How can social media marketing help you grow your brand?

Social media has become the most popular way to interact online to create, share and exchange information and ideas. Successful social media engagement is an essential digital marketing tool in any marketing strategy. With this in mind, you’ll want to get the most out of all your social media marketing and to achieve this it’s a great idea to complete a social media marketing course to keep you abreast of all the latest social media developments and trends.

Basic social media principles

We all use some form of social media these days, however, to get the best results for your social media marketing efforts, it’s necessary to fully understand the basic principles of social media engagement.

While there are some obvious do’s and don’ts when engaging in social media and there is much more to to this form of digital marketing than creating content and simply sharing posts. A successful social media marketing campaign will most definitely help grow your brand but always remember to keep these few basic social media principles in place.

A few points to keep in mind are:

Don’t treat social media as mere platforms to use for your digital marketing campaigns. These channels are so much more than a broadcast platform. Social media is basically about community and connecting with your target audience.
Be authentic. Social media is about keeping an open dialogue and honesty is an important trait in achieving this.
Don’t just ‘talk’ – listen. It’s important that your target audience feel they are being heard. So, listen first and then respond.
Be bold. Don’t be afraid to try new things instead of going with the flow of the masses. Social media responds brilliantly to new and compelling posts.

Understanding these social media engagement principles will go a long way to promoting your brand and build your audience.

Social media platforms

There are many social media platforms and virtual communities available on the world wide web. The most popular are Facebook, Blogs, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Vimeo.

Let’s look at these most popular social media platforms in more detail.

Facebook –This has to be the most popular social media platform by far and has billions of active users. Business can build their brand by creating dedicated Facebook pages.
Blogs – Creating your own blog is a great way to help grow your brand. Blogging has quickly become one of the most popular social media platforms to communicate and spread information and news.
Twitter – This is a micro-blogging platform where each post is limited to a 140 character limit, so it’s an ideal way to get your message across quickly and keep it to the point.
Instagram – Millions of people worldwide are using Instagram and its user numbers continue to skyrocket. This social media platform is image based, square based, to be exact and is a brilliant way to get your message across visually.
YouTube and Vimeo–Both of these sites are a free video sharing social media platform where you can watch online videos and create and share your own promotional videos.

Lesser-known social media platforms

Listed above are the most popular social media platforms however there are a few others that you can spread your social media digital marketing message. As part of your social media marketing strategy to grow your brand it’s a good idea to reach out to fresh audiences through lesser-known social media networks, such as Pinterest, Quora and Flickr.

Pinterest – A visual infographic style social media platform that demographic is mostly female.
Quora – A social media platform with a difference. Quora is a business based social network which allows individuals to create profiles to build awareness around their expertise.
Flickr – This is the place to be for building your brand through brand related imagery and infographics.

Your social media audience

Now that we’ve discussed the social media marketing platforms it’s crucial to understand that no social media network is useful without engaging with your audience. Constant, authentic engagement with your audience will help you grow your brand.

Once you’ve started interacting with your audience on social media, you will learn their needs, wants and interests which enables you to begin interacting with them on a more personal level, which certainly helps you grow your brand and the good news – with continued great content your brand will continue to grow.