The beginner’s guide to social media marketing

Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, Youtube, Snapchat and TikTok each have millions and millions of active users that could potentially become your customers. Your primary target group is without a doubt already there, and you should be too. But where do you start? At the beginning of course.

Step 1: What do you want?
Start by defining what purpose you should have for your social media presence. Remember that you can't do it all at once (well, you can – but you really shouldn’t). Do you want to drive traffic to your website or create awareness of your brand? Eventually, you will be able to do both, but it is better to start small and grow bigger.

Step 2: Should you be everywhere?
Find out which social media suits your need. Start by testing one and then add more. Evaluate and continue with those that work best. If you start with everything at once, you may not have time to see what works best and which efforts yield results. When choosing a channel, look at your audience. Be where they are or where they are heading. There is a big difference between the channels and the crowd on TikTok will differ from the one on LinkedIn.

Step 3: What should you post?
Getting through the static isn’t easy, as we tend to scroll past videos, pictures and posts in our feeds. The only way to stop that thumb is with content that is relevant to your audience. To find out what kind of content that works you need to test, test and test. Experiment with videos and pictures, themes and copy. It is also important that you adapt your content to different social media, as different platforms reward different formats and types of content.

Step 4: Sponsor your posts
You’ll soon find out that you won’t get far with organic posts. By spending a penny or two on advertising you can boost your post and reach a significantly larger user base. With the right skills and toolset you can target the exact audience that you are looking for. Compared to advertising in traditional media, you will often get away with much cheaper advertising on social media.

Step 5: Talk to your followers
Don’t forget the social part of social media. Sooner or later, people will respond to your content. Take the time to answer their questions and respond to any criticism. Many companies use their social media as an outlet for customer service, making it easily accessible to customers as well as making their social media accounts even more relevant.

Step 6: Test, evaluate, repeat
To understand what works, you need to follow up on how it works – and why. What type of content gets the most likes? Which of your target groups are the most engaged? Crunch the numbers and test different content to see which ones hit the sweet spot. Try different images, but the same text. Or compare a picture post with a video post. Play around. After a while, you’ll see the difference in the numbers.

Read how Spoon works with social media.