With the current trends in our digital world today, the best thing that you could do with your business is to maximise your social media marketing efforts in order to boost sales, engagement, likes, and traffic. For some people, and most business owners, managing your social media marketing platforms could be a daunting task, but someone has got to figure out how to utilise it, right? Typically, you should have a team of social media marketers to help you in that aspect. Still, small businesses should generally have a designated person tasked to focus on this, such as a social media manager. You could also opt to hire a social media marketing agency to help you with your needs, and of course for you to be able to know more about it before you decide to hire in-house employees to do it for you. But what does a social media marketing agency do? Understanding how they work could be great criteria to factor in before deciding whether you should hire an employee or a team to do it for you inhouse, or whether to get the specialities and expertise of a social media marketing agency.

    What Is Social Media Marketing?

    Before deciding whether or not to hire an in-house team or an agency to focus on your social media marketing needs, it is first important to know what the deal behind it really is. It is actually just as simple as a way of maximising marketing efforts through the use of social media, in which there are different platforms with different target markets like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and so much more. Although it may be such a simple idea by definition, the concepts and the strategies behind it may be difficult to manage, especially if you do not have such a huge budget for it. Your main goal for each of your existing platforms is to increase your following and build your presence on social media so that you could increase your business. After all, Facebook already houses a number of users which equates to at least a third of the world’s population right now. Wouldn’t you want to get in on that?

    How To Start

    Before you start investing in a social media marketing team, whether in-house or through an agency, you should first determine which channels you would like your business to delve into. Remember, however, that not all social media platform could fit each business. So knowing which ones would work for to drive your business up is a great advantage. Typically, a social media marketing agency would already know this depending on the nature of your business. If your business is going through B2B channels, a LinkedIn account would be perfect, or if you have visual products or services that require a lot of visual content, then Instagram is an avenue for you to build your brand. Agencies would also know that it is important to have consistent branding across all of your chosen platforms, even on your websites or eCommerce sites. Down from your banner images, voice of engagement, profile pictures, and even the colours you project, it should be spot-on consistent so that users and the market will know your identity. When people know and recall who you are and what you bring to the market, you would be able to build a following that would then turn into a community that would drive your business. Remember, you do not need to have a handful of social media platforms for your business, just pick those which would be beneficial, and you’re good to go.

    Where To Next?

    There are a lot of different kinds of social media marketing strategies that you could dive into, but of course, you have to make sure that it would not only be effective but as well as valuable to your brand. Social media marketing agencies would more often than not go into the path of paid social media because it is considered to be one of the most effective ways to advertise across each platform. An audience that would comprise of an ideal demographic for your business would be targeted to increase your social following. Most notably that nowadays, it just takes so little for people to follow and unfollow different accounts on social media. Growing your social following and managing your growing community is something that most agencies also handle to further increase your presence. Certain campaigns, promos, and giveaways are effective tools for community building but keeping them interested is a different problem altogether. Social posting and consistency, which most of the time tends to be neglected, is needed – and the best part is that it is free! The great thing about social media marketing is that there are a lot of tools you can use to measure its effectivity. The great thing about agencies? They would present you with reports, so you know that that your social media platforms are thriving. 

    Richard is an experienced tech journalist and blogger who is passionate about new and emerging technologies. He provides insightful and engaging content for Connection Cafe and is committed to staying up-to-date on the latest trends and developments.