Social media is a goldmine for marketing specialists. There’s no other tool like social media that can help business owners target so many people at the same location at once. There’s a reason, why brands are massively going social, starting from their marketing campaign and finishing with customer support service.
Stats support this positive social media marketing trend, encouraging brands to invest in it more and more every year:
- According to Statista, the percentage of social media users has grown dramatically from 2008 to 2018, and now every 7 out of 10 Americans have at least one social media account.
- 22% of the global population uses Facebook, with North America being the leader;
- According to HootSuite, 71% of U.S. businesses use Instagram for marketing purposes and there are over 25 million business accounts on Instagram in total;
- Instagram has proven to be the best tool for promoting your online business, as 80% of Instagram users follow at least one business account.
Social media are great for marketing purposes. But what’s better is that social media platforms provide business owners with tons of social data that can be used in marketing campaigns to improve customer experience and guarantee positive results.Now, let’s take a look at some practical tips on how you can use social data to launch a successful marketing campaign and level up your business.
#1 Incorporate Social Data into Industry Analysis
Industry analysis is the major step in preparing to launch a marketing campaign. It involves several steps, including:
- General industry overview, including the latest changes and trends;
- Market analysis, which describes the current situation on the market and the segment you’re interested in;
- Competitor analysis;
- The overview of your current position on the market, etc.
Social media is the foundation of performing a complete industry analysis. From there, you can get the full scope of data regarding the general overview of the industry as well as your current position on the market.
An essential part of doing an industry analysis is checking the performance of your competitors. And while on social media all information about your competitors’ activity is open, you can incorporate this social data into your industry analysis that will later become a foundation for your business plan and an essential part of your marketing strategy.
For a comprehensive competitor analysis you can also use specific tools, like:
- Sprout Social;
- SEMRush, or
- BuzzSumo.
All these tools are aimed at analyzing the activity of your competitors, identifying their top-performing content and how they manage it, and, of course, how they perform on social media and what is their social media strategy.Having this information as well as the general industry and market overview is essential for a successful marketing campaign.
#2 Find the Most Engaged Audience Using Social Data
Having the target audience figured out for your marketing campaign is an essential step to take before your launch it. You do need to know who you want to target, otherwise you’ll end up with a marketing campaign that does not have something to focus on.
As a business owner, you probably know your target audience already. But when it comes to the marketing campaign, your audience personas may differ a bit. Social media can provide you with valuable social data, necessary to identify the target audience for your marketing campaign. To mind social data for this purpose, you need to answer the following questions:
- On which social media platform your followers are most active?
- Which platform serves the aim of your marketing campaign best in terms of age and gender?
- What content do your followers prefer to see based on likes and shares/reposts?
The audience across social media is not evenly distributed in terms of gender. General gender use of social media shows that women are more active than men:
As for the specific use of social media platforms, Brandwatch offers the following statistics:
There’s also a ton of research on age differences between the users of social media. Pew Internet, for example, has concluded that:
- If you want to target millennials and Gen Z kids, Snapchat, Instagram and Twitter are the best choices, while
- Audience over 50 years old can be reached on Facebook and LinkedIn.
This social data mined from social media can show which platform is the best fit for your marketing campaign. Studying likes and shares from across your social media accounts can also help you identify your audience personas, thus making your marketing campaign more personalized.
#3 Benefit from Social Data to find Unique Marketing Tools
Social media platforms are not only a free way to promote your brand. They also offer you many other opportunities, which your marketing campaign can benefit from.
For instance, if you’ve already chosen the main social media platform for your marketing campaign, you can use social data from it to find options for influencer marketing.
Influencer marketing is the latest trend on social media. It is popular because people prefer honest reviews of the products over overrated advertisements. “Moreover”, says Kate Seymour, a marketing specialist at Flatfy, “Influencer marketing has a growing impact on brands, with 38% of companies planning to increase their investments in influencers.”
It is reported that 70% of millennials value influencer endorsement, saying that it’s more credible than traditional advertising. Diving into social data from a particular social media platform will help you understand which influencer will be the best fit for your company’s values. Data from likes, shares as well as hashtag analysis can help you mine social data necessary to find an appropriate influencer.
Wrapping Up
Social data is a great source of valuable information that is absolutely necessary for a successful marketing campaign. Hopefully, these tips will inspire you to use social data on every step of your marketing campaign to achieve success!
About the Author
Ryan Pell is a passionate writer who likes sharing his thoughts and experience with the readers. Currently, he works as a real estate agent at Flatfy.ro. He likes everything related to traveling and new countries.