The coronavirus pandemic has dealt a near crippling blow to businesses and companies across the globe. No firm has been exempted from its effects. Many businesses have also closed down while some have had to reexamine their business strategies, including business priorities, such as marketing strategies.
Companies have to decide if the orthodox approach to advertising and marketing are still effective in the world’s current state.
With the outbreak forcing billions of people to stay in their home, many traditional marketing strategies don’t seem to work as well as they did before. For instance, with less people on the road mean, fewer people see traditional ad placements.
Meanwhile, social media usage has risen during this pandemic. Studies show that the number of people who engage on social media has risen sharply, with the use of social media platforms steadily increasing.
Video platforms are very popular with celebrities and brands, many of whom took advantage of platforms like Instagram Live to connect with their audience. Other video platforms also saw an increase in their usage. Platforms like Tiktok, for example, experienced a massive surge in popularity, with over 6 million downloads in February of this year alone.
These numbers show that social media is the new battleground for marketing. But all indications point to the fact, that social media marketing is the right way for your company to go. Here’s why you need to take your marketing to the next level online.
Is Social Media Marketing the Answer?
So, what makes social media marketing the right choice in marketing your business? Here are the reasons:
The Demand for Content Has Skyrocketed
The pandemic has made people bored and restless. These people will look for ways to calm themselves as well as kill time. This has resulted in more and more people turning to online content. In fact, social media apps have seen a rise in their use with their rates of downloads continuing to soar.
Influencers Are Effective
Social media influencers are an efficient way of communicating with your target audience. A recent study shows that over half of all millennials trust what an influencer says about a brand, and less trust what the brand says about itself in its advertising. An influencer can earn trust for a brand and ultimately convert that trust into sales.
If you plan to work with an influencer for your social media marketing campaign, make sure you both parties are on the same page. Partner with an influencer for the right reasons and build relationships with trusted social media influencers. Remember, many agree that brands and companies that put profit as their priority instead of people will often lose the trust of their customers.
A Little Effort Goes A Long Way
Social media marketing is much more cost-efficient compared to traditional marketing techniques. Compared to normal advertisements, you don’t need a big budget and resources. Investing a little time and effort to produce top quality and relevant content is just what you need to get your social media marketing campaign started.
Leveraging Social Media, The Right Way
Now that you know why social media is effective, we’ll now take a look at how you can take advantage of social media marketing to help boost your business. What are the things you need to do to leverage social media effectively?
Growing Your Account Is Your Primary Focus
Although the COVID-19 outbreak has slowed down the world economy, consumers still spend money, with the bulk of purchasing being done on essentials. Don’t expect your sales to receive an enormous push right now. Instead, take this as an opportunity to build a loyal online following by producing good content.
In times of stress such as the current health crisis, light-hearted content is a must. Another great content idea is home-based productivity videos and articles. Keep your content easy to understand and relatable.
Team Up with An Influencer
It’s no secret consumer attitudes have changed drastically due to the pandemic. With more people staying in, and online activity at an all-time high, partnering with an influencer is a great way to remain relevant online.
Promoting your brand in partnership with an influencer helps keep your business on top of people’s minds. This makes sales conversions more likely once we return to a normal state of affairs.
Building Your Social Media Marketing Strategy
Before you go all-in with a social media marketing campaign, be sure your social media marketing campaign is in alignment with your business goals. Wasting time and money while not getting any traction with your target audience is not an option.
Ask yourself these tough questions before you start your marketing campaign online:
What Are My Goals?
Knowing what your goals are helps you in crafting an effective marketing plan. Your goals should be specific, measurable, actionable, realistic and most importantly, they need to have a time limit.
Who Is My Target Audience?
Figure out who you are targeting with your campaign. You need to know their age, demographics, what publications they read and what websites they look at. Also pay attention to what they want.
The more you know about your audience, the easier it is to tailor your content to their wants and needs. Knowing your audience also means finding out if your content brings value or solves the issues your audience is dealing with.
Is My Content Valuable or Relevant?
You need to be able to gauge if the content you produce is relevant in today’s social media landscape. Ask yourself, will my content be received warmly? Will there be objections to it? How will people react? Will my campaign be seen as insensitive or self-serving?
What Is My Budget?
An important question you need to ask yourself before starting your social media marketing campaign is in regards to your resources. You need to know how much you have to spend as well as how much you have on hand. Your budget and resources will also influence what tools you can use.
Once you know the answers to these questions, you can put together your marketing campaign.
Apply the information you have discovered in this report to help build yourself the optimal social media marketing plan.
The Bottom Line
The coronavirus pandemic has made companies rethink how they reach out and advertise to customers. Social media marketing has proven to be as important as traditional marketing, and is even now more effective because of the outbreak.
At the end of the day, an effective social media campaign will do wonders for your business now, and in the new normal.