Summary: Learning through a comprehensive social media marketing step by step guide will help you boost your social media marketing business. Your passion to learn from this guide will eventually turn you into a successful marketer.

Social media has become part of our life; whether you accept it or not. That’s not what I’m saying, analytics are saying it too.  There are 4 billion + users of social media platforms that include Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and all other popular apps.

More than 4 billion! That’s more than half of the global population.

Some Key facts about social media:

• We spend an average 142 minutes daily on social media.
• People have 7 accounts on social media at an average.
• Facebook is becoming the market leader after Google.
• Social Media platforms are 2^nd best choice for business after websites.

So we think that are some key facts to reaffirm your beliefs about social media.

Now, let’s have a look at the table of content of the blog so you get an overview of what I will say afterwards.

Table of Content

1. How did social media become popular
2. What is social media marketing
3. Why is social media marketing important for business
4. How can beginners start social media marketing
5. Step by step guide to social media marketing
6. How can I learn social media marketing
7. What is social media marketing strategy
8. Creating a Social Media Marketing strategy
   • Finding and analyzing audience
   • Defining Goals
9. Working on the strategy
   • Create profiles on targeted social media platforms
   • Publishing your content
10. How to build your social media brand
11. Keep evaluating your social media persona

Before we talk about social media marketing, let’s have a little talk on social media. How it become common so rapidly?

How did social media become popular?

Social media became part of our life rapidly even than the internet itself because it has provided us with a place to share our ideas, interests and let us know about our friends and family’s interests and ideas.

If we analyze the growth of social media, we will be surprised at its speedy progress. With the first invention of Facebook in 2004, although it was available for the Harvard community then, it attracted the general public.

People wanted to have a place where they can speak openly, write openly and share whatever they want to. Before Facebook, there were few public discussion forums and not everybody used to go there.

So we can say that the lack of general discussion forums has led to the popularity of social media.

Therefore, if we look at all social media websites, they are discussion forums.

What is social media marketing?

Social media marketing is everything that we do through social media to achieve our business goals.

That can be a post, comment, sharing others’ posts, or any other content.

Businesses have also grown up. They are using modern means of communication to reach out to their target audience. So they are investing a lot of money on social media marketing.

Well, social media is fun for sharing moments from our personal lives.

But what is the purpose of using it for business growth? And how is it successful? Let’s have a precise answer to these questions.

Why is social media marketing important for business?

Because companies find their potential target audience on social media very frequently.

How do they find the target audience?

Facebook Analytics, Twitter Analytics and other insights are here for them. These platforms provide detailed user analytics to understand and assess the target audience.

For example, if you are running a page about food delivery service, you will get analytics that how many users view your posts. How many posted comments? How many have issues about your service? How many people give suggestions about your foodservice quality?

So through all such info, businesses review their strategy and align it to their goals.

Proof to my argument is that even giant corporations like Nestle, Coca Cola, Pepsi, McDonald’s, Apple, Microsoft, Huawei, Emirates, and even Mercedes etc. are focusing on social media marketing to enhance their business growth.

To understand how social media is giving leverage to business opportunities, watch this complete live session on YouTube.

How can beginners start social media marketing?

Thanks to the internet, you can become a social media marketer even if you know nothing about it. Beginners can start social media marketing after learning its essentials.

After reading all the wonderful facts stated above, you must have started thinking about social media marketing. But along with, you are also thinking about to find a way to start it.

Like you have thought these questions.

• “How can I start social media marketing as a beginner?”
• “How can I earn money through social media marketing?”
• “How much time I need to become a successful social media marketer?”

Relax! Don’t panic yourself all of sudden with such questions!

You will gradually get answers all of your questions in the blog. Be patient and keep reading the blog!

All you have to be persistent and passionate!

Now, come to the guidance so you can learn it from the start.

Step by Step Guide to Social Media Marketing

This blog will not daydream about social media. Rather, it will give you facts and reality of the ground. So if you are looking for some kind of SECRET FORMULA social media marketing, it’s better to leave the blog than being disappointed at the end.

Give a read to these points and remember them always in your career.

• You have to give the best of your mind i.e. you have to work hard.
• You cannot sell in your every post.
• You have to work consistently for your audience no matter they respond or not.
• What your users say is more important than what you say.

How can I learn social media marketing?

Now you must be thinking to learn social media marketing through any random website. If you are thinking so, leave the idea behind. Because it’s not about collecting knowledge from a random guy.

Rather, it’s about how effectively you understand the behavior of social media users and then plan your strategy accordingly.

So our expert advice is to join an authentic online course and complete it.

Here are links to some top-notch courses on social media marketing available online.

• Dankash’ Social Media Marketing Course
• HubSpot Academy’ Social Media Certification
• Google’ Fundamentals of Digital Marketing
• HootSuite Academy’ Social Media Training
• Udemy’s Social Media Marketing Complete Certification Course

More Learning resources

Other than courses, some useful resources to enhance your learning level are the following:

• Free tutorials
• YouTube lectures
• Blogs by top bloggers
• Online webinars on social media
• Discussion with professional marketers

What is social media marketing strategy?

It is your plan to achieve the already set milestones for your or your client’s business. It is like a work plan or a project plan just like any other industry. Hence, for a marketer, social media marketing strategy decides the success rate of his/her campaign.

Creating a social media marketing strategy

Now you have understood the importance of social media strategy. We will talk about the steps and essentials elements of a good strategy.

Find and understand your target audience

The very first step of the strategy is to have an exact understanding of your potential audience.

While analyzing your audience, ask these questions to yourself:

• Who is going to view your content?
• Who should also watch your social media content?
• What do they want to read and watch on social media?
• What is the awareness level of that audience?

A tip for you is Learn everything about your audience that you can!

Get the answers to all these questions. Then you will have a good understanding of your target users.

Set Goals of your strategy

Define goals for your strategy and show your determination to achieve these goals.

How should you define your goals?

Your goals should be:

• Smart
• Convenient to practice
• Measurable
• Following a timeline

Some other factors also matter while defining goals for your social media strategy. Examine these factors before putting out your goals on the market table.

These factors are:

• Gather real data from all platforms.
• Examine your current potential.
• Assess your competitors’ performance.
• Understand the latest industry trends.
• Make a comparison of your potential to industry trends.
• Listen to your targeted users. Take their suggestions.
• Predict the next social media trends.
• Get a second opinion by an industry expert.

After doing the struggle for all such factors, we are sure that you will be glad to plan your goals wisely.

REMEMBER that your goals must support to your primary products/services.

Start Working on Your Strategy

It’s time to test your strategy in the field. Enough of the talk about planning. Show your action to social media competitors.

We will describe some initial steps to launch your strategy.

Create profiles on targeted social media platforms

The first step is to show your presence on all social media platforms. But all social media websites?

There are 200+ social websites and apps on the web. So can you afford to invest your energy and time on all of them?

Surely not! So be selective and choose those platforms which are most popular in your target audience.

But some must-have platforms are:

• Facebook
• YouTube
• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Instagram
• Snapchat

You should also join any regional social media if your audience is also present there.

Publishing Your Content

The first purpose of any content is to SATISFY the users’ requirements.

Understand this basic fact and start publishing your content for your audience.

Content is the king. So we are giving you some guidelines for posting your content online.

Before Posting:

• Make sure that you adhere to these guidelines always!
• Find the ideal time for posting your content on each platform.
• Be consistent, means publish your post constantly.
• Be unique and original!
• Focus on titles of your posts.
• Use interactive media types in your post i.e. text, images, videos, forms, infographics and other new tools.

After Posting:

Now your post has become public. It’s time to work more on it. Follow on these guidelines:

• Reply to every comment and inbox message.
• Try to convince new users.
• Be polite always during the conversation!
• Keep checking analytics of the post.
• Promote your post on all relevant platforms.
• Don’t forget to apply SMM best practices.
• Engage the users through different interactive methods e.g. ask a question, create a poll, and ask their suggestion.
• Use complete software to handle your social media activities.

User retention is not an easy task. You have to put your best eggs in the basket. So keep posting user-friendly content and promoting it consistently.

How to build your social media brand?

Who doesn’t want to become a brand or an influencer on social media? I am sure everyone. But it’s not easy to get that mark. It takes a lot of time to convert a newly established page to a well-reputed brand.

You can also review the examples of famous brands around you. They invested their best resources on social media.

We are giving you some best practices to make yourself a brand on social media.

• Get your pages on all platforms verified. Studies have proved that verified pages are more trusted by users.
• Publish your unique LOGO in your every post.
• Be consistent on all platforms.
• Show your active participation in all relevant groups and pages.
• Keep informed your users about your decisions.
• Enhance your social networking

Keep Evaluating Your Social Media Persona

At last, you have gone through all steps of social media marketing. But remember just like maintenance in any project, the audit is your QA tool for your social media marketing. We will give you the final tip that

Keep auditing your social media marketing strategy.

So finally, you have read the social media marketing step by step guide. Your passion level must be more than the start of the blog. So don’t wait anymore! Start learning and be a professional social media marketer!

If you still feel a gap to your learning passion, enroll in our Social Media Marketing Course. The course will take you through all the industry insights and best practices.

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