The Power of Social Media Marketing: Strategies for Building Your Brand and Engaging Customers

Writers: Amulya Nookala and Alex Kao

In this day and age, social media platforms have been an effective tool for businesses to market themselves. Whether it’s posting pictures of new products or conducting polls, social media marketing can be an effective way for businesses to not only reach new audiences and increase sales, but to form a connection with their customers and understand their needs better.

What is Marketing?

Marketing is when a business aims to promote their product or service to consumers. Although the word “marketing” is used interchangeably with “advertising,” they aren’t entirely the same. Marketing is a way to connect with consumers, gain a deeper understanding of your target audience, and inspire them to choose your product or service. There are 4 main elements that marketing teams consider when designing a marketing campaign called the 4 Ps: product, price, place and promotion. 

• Product: Consider who is buying your product and why. To have a successful campaign, it is crucial to make yourself stand out from your competition, whether it is having a lower price, or having a higher quality product. 

• Price: When considering the price of your product, consider how much the intended audience is willing to pay for your product or service. If the product has a high perceived value, customers are more likely to pay a higher price. However, if your product has a lower perceived value, having an expensive pricetag might deter your customers from purchasing it. 

• Place: Depending on your product, try considering where you want to sell your product. For example, luxury clothing brands don’t want their apparel in a place that sells cheap clothes; they would want their clothes in certain stores to maintain their luxurious brand image. In this way, companies can create unique environments that pertain and cater to their specific product.

• Promotion: Promotion is the process of communicating with customers to convince them to buy your product at a price of your choosing. There are numerous effective ways to promote businesses such as advertising, loyalty programs, email marketing etc. 

Pros and Cons of Social Media Marketing

There are many benefits from using social media to promote your business. One benefit is that it can help you reach a larger audience. Once you post a piece of content online, anyone can view it from anywhere regardless of gender or age. In addition, getting direct feedback from your audience becomes much easier as social media platforms allow us to reach a wide variety of people in a short amount of time. This can also help you create a marketing strategy because you can get feedback on what works for you and your product. Once you have decided on your marketing strategy, you can start to use paid advertising to promote your products even more on social media. 

Although social media marketing might look like a great way to increase your sales immediately, the truth is that you might not get the traction you expected. On top of this, you need to constantly post hight quality content on your social media accounts to have your audience remain interested in your product. While posting, you need to make sure you don’t overexaggerate the benefits of your product. Remember that if your product underperforms, it could cause distrust between you and your customers. So, being honest with your potential customers is the best way to promote your brand in a positive light. 

Tips on gaining traction

To have a successful marketing campaign, it is necessary to take into account these three things: understand your audience, have quality visuals, and post constantly. Once you know what you want to sell, ask yourself, “Who’ll buy my product?” This will be your target audience, which will need to be tailored to your content in order to attract them to buy your product. For example, brands like Nike’s target audience are people who are interested in sports and fitness. So, in their advertisements, they’ll constantly show athletes using their products and succeeding in whatever sport they participate in. 

On top of conforming to your target audience’s interests, posting high quality visuals consistently is key. This portrays trust in your brand and attracts people to buying your product. These can range from videos that tell a story to a photo of your newest products. However, you have to make sure that you are posting constantly to increase engagement with your audience and improve how you appeal to them. 

Building Identities and Establishing Brands

Branding your company means creating a unique identity from your competitors. To achieve this, you need to have brand values, a brand voice, and a visual brand. These aspects will make it easier for your customers to recognize your brand from others. 

There are many ways to build your brand identity with the help of social media. One of these ways is to have a consistent design on your content, like having a specific color palette for your website or visuals to portray your brand in a certain way. For example, using blue in your logo or visuals can portray trust to your audience. Another way to build your brand is to partner with popular celebrities. These celebrities can help you tailor your content to your niche audience and can use their popularity to increase your credibility and boost brand awareness, which improves your brand image. In 2015, the partnership between Stephen Curry and Under Armor established a brand new Curry brand with clothing, shoes and accessories, increasing Under Armor’s revenue by 95%. 

When used properly and effectively, social media marketing can be a useful tool to increase your sales and help you brand your business. Although gaining traction can be difficult at first, once you understand who your target audience is and tailor your content around them, you can reap the rewards and watch your business grow.