What is social media marketing?
Social media marketing (SMM) is a type of internet marketing that makes use of social media apps as a marketing tool.
These social media platforms allow brands to connect with their target audiences in order to:
- Create a brand;
- increase sales;
- drive traffic to a website; and
- Create a community of followers who will share and engage with your content.
Producing relevant content that users will share with their own networks helps brands gain exposure. When used as a recruitment tool, it also broadens their reach to include fans, potential customers, and even potential employees.
Social media marketing also allows businesses to solicit customer feedback while making the company appear more personable. Organizations can use social media to build relationships with their target audiences. It provides a platform for end users to ask questions, voice complaints, and generally be heard. It also allows brands to respond, adapt, and modify business processes or products.
Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram, and Snapchat are examples of popular social media apps. Each platform has elements that make it appealing to use. When a company uses several in tandem to deliver a multichannel message, consumers can see those messages on their preferred channels.
Read More About How To Make Money With Digital Marketing?
Why is Social Media Marketing so important for Lifestyle Brands?
Lifestyle brands provide products, services, and – crucially for social media – stories that reflect the lifestyle that their customers want to live. These are the brands that shape our thoughts, desires, and emotions. They build communities of followers, whether they have made a purchase or simply want to make a purchase.
Users of social media frequently seek lifestyle models, and lifestyle brands can illustrate (and commodify) those aspirational lifestyles. You can engage your consumers, create a community to which they want to belong and contribute, and ultimately grow revenue if you know your audience and the content – the stories – that will resonate with them.
A lifestyle brand can distinguish itself by using social marketing to reinforce its message and story. Engaging current customers also provides social proof to aspirational members of your community.
A key feature of social media marketing, particularly for a lifestyle brand building a community, is not to sell – or, at the very least, not to appear sales-driven. Sales content will not generate the likes, shares, comments, or subscriptions required to build a community or brand presence on social media. Consider videos and vlogs, feature lists, guides, reviews, opinions, and comments. Content that is useful and relevant to your target audience.
The Advantages of Social Media Marketing for Lifestyle Brands
We’ve discussed why lifestyle brands have a social media strategy and use social media, and there are real benefits to doing so:
- The goal is not to gain more followers, but to establish a community. Members of this community don’t just like your content; they interact with it – and with one another – allowing your brand to drive conversations around your desired action: purchase.
- A lifestyle brand’s deep understanding of its consumers is a distinguishing feature, and social media is an excellent tool for getting to know your target audience.
- Influencers thrive on social media. Lifestyle brands can collaborate with influencers to provide content to consumers who trust someone who lives the lifestyle the consumer aspires to.
- You can directly appeal to your ideal consumer base by positioning your brand as an essential component of, and means to achieving, this desired lifestyle.
Should Lifestyle Brands Have a Presence on All Social Media Platforms?
The short answer is no, not always. You don’t have to use every social media platform to be successful as a lifestyle brand. Quite the opposite – figure out which ones work best for you and concentrate on those (or maybe just one). While it may be tempting to try to cover all bases, it is far more effective to simply use the platforms that your target audience also uses.
If you do use multiple platforms, it’s a good idea to tailor your content to each platform’s unique strengths. Longer videos, for example, may perform better on Facebook than on Twitter, where bite-sized chunks of content are preferred.successful. Above all, ensure that your content is both relevant and authentic, and your community (and thus your revenue) will grow.
Read More About Social Media Management.
Tips for Doing Social Media Properly as a Lifestyle Brand
So you’ve determined which social media platform(s) work best for you and have begun to build brand awareness. So, what happens next?
- Learn about your target audience. A good place to start is with social listening, which involves using tools to track conversations about your industry, keywords, relevant topics, and competitors. You can then use the information you gathered about your target audience to inform your social media marketing strategy and content because you can tap into what you know engages your audience.
- It’s important to keep track of how much you’re posting – too many and you’ll overwhelm your followers and turn them off, too few and they won’t be able to connect with you.
The posts themselves should be relevant, useful, and interesting. Informative and entertaining content will attract your target consumers, and they will bring others by sharing your posts. Over time, you will gain credibility and trust. This will result in increased engagement, repeat visits, and more customers.
Social media marketing benefits businesses
Organizations that launch a successful social media marketing campaign will reap numerous benefits. Here are some companies that can benefit from social media marketing programs:
Startups and small businesses
Small businesses and startups can benefit greatly from social media marketing. It is a method for new businesses to raise awareness of their offerings. Using social media to sell products and services to a new market can be a good place to start when it comes to building a customer base.
Read More About Digital Marketing Trends.
Direct sales firms
These types of businesses are very entrepreneurial and spread through communities. And social media can help build communities by connecting with friends, family, and others.
Read More About What Linkedin Is Used For?
Property investment
Real estate firms benefit from social media by promoting open houses and displaying images of available properties. Facebook Live and Instagram stories, for example, display video footage of these properties in digestible formats for users to consume.
B2B businesses
B2B marketing teams are better able to identify who their target prospects are, which allows them to appear in the right person’s newsfeed when done correctly.
Businesses can use social media advertising tools to get the right message in front of the right decision-maker at the right time.
