The Complete Guide to Social Media Marketing for Businesses in 2021

Social media may be just as important to the success of your local SMB as a descriptive company name or a stunning website. Platforms like Facebook and Instagram not only provide information and represent your business, but they also offer several market research tools and advertising options. While social media marketing may not always correlate to direct sales, social media marketing is essential to building credibility, name recognition, and brand loyalty. Social media platforms can help you achieve these goals with organic posts and targeted paid ads. 

You can use the metrics social media platforms provide to build a brand people care about. Once you have data you can adjust your offerings to better suit the needs of your followers. Each platform offers different benefits, unique tools, and completely different audiences. By strategically leveraging various platforms, you’ll be able to reach every segment of your customer base and maximize your profits. Today, we’ll give you the rundown on social media marketing for businesses in 2021.

Facebook

Facebook’s Impact

Facebook is a marketing gold mine for companies, which is why nearly 200 million businesses worldwide utilize its services. The platform has 2.8 billion monthly active users, and 1.8 billion people visit the website every day! Studies show that 48.5% of B2B decision-makers use Facebook to conduct research. If you don’t get your business in front of these people, you could miss out on a huge payday. 

Facebook is a powerful tool for SMB advertising because it offers the most robust analytics of any marketing platform. You’ll be able to review how many people your campaign reached, engagement rates, conversion rates, and more. This takes away a lot of the guesswork, making it easy to achieve the established key performance indicators (KPI) goals. These metrics will also make it easy for you to figure out which posts to boost. Then, you’ll start seeing results without spending a ton of money. 

Advertising and Market Research

Aside from metrics, Facebook has numerous features that can help build your company’s brand. First, you can create posts that target highly specific demographics. By doing this, you can create a niche market without ever spending a dime on paid ads. However, if one of your posts performs exceptionally well, you can always boost it and potentially expand your audience. Second, Facebook Messenger is a great way of converting Facebook users to customers. Digital marketers have sung the praises of email marketing for years. This is because nearly everyone has an email, so even a 5-10% open rate is fantastic. However, Facebook Messenger is perhaps even better. Messenger has open rates higher than 50%, and about a 20% click-through rate. That’s amazing! Facebook Messenger also allows you to quickly answer questions and respond to complaints. 

Unfortunately, organic reach has been declining in recent years, so you’ll likely have to utilize paid ads at some point. To get your ad placed on the coveted newsfeed, you can expect to pay between 50¢ and $2. The benefit is that Facebook leads the industry in hyper-personalized advertising, so you’ll likely see a significant return on your investment. 

Tricks and Tips

To effectively track your followers, Rise Local can install Facebook Pixel. This code will help us monitor consumer behavior, and remarket advertisements to people who have already visited your company’s website. Then, you can effectively market to people in different stages of the sales funnel.

This could be someone who favorited an item, put an item in their cart, or someone who completed the checkout process. Naturally, you can use a variety of tactics to entice these unique people. For someone who just liked an item, you can place more advertisements in their way. If they added something to their cart and left, you may consider offering them an exclusive promotion. Or if the shopper already bought from you, your company can send them a thank you email with a coupon or a free goodie. All of these tactics build brand loyalty, brand recognition, and keep your company’s name at the forefront of their minds. 

Instagram

Instagram’s Impact

This social media platform is becoming a force in SMB marketing. Instagram has about 1 billion monthly users, 81% of people use Insta to research products or services, 130 million users tap on shoppable posts each month, and nearly 50% of people have clicked through to a website after seeing a product on the platform. With statistics like these, businesses should be utilizing the platform regardless of their industry.

Instagram Marketing and Analytics

There are numerous ways to attract potential customers on Instagram. You can use photos (especially carousel posts), use IGTV, Instagram stories, reels, live videos, hashtags, replies, direct messaging, and more to engage followers and turn them into paying customers. Instagram also has its own marketplace where companies can sell products. But first, you should start with a business profile. A business profile allows you to run paid ads, add products to the marketplace, and makes it easier for interested Instagrammers to contact you. Instagram’s analytics are less intensive than Facebook. However, you can still determine what posts are performing the best using the analytics available to business accounts. These metrics can and should inform the content you create and share.

Instagram is also a great platform for companies who want to introduce their brand to new people. Between Instagram Reels, hashtags, and the explore page a lot of new eyes will see your content. Once they find you, you just need to keep them engaged with consistent posts and outreach. This platform is one of the best for nurturing customer relationships and creating superfans. 

Twitter

Twitter’s Impact

This is a useful advertising tool for companies interested in starting a conversation or doing market research. The platform has 192 million daily active users and boasts high levels of engagement with a younger audience. Twitter is rich with information, and you can use threads to update customers and get feedback.

Marketing on Twitter

Twitter ads help build brand awareness and work well for companies on a budget because they don’t require a minimum ad spend, and you can pay mere pennies per click. They also offer various display options that complement any campaign objective and help maximize your ROI. Better yet, Twitter shoulders some of the burden for potential financial losses, which is rare from a social media platform. When you promote tweets on Twitter, you only pay after you’ve achieved your marketing objective. For example, if your campaign objective is to gain 100 new followers, you’ll only pay after 100 people have viewed your ad and followed you. 

YouTube

YouTube’s Impact

YouTube has a diverse demographic of users and 2 billion monthly active users. It’s likely your target audience will be represented in that demographic, and you’ll be able to target them using paid ads. It’s actually the second most popular website and search engine in the world, coming in just behind Google. Many people use YouTube to watch product reviews and to get recommendations. That’s why every company that produces videos about their work should be utilizing YouTube SEO at the very least. Companies that really want to make an impact should also consider using paid advertising. 

Marketing With YouTube

Businesses have a few options when it comes to advertising on this video-based search engine. Your company can use banner ads, in-video pop-up ads, skippable ads, and non-skippable ads. Due to YouTube’s high amount of users you can also target these ads. For example, if Lindsay is a 27-year-old soccer mom climbing the corporate ladder, then you might want to focus on in-stream mobile ads. Then, she can watch on her phone in between meetings or while she’s waiting for her kids to get out of school. You can also target messaging and products that will resolve a problem she’s likely experiencing. Products that might be successful in this context could include a minivan with tons of storage or a designer power suit. You should choose a video to sell your product on according to your ideal customer profile.  

Rise Local Social Media Marketing Services

Our social media marketing team is knowledgeable about social media and stays current on the best advertising practices across platforms. We can help your company get in front of your target audience on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, Tik Tok, Pinterest, and more. Contact our team today, and we can get started on a social media strategy that will help you achieve your 2021 business goals.