A cake baker recently engaged in a conversation with her trainees, she told them that she increased her turnover by frequently posting beautiful pictures of the cakes she made on Instagram. What this cake baker did not tell her trainees is that she is engaging in a concept called social media marketing.
Social media marketing is basically the use of social or people networking websites and applications to market products and services. The presence of a lot of people on social media websites is a big advantage for those who want to make their brands, products or services well known.
Whether we like it or not, social media greatly influences our lives, some people take decisions based on what they see on social media platforms. Social media marketing is a great tool businesses can reach and communicate with their customers and prospects.
Social media marketing is directly based on the internet. Without the internet, social media marketing will be almost impossible. It is a key part of digital marketing. Some companies prefer social media marketing to SEO marketing.
Some of the most popular social media platforms include Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest. Social media marketing is not limited to promotion of products and services alone. Today, governments and political leaders use this concept as a tool to disseminate information, engage with the public and announce policy directions and governance issues.
How to use Social media marketing in some key social networking websites
It is clear that social media marketing is used to reach and engage with people on the internet with a view of selling or promoting your brand, products or services. In Nigeria, the main social media platforms people and businesses use to advertise their brands and offerings are:
Facebook is inarguably the most popular social media platform in Nigeria. Almost 100% of educated Nigerians below the age of 45 years have accounts with Facebook.
Businesses know this and they do not shy away from promoting their products and services on the platform.
You can open a fan page for your business or products and use some strategies to build your followership. If you have huge followership on Facebook, you can easily promote your products and services on the fan page. However, you must not break Facebook rules.
You can also pay Facebook to boost your comments, videos, images and infographics. The reason for boosting your comments is to make them reach a lot of people on the platform. You must craft good messages and videos about your brand and products before boosting it.
You can easily track the expenses you spend on Facebook adverts and the reach of your adverts; this will make you to calculate your Returns on Investment (ROI) easily.
If you are a member of a large group on Facebook, you can also a devise a means to subtly promote your brand, products or services on the group. Again, you must abide by the rules of Facebook and the group moderators.
If you have a database of your customers, you can advertise on Facebook using Lookalike audience. It is advisable you engage an expert before committing funds on Facebook promotion or advertisement. We can create highly converting Facebook Ads for you.
Businesses do not patronize Twitter like Facebook when it comes to placing of ads. The cost of placing adverts on Twitter is far more expensive and the conversion rate of the ads may not be as Facebook’s especially in some niches.
In Nigeria, people and businesses prefer to use Twitter influencers to help them promote their products, brands or services.
A Twitter influencer is a Twitter account holder with a huge followership base. Some Twitter influencers in Nigeria have more than 1 million followers. Influencers can make your message reach a lot of people.
We can help you reach influencers who will be willing to help you market or promote your brand or products.
Instagram is highly visual. Instagram was founded for the sharing of images, videos and other pictorial messages between users.
If you run a business that needs you to display what you offer like fashion, cake making and beauty etc, using Instagram ads will go a long way in creating awareness about your brand.
You can also use Instagram influencers to market your products.
In Nigeria, Whatsapp is the most popular application for sending of messages on smart phones. With whataspp, you can chat with people who have the application on their smartphone. You can also use the application to make phone calls.
Some people maintain several whatsapp groups with large followership. You can make use of these groups to promote your business.
Small business owners often chat with their customers and prospects on Whatsapp, the businesses sends updates about their brand, videos and infographics etc to their clients and prospects.
Applications of social media marketing
The election of President Donald Trump
Almost everybody wrote Donald Trump off when he decided to run for the office of the president of the United States.
He engaged one of the best digital marketing agencies in the world. Social media marketing tactics were used to sell his brand and what he promised to offer if elected as the president of the United States.
President Trump had a resounding victory, thanks to social media marketing.
Shoprite Nigeria
Shoprite Nigeria promotes its brands and products on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Shoprite has been able to reach a lot of Nigerians using this strategy.
Social Media Marketing – What we have done
Due to confidentiality purposes, we will not be able to give the full details of the social media marketing projects we have done.
We have helped a Nollywood actress to increase her Twitter followership from nil to over 1 million within 11 months. Till today, we still maintain and schedule posts on all the social media accounts of the actress.
We design infographics, make videos that can go viral and other contents for an insurance company. We also manager their social media accounts.
In all, we manage the social media platforms of over 50 companies and brands in Nigeria.
Are you interested in knowing how social media marketing can create awareness for your brand and increase your profit? If yes, please contact us NOW.