One of the most important things in social media marketing strategy is to know the demographics of the different platforms. To make this more challenging, those demographics shift. The bottom line – if the target audience for the product or service is not on that platform in large numbers, go elsewhere.
With our One for All Social Media Aggregation platform, we constantly strive at all paid levels of service to keep those demographics up to date, and available. This step is vital in any kind of marketing strategy. The target audience must be identified before the campaign can be planned and executed, or it will almost certainly fail to meet objectives.
Social media is tailor made for inexpensively reaching a very niche-market (or broad market, if desired) with a highly specific message. In short, it is arguably the best tool possible for a guerilla type of marketing campaign. But for any guerilla marketing campaign to be successful you must target only one market at a time.
Historically it has been said that most people who see your name or brand name, need to see it at least seven times before they remember it. Trying to be instantaneously on the mind of a large audience is virtually impossible, and when it can be done, it will be prohibitively expensive.
In any kind of a marketing plan, it is preferable to segment a market and tailor the message appropriately. Using social media, you can do this in a variety of ways, including but not limited to:
- Demographics
- Geography
- Stage of life
- Lifestyle
- Specific interests
As you narrow down and decide exactly the audience your campaign is attempting to reach, it will also force some other decisions. Based on the target audience, the choices of graphics, content, and messaging will all be wildly different for different audiences.
The messaging used in the final product must be specific enough to satisfy the needs, wants, and desires of the group being targeted.
Of course, it goes without saying that different niche markets are drawn to different types of social media activities (polls, graphics, videos), not to mention different social media platforms (Twitter, Facebook, TikTok).
Typically, the most successful marketing campaigns are driven by the target markets desires, not by the marketing technique used.
All of what we have discussed so far has been about a campaign that is referred to as business-to-consumer campaign – a company, person, or shop selling directly to an individual purchaser. Marketing for business-to-business is much different, and we will now turn the focus to this important topic.
Not every social media platform is going to be effective, or even impactful for a business-to-business campaign. There are a few choices, some of which are industry specific. However, LinkedIn is the most well-known and widely populated.
Any business-to-business campaign marketing effort tends to focus more on branding, visibility, customer support, and customer problem solving. This contrasts with the business-to-consumer campaigns that focus on sales.
Interestingly, in 2023 we found multiple statistics on this topic. However, looking across all of them it becomes clear that more than 95% of all business-to-business marketing efforts involve some form of social media campaign. Our One For All platform can make this a much less time-consuming effort, which will result in a better return on investment.
That being said, business-to-business marketing can be tricky, and the techniques are known to vary wildly from industry to industry. While One For All and Social Media in general are effective tools, they must be used with the right messaging for the audience. We know the old saying, garbage in, garbage out.
Performing research about your industry and how the successful marketing campaigns have been done in the past is important. If you have never done business-to-business marketing before, it could help to find successful competitors and learn from them – yet differentiate yourself. Understand a few things – when they post, what they post, and where do they post. All these things are important and will be covered in more detail in future topics on this website.
