To put this into perspective, if as a consumer, you were looking for a particular service or product and only two companies offered it. However, when you looked at the social media profile for company A, the profile, picture and cover picture is poorly done whereas the same photos for company B were clearly done by professional graphic artists. There is a high chance that you will prefer to become a customer of company B, simply because they clearly put a lot of effort into their image and branding and likewise, they may have probably put the same effort into their products and services. This simple example clearly shows how quickly most people develop opinions and how easily you can lose a potential customer.

Now, in addition to doing the basics of filling out your business’s social media profiles, you will also need to post content on a regular basis to engage current followers and gain new followers that can be converted into customers. It is best to develop a social media content strategy where you will create a plan for social media content for all of your social media channels. Of course, you will need to connect your social media platforms so when you post an update or photo on one, it will be automatically shared across all of your channels. There are many syndication services that you can use to perform this service and it will save you a great deal of time.

The type of content that you post should be relevant to your products and services but it should also be very engaging. It is essential that you keep up with current happenings and events so that you can make content that is also relevant. This also includes keeping track of current trends and incorporating them into your social content. You should also ensure that any comments or interactions are replied to within a reasonable amount of time and you may need to hire or outsource a social media manager.

Next, we will look at the paid aspect of social media marketing. While organic marketing can help you to gain hundreds and thousands of new customers, it will take some time for your following and reach to build up organically. However, when you pay for ads on these social media platforms, you can easily reach a lot more people in a shorter amount of time. Most social media websites have an ad platform where you can create ads, buy clicks and target your demographic. Facebook in particular has a fantastic demographic tool, which allows you to show ads to people who are most likely to buy your products and services. You can have your ad shown to people of particular genders, ages, interests, locations etc.

One of the best things about paid social media marketing is that you can start small with a $5 spend per day and slowly work up to spending hundreds or thousands per day. If you combine this with your business’s eCommerce store, you can scale up your business as much as you want and sell hundreds and thousands of products every day. Now, every ad platform is different, so you should start with one and then slowly expand as oppose to running ads on all the platforms from the start.

In closing, we have just looked at the different types of social media marketing and how you can get started. Once you have a business, you should definitely look into social media marketing since it has the potential to make your business extremely profitable.