Social Media Marketing: What it is and Why it Matters to You

As a person in the 21^st century (with wi-fi and the latest technology), it’s likely that you know and understand what social media is, right? Just a quick glance at your cell-phone and a tap onto Instagram and you’re presented with an entire world of content.  As a consumer, too, you probably have a good idea of what social media marketing is – even if you think you don’t.

We’re here to dive deep into social media marketing. We’ll explain what social media marketing is, how evident it is in your daily life, and how your favorite brands and companies often use social media marketing tactics like influencers and collaboration to market directly to you!

What Exactly Social Media Marketing

Social media is the fastest growing trend in the history of technology – growing even faster than the internet itself. With billions of users worldwide, social media is the perfect place to market to a captive audience, something that many companies, brands, and corporations have established and continue to adapt to and learn from.

Social media marketing, in its most basic form, is simply the process of creating content that is tailored to the context of each, individual social media platform that helps to drive user engagement and sharing. Translation? Social media marketing is a digital marketing strategy that’s fit to each different platform, meaning that a company will use Instagram-specific tactics, Facebook-specific tactics, and so on and so forth to best drive engagement toward their products, services, websites, and more.

It’s more than about gaining traction, though. Social media marketing has been noted as helping companies and brands get the results they need, including ROI (or return on investment). One of the examples of social media marketing is JJ’s House, they have an incredible focus on their social media marketing platform.

Social Media Influencer Marketing

If you scroll through your favorite platform (let’s use Instagram as an example), it’s likely you’ll see a few people you follow who you don’t personally know, but who has a large following with an established credibility in a specific industry. These people are called social media influencers and typically they have access to a large audience and can typically influence the way they think about things and buy products and services. Often, brands or companies will collaborate with influencers in order to show people they’re credible or that their favorite celebrities and influencers rely on their brand.

A great example of social media marketing is Pool Guard USA. With a strict focus on their social media platforms (as well as their brand in general), they’re able to drive traffic from their social sites directly to their online shop in order to increase ROI.

In the end, it’s important to understand what social media marketing is and how it affects your life. Maybe next time you’re scrolling through your favorite platform, you’ll have a better understanding of social media marketing, how it affects you, and how it influences the way you purchase things.