a form of marketing wherein organizations connect with their target audience by using social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and many others. The key aspect of social media marketing is to create a campaign that attracts the users and motivates them to share it with their social networks. The message shared by people through networking sites spreads from user to user and attracts people because it comes from a trusted source or a third party. Social media marketing is more of a word-of-mouth marketing and has a greater effect than other forms of marketing. Since the user base of social media marketing is far outreaching than any other form of marketing, this tool needs to be tapped effectively by organizations to promote their brand.
Types of Social Media Marketing
Social networking sites give an individual the freedom to interact with one another and build connections. When organizations join these social networking communities they create a direct line of communication with their target audience. This interaction with the company works towards building a strong and trustworthy relationship between them. The customers feel a sense of security and trust in the company. There are a variety of Social media marketing tools available in the market today. The most frequently used social media marketing tools are –
Twitter – Twitter, the top social media marketing tool, is a real-time information network that helps you to stay connected with prospective clients. It helps to keep the followers up to date about the business by uploading relevant information. This tool can be used to attract customers, promote products, interact with customers, gather and monitor feedback, and also to provide customer service.
Facebook – It is a low cost, yet highly effective, marketing strategy that can be used to publicize the business and attract potential customers. A Facebook page helps you to build a relationship with the customers by uploading pictures and videos of your business thereby allowing the customers to learn about your business without having to visit the premises. It is a two-way communication platform that helps to create a transparent communication network leading to effective business marketing.
Blogs – Blogging is a tool that helps not only in reaching potential customers but also in building communities that exchange ideas and information about a business. The blog is simple to use and can be tailored to your requirements. It allows a business to build up and project their traits that enhance the image of the business.
LinkedIn – LinkedIn is a social networking tool that helps to discover contacts and connections related to a specific business. It works as an online directory where people can connect with current employers, former colleagues, and prospective clients. It helps to create and build a network that further helps to connect with potential clients.
YouTube – YouTube is a great social media marketing tool that allows the marketer to promote their business via video. A lot of informative material can be depicted through videos. This tool helps the marketer to show the key elements of the product entertainingly and engagingly. YouTube can be used to launch and promote products.
Tools for Social Media Management
To achieve the best results through social media marketing, all the effective social media tools must be utilized. The interconnected nature of social media makes it important for the marketer to use the various tools in cohesion. No tool can be effective in itself. A combination of all the tools has to be used to get the best result and reach the maximum number of potential customers. Following are some social media management tools that help the marketer to manage all the portfolios effectively.
Social Pilot – is a social media management system that helps to streamline the multiple social networking accounts and manage them effectively. Through this tool social networks like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and many others can be collectively managed without signing in the individual accounts.
WordTracker – Find new keywords for your market. Need more than a keyword research tool? How about a market research tool. Take competitors’ keywords, in-depth PPC and SEO insights, data from Google and our own proprietary search technology… All you need to do is start searching.
PromoRepublic – is a social media marketing solution with content distribution workflows for small businesses, agencies, and multi-location brands. With our intelligent products, you can easily distribute editable content, schedule it based on AI, manage multiple clients or locations, run local ads, and stay on top of the results.
Social Web Suite – Imagine being able to have a single message, optimized for each platform you use, scheduled and ready to go even before the day begins, leaving you free to get back to what matters the most to you. Social Web Suite makes this not only possible, but easy, affordable, and intuitive.
SocialOomph – This social media management tool helps to use social media marketing tools like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter more productively by scheduling the distribution of information in advance.
Meet Edgar – Get more out of social media with Edgar! Schedule, share, and recycle the posts you want when you want. Save 8 hours a week, get started with just 10 posts.
Commun.it – Complete follower management on social media, easily track brand awareness, discover new leads, share quality content, schedule posts, and download progress reports.
Tailwind – Tailwind is the complete Pinterest & Instagram marketing toolkit for bloggers and businesses of all sizes. Schedule posts, discover content, monitor conversations, amplify your reach, and measure results all with one tool. Affordable for Small Businesses, Extensible for the Enterprise
Social Media Marketing Strategy
A good marketing strategy is a precursor to great sales. To be effective a marketing strategy should state the vision, mission, and goals of an organization and streamline the steps necessary to achieve them. The following components make for a great marketing strategy:
- Stating the business goals – A marketing strategy will be effective only if it supports the business goals. Therefore, the business goals have to be stated clearly so that the marketing strategy can work towards achieving them.
- Defining the marketing goals – Once the business goals have been streamlined, the next step is to state and define the marketing goals. These goals should be clear, practical, and measurable. A timeline should also be stated towards the achievement of the goals.
- Study the market – A constant eye should be kept on the current market trends. The marketing strategy should be based on these and changed according to changes in the market.
- Profiling customers and competitors – The market study and research should be utilized to profile the customers and identify their needs. The marketing strategy should be based on the result of this research. Marketers should also keep an eye on their competitors and try to improve their strengths and weaknesses depending on the research.
- Develop a marketing strategy – A marketing strategy should be created to attract potential customers and retain the old ones. Strategies should be devised to increase presence in social media.
- PS of marketing – Combining Product, price, promotion, place, and people in the marketing strategy will bring about a successful result and give the business a competitive advantage.
- Testing phase – Once the marketing strategy has been devised it needs to be tested in the social network. The ideas have to be tested on the customers and results checked for the success of the strategy.
- To be an effective marketer one needs to develop an overall marketing strategy that includes social media. To be successful in the field of social media marketing the marketers must tap the social media tools effectively. Strategies need to be devised, not only to attract new clients but also to retain old ones. Without any doubt, social media is increasingly affecting the way business is being promoted these days and will continue to be a very crucial factor in business marketing.