Week 4: Social Media Marketing (SMM)
Week 4 Overview: Social Media Marketing (SMM)
This week is all about leveraging the power of social media to build a brand, engage with an audience, and drive business goals.
Platforms Overview
Not all social platforms are created equal. Choosing the right one depends on your audience and goals.
The Big Four
- With a massive, diverse user base, it's great for community building, local business promotion, and highly targeted advertising.
- A highly visual platform, ideal for brands in fashion, food, travel, and lifestyle. Stories and Reels are key for engagement.
- The professional network. Essential for B2B (Business-to-Business) marketing, networking, establishing thought leadership, and recruiting.
- TikTok
- Dominated by short-form, entertaining video content. It offers huge potential for viral organic reach, especially with younger audiences.
Organic vs. Paid Social Media
You can either earn your audience's attention or buy it. A good strategy uses both.
Organic Social Media
This is all the content you share on your profile for free. The focus is on building a community, providing value, and sharing content without paying for distribution. It's about engagement and brand loyalty.
Paid Social Media
This involves paying to display advertisements or sponsored messages to a targeted audience. It's used for specific goals like lead generation, driving website traffic, and making direct sales.
Social Media Content Calendar
A content calendar is a detailed plan of your upcoming social media posts. It helps you stay organized, maintain a consistent posting schedule, and align your social media efforts with your marketing goals.
A good calendar includes the post copy, visuals, hashtags, and the exact date and time it will be published.
Analytics and Engagement Metrics
How do you know if your social media is working? You measure it.
Key Metrics to Track
- Engagement Rate: The percentage of your audience that interacted with your post (Likes + Comments + Shares) / Followers. This shows how actively involved your audience is with your content.
- Reach: The total number of unique people who see your content.
- Impressions: The total number of times your content is displayed, whether it is clicked or not. One person can have multiple impressions.
- Website Clicks: The number of times users clicked the link in your bio or on a specific post to visit your website.