Social Media Marketing (SMM)

Let’s start with one simple fact: your business needs a social media presence.

It doesn’t matter if you run a small local shop or a big national company. Social media is an essential piece of your business marketing strategy.

Social platforms help you connect with your customers, increase awareness about your brand, and boost your leads and sales. With more than three billion people around the world using social media every month, the users and engagement on major platforms just keep increasing.

What you might not know is that you’re ready to get your company’s social media off the ground right now. You don’t need to know every intimidating buzzword or have the magic number of followers. You can get started immediately—and even enjoy yourself in the process.

Social media provides immense potential for businesses because consumers habitually log on to it daily and are exposed to companies. It also presents huge challenges for businesses, however, because it’s an ever-changing space that is extremely noisy and crowded.

It can be difficult to keep up with evolving trends on social media, so B2B reviews and ratings firm Clutch partnered with marketing agency Smart Insights to learn the current state of social media marketing; they surveyed 344 social media marketers from around the world to determine the value of social media, the most engaging content to share, common challenges, and what social media resources businesses are investing in.

The results?

• 52 percent of social media marketers believe social media positively influences their company’s revenue and sales.
• The five most valuable social media platforms:
  • Facebook (89 percent)
  • LinkedIn (83 percent)
  • YouTube (81 percent)
  • Twitter (80 percent)
  • Instagram (56 percent)
• Nearly 80 percent of companies share mostly original content on social media.
• The most important metrics for companies are engagement (36 percent) and conversion rates (35 percent).
• Social media is more valuable to B2C (58 percent) than B2B companies (46 percent).
• The biggest challenges with social media are:
  • Not having enough human and financial resources (26 percent)
  • Lacking a formal strategy (24 percent)
  • Building a community of followers and influencers (24 percent)