chapter 1

What Is Social Media Marketing (SMM)?

Social media marketing (SMM) (also known as digital marketing and e-marketing) use of social media

—the platforms on which users build social networks and share information

—to build a company's brand, increase sales, and drive website traffic

-Social media marketing is the use of social media platforms to connect with your audience to build your brand, increase sales, and drive website traffic.

-- . In addition to providing companies with a way to engage with existing customers and reach new ones, social media marketing (SMM) has purpose-built data analytics that allow marketers to track the success of their efforts and identify even more ways to engage.

--Social media marketing is a powerful way for businesses of all sizes to reach prospects and customers. People discover, learn about, follow, and shop from brands on social media

The major social media platforms (at the moment) are

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, and Snapchat.

GOAL SETTINGS:

Goal setting is important, it inspire and motivate you. A well-planned goal will increase. By establishing the importance of goals in your life, you can give yourself, Learn More. Learn Business Skills. Learn Skills Of Business. Grow Your Business 5X. Become a Leader.

Social media marketing goals:

 Increase brand awareness

 Build engaged communities

 Sell products and services

 Measure brand sentiment

 Provide social customer service

 Advertise products and services to target audiences

 Track performance and adjust larger marketing strategies accordingly

How to create a social media marketing strategy in 9 steps

Step 1. Choose goals that align to business objectives

Set S.M.A.R.T. goals

The first step to creating a winning social media strategy is to establish clear objectives and goals. Without goals, you have no way to measure success and return on investment (ROI).

Each of your social media marketing goals should be SMART: specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound.

Step 2. Learn everything you can about your audience

Get to know your fans, followers, and customers as real people with real wants and needs, and you will know how to target and engage them on social media.

When it comes to your ideal customer, you should know things like:

 Age

 Location

 Average income

 Typical job title or industry

 Interests

 etc.

Step 3. Get to know your competition

Odds are your competitors are already using social media, and that means you can learn from what they're doing.

A competitive analysis allows you to understand who the competition is and what they're doing well (and not so well). You'll get a good sense of what's expected in your industry, which will help you set social media targets of your own.

Step 4. Do a social media audit

If you're already using social media, take stock of your efforts so far. Ask yourself the following questions:

 What's working, and what's not?

 Who is engaging with you?

 What are your most valuable partnerships?

 Which networks does your target audience use?

 How does your social media presence compare to the competition?

Once you collect that information, you'll be ready to start thinking about ways to improve. Step 5. Set up accounts and improve profiles

Decide which networks to use

As you decide which social networks to use, you will also need to define your strategy for each.

own social team even designates different purposes for formats within networks. On Instagram, for example, they use the feed to post high-quality educational infographics and product announcements and Stories to cover live events or quick social media updates.

Step 6. Find inspiration

While it's important that your brand be unique, you can still draw inspiration from other businesses that are great on social.

"I consider it my job to stay active on social: to know what's trending, which campaigns are winning, what's new with the platforms, who's going above and beyond," says Amanda. "This might be the most fun step for you, or the hardest one, but it's just as crucial as the rest of them."

Step 7. Create a social media content calendar

Sharing great content is essential, of course, but it's equally important to have a plan in place for when you'll share content to get the maximum impact.

Step 8. Create compelling content The idea here is to:

 Keep your content aligned with the purpose of each network;

 Show other stakeholders (if applicable) what kind of content they can expect to see on

each network.

This last point especially will help you avoid any tension when your colleagues want to know why you haven't posted their case study/whitepaper/blog post to TikTok yet.

Step 9. Track performance and make adjustments

Your social media marketing strategy is a hugely important document for your business, and you can't assume you'll get it exactly right on the first try.

As you start to implement your plan and track your results, you may find that some strategies don't work as well as you'd anticipated, while others are working even better than expected.

Global E-markating issues 1. Tariff Barriers:

Tariff barriers indicate taxes and duties imposed on imports. Marketers of guest countries find it difficult to earn adequate profits while selling products in the host countries.

Sometimes, to prevent foreign products and/or promote domestic products, strategically tariff policies are formulated that restricts international marketing activities.

Frequent change in tariff rates and variable tariff rates for various categories of products create uncertainty for traders to trade internationally. Antidumping duties levied on imports and defensive strategies create difficulty for exporters.

2. Administrative Policies:

Bureaucratic rules or administrative procedures – both in guest countries and host countries – make international (export and/or import) marketing harder. Some countries have too lengthy formalities that exporters and importers have to clear. Unjust dealings to get the formalities/ matters cleared create many problems to some international players. International marketers have to accustom with legal formalities of several courtiers where they wants to operate.

3. Considerable Diversities:

Different countries have their own unique civilization and culture. They pose special problems for international marketers. Global customers exhibit considerable cultural and social diversities in term of needs, preferences, habits, languages, expectations, buying capacities, buying and consumption patterns, and so forth.

4. Political Instability or Environment:

Different political systems (democracy or dictatorship), different economics systems (market economy, command economy, and mixed economy), and political instability are some of real challenges that international markers have to face. Political atmosphere in different courtiers offer opportunities or pose challenges to international marketers.

5. Place Constraints (Diverse Geography):

Trade in foreign countries of far distance itself practically difficult. In case of perishable products, it is a real challenge. Exporting and importing products via sea route and making arrangements for effective selling involves more time as

well risks. Segmenting and selecting international markets require the marketers to be more careful.

6. Variations in Exchange Rates:

Every nation has its currency that is to be exchanged with currencies of other nations. Currencies are traded every day and rates are subject to change. Indian Rupee, European Dollar, US Dollar, Japanese Yen, etc., are appreciated or discounted at national and international markets against other currencies. In case of extraordinary and unexpected moves (ups and downs) in currency/exchange rates between two courtiers create serious settlement problems.

7. Norms and Ethics Challenges:

Ethics refers to moral principles, standards, and norms of conduct governing individual and firm's behaviour. They are deeply reflected in formal laws and regulations. In different parts of the world, different codes of conduct are specified that every international business player has to observe. However, globalization process has emphasized some common ethics worldwide. Corruption is another issue relating to business ethics.

8. Terrorism and Racism:

Terrorism is a global issue, a worldwide problem. People of the world are living under constant fear of terrorists attracts anywhere in the world. To trade internationally is not economically risky, but there is the threat to life. Racism also restricts international trade activities.

9. Other Difficulties:

a. Changing ecological environment and global warming b. Difference in weathers and natural climates

c. Inappropriate or inadequate role of international agencies supporting and regulating international trades

d. Natural and man-made calamities

e. Difference in currencies, weights, standards, measures, and marketing methods f. Protectionist approach of some countries

g. Economic crisis across the globe.

What goals should you set on social media?

9 common social media marketing goals

 Increase brand awareness.

 Manage brand reputation.

 Increase traffic to your website.

 Improve community engagement.

 Boost conversions or sales.

 Generate leads.

 Deliver customer service.

 Gain market insights with social listening.

Country and market opportunity analysis

Market opportunity analysis is the process of researching where and how you can reach more potential clients or grow your revenue share.

It involves identifying competitions, understanding your audience, and uncovering potential risks.

5 Benefits of A Market Opportunity Analysis

 Make better long-term strategic decisions.

Your business is impacted by many external factors. Without taking the time to examine the current market trends, you'll be flying blind.

A market opportunity analysis can provide the insight you need to see into the future. What will the market look like in a year? Five years? 10 years? What forces are acting on the market today? How is the demographic of your target audience shifting?

 Evaluate product or service demand.

a great product with tough, niche demand. A market assessment will show the potential for selling your product or service. This analysis will help you evaluate if expanding into a potential new market is worthwhile for your company.

 Identify potential marketing strategies.

The four P's of your marketing mix are price, place, product, and promotion.

Through the process of a market opportunity analysis, organizations can gain a deeper understanding of who their target customers are, what they want, and how they make their decisions.

 Uncover areas for further research.

When you start to better understand the market, you may identify even more new opportunities to explore. As the saying goes, "You don't know what you don't know." You may discover a new government initiative that encourages sustainable businesses.

A customer research project may identify a new pain point that you didn't realize existed. The benefit of knowing your marketplace really deeply is that you'll be ready to leverage any new opportunities that pop up.

 Identify and navigate potential roadblocks.

A SWOT analysis looks at the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of a potential strategy. Identifying the weaknesses and the threats to your market opportunity is key to your success. No business idea is perfect. But knowing where you might run into trouble before you even begin can help you plan ahead and mitigate those risks.

How To Conduct a Market Opportunity Assessment 1. Identify potential opportunities.

Your first step is to lay out the potential opportunities you want to investigate. What segment are you hoping to expand into? What type of customer are you hoping to attract? Are you looking to acquire or partner with another business? Have current events created a potential opportunity?

Knowing whether you want to expand, pivot, invest, create, or reposition your offerings will inform the next steps of your market research.

2. Understand the customer.

In every opportunity, the customer will inform your success. Does this product meet their needs? Do they have the purchasing power to make this idea profitable? How do they make their purchasing decisions? The second step in the analysis is to really, deeply understand your potential customers and their needs. This research may include any of the following tools:

Customer interviews Customer journey map Surveys

Demographic data

3. Research competitors.

Next, you'll want to understand who all the players in the existing market are. Competitor research can help you understand how big the market share is, how existing products are positioned in the market, and how crowded the market is. Here are some questions you might want to ask:

 What is their value proposition?

 How is their product offering different from ours?

 Who are their partners?

 What do their reviews say about their product or service?

 Are there any gaps we could fill?

 How likely are new competitors?

4. Consider external factors.

External factors are always shaping and changing the marketplace. The acronym "STEEP" can help us dive into the five main forces we need to be aware of.

Social

How is culture changing the market? For example, more employees working from home during the pandemic has opened up an entire sector of the market that didn't exist before. Jumping on trends can be a lucrative strategy unless the trends disappear too quickly.

Technical

What new innovations have influenced the market? Can you apply this technology in other ways or in new industries?

Economic

What is the current economic climate like? Will you be able to get a loan if needed? Do your customers have disposable income? How does the market forecast look for the next year? Five years?

Ecological

What impact does this idea have on the environment? Can you improve the sustainability of the product or service?

Political

You may be pleasantly surprised to learn that your local government is offering grants, tax breaks, or other incentives for businesses in your industry. Alternatively, you may find that there are regulatory roadblocks in your way that you'll need to account for in your analysis.

5. Be aware of internal forces.

Finally, dive into your own business' capabilities. Do you have the skills, workforce, technology, and financial resources to invest in a new product? If you're launching a very innovative product, are you going to be able to hire people with the necessary skills? What new departments or teams will you need to create to manage this new opportunity?

User engagement on Social media network

Social media engagement is an umbrella term for actions that reflect and measure how much your audience interacts with your content.

Social media engagement can include likes, comments and shares, but varies by platform

Measuring social media engagement is important because it provides you with insights into how well your content is resonating with your customers. You can use this information to optimise posts in the future or improve your products and services. It also gives you a tangible metric to track your performance over time.

The three primary forms of social media engagement are likes, comments, and shares.

For example, on

Facebook, engagement means all possible ways of interacting with a Page's posts and profile, messages and mentions, all added together. But engagement can be divided up into different

areas:

Interaction with your Page: call-to-action button clicks, profile clicks, any tab clicks Interaction with your posts: comments, likes, shares

Interaction in direct messaging: messaging a Page or responding to a message Interaction with other Pages: mentions of your Page, commenting on other Pages' posts

social advertising

Social media advertising is a type of digital marketing that utilizes social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to deliver paid ads to your target audience. Social media ads are a quick and effective way to connect with your consumers and boost your marketing campaigns.

What are the benefits of social advertising?

advantages of social media advertising

Increased brand awareness. By promoting your business, products or services across social media, you are increasing brand awareness from the get-go. ...

 Improved brand loyalty. ...

 Higher conversion rates. ...

 Low cost advertising. ...

 User-friendly interface. ...

 In-depth analytics.

What are the 4 types of Advertising

 Display Advertising. ...

 Video Advertising. ...

 Mobile Advertising. ...

 Native Advertising.

Social media analytics

Social media analytics is the ability to gather and find meaning in data gathered from social channels to support business decisions — and measure the performance of actions based on those decisions through social media.

Social media analytics is broader than metrics such as likes, follows, retweets, previews, clicks, and impressions gathered from individual channels. It also differs from reporting offered by services that support marketing campaigns such as LinkedIn or Google Analytics.

The four types of social media analytics explained

1. Descriptive analytics.

Descriptive analytics answer the question "what is happening"? "What happened"? These types of analytics cluster similar types of data together in order to produce a cohesive view. Comments and posts can be grouped together, for instance, for the purpose of sentiment analysis (as offered, for instance, by our very own SentiOne platform). Any time you gather a lot of similar data points in order to analyse them looking for patterns, sentiments, and/or trends, you're dealing with descriptive analytics.

2. Diagnostic analytics.

Diagnostic analysis focuses on the numbers: like counts, follower numbers, pageviews, reviews, shares, what have you. This type of analytics focuses on the performance of posts and campaigns and attempts to discern what made them successful. By comparing the performance of different campaigns, trends and consumer preferences can be discerned. Both diagnostic and descriptive analytics are reactive – that is, they are concerned with events that have already happened.

3. Predictive analytics.

In contrast, both predictive and prescriptive analytics are proactive – as in, they attempt

to predict trends, events, and shifts based on existing data. It can range from simple things, like predicting possible visits to a location based upon posts expressing that intention, to forecasting entire trends and phenomena based upon mentions. Social listening tools can help identify upcoming trends and shifts in consumer behaviour by analysing large volumes of social media data and indicating the shifting popularity of keywords.

4. Prescriptive analytics.

Finally, prescriptive analysis is the analysis of data with the intention of providing the best way to proceed at any given moment. This can be applied to situations ranging from handling social media crises and incidents ("how well does this type of apology track with our target audience?") to purchase preferences ("we've identified this group of customers – how do we optimise our sales process to their habits?"). Although it's an incredibly useful form of analysis, it requires a lot of data in order to truly show its poten

What are digital media influences?

Despite believing that digital media has improved their lives, when individuals use digital media excessively, it can negatively influence their cognitive and behavioral development as well as their physical and mental health. The negative effects of social media networks on society are quite enormous

Factors That Influence a Company's Digital Marketing Strategy

Target Market

Before you decide to use digital marketing to attract customers and increase sales, determine if and how your customers use digital marketing to get information about products, services or topics related to your business. Your digital marketing efforts must include language and images that reflect your target market and resonate with them.

Budget

Cost is a factor no matter what type of marketing campaign you're planning. Businesses with limited budgets might skip digital marketing efforts altogether, for fear that it's out of their budgets. Low-cost digital marketing options include creating a social media presence, blogging or creating marketing videos using your computer and web camera. Options such as setting up microsites, pay-per-click ad campaigns and short message services often require a larger marketing budget.

Talent

The knowledge and experience you and your team have in digital marketing influences whether or not you incorporate it into your overall marketing strategy. Before delving into digital marketing, it's important to know your options, how to implement digital marketing ideas and measure their success. If no one has previous experience, consider using a marketing consultant who specializes in digital media services.

Technology

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Time

Planning, implementing and monitoring digital marketing strategies requires a time commitment, which might be problematic for small business owners who aren't well-versed in marketing. Digital marketing strategies require constant monitoring, to measure what's working and what needs to be altered.

From servers being down to browser and software issues causing banner advertisements and websites not to load, common technology issues can play a major role in the success of a digital marketing strategy.

If a business experiences frequent issues with its digital marketing campaigns, they may be less likely to use digital strategies to promote their brands.

Beyond technical difficulties, companies often have to invest in equipment and services to implement their digital marketing campaigns.

For example, a company that wants to do video marketing needs a digital camera, lights and audio recording equipment and the expertise to use it, or must pay a studio to handle the video editing and recording.