Types of Social Media Marketing
What is Social Media Marketing (SMM)?
Social Media Marketing (SMM) is a digital marketing strategy that uses social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, and LinkedIn to target customers. SMM is used for advertising a company’s products and services and usually focuses on developing user engagement and brand recognition to reach potential customers. SMM also involves increasing followers, likes, comments and shares for the different platforms, which help engage with customer leads or prospects through social media presence around the brand or product.
SMM helps marketers keep informed about current trends, which they can use in their strategies, along with measured analytics yielding information on customer feedback that could influence a company’s decisions regarding improving certain aspects of their business processes or operations. Social media marketing for businesses in Singapore is a valuable tool since it can lead to lead conversions with a lower acquisition cost. Social media marketing strategy can be cost-effective if carefully planned with a high degree of direct communication with the target social media users, amongst many other advantages. Therefore it is becoming increasingly popular among companies worldwide looking to create more effective marketing campaigns on digital platforms.
Let us share below the types of social channels used in Singapore.
Types of Social Media Platforms
With the help of social platforms, marketers can reach out to their target market, engage with them and build relationships. The most popular ones include social networking sites like Facebook and Instagram, which allow companies to create profiles for their business, share content and interact with customers Photo and image-sharing platforms such as Pinterest and Snapchat are also gaining traction, enabling organisations to showcase products or services effectively.
Video-sharing websites like YouTube provide businesses with an effective way to create brand awareness through visual advertising campaigns. Furthermore, audio-sharing platforms like SoundCloud allow brands to share audio clips or podcasts related to their industry, while live streaming platforms like Periscope give organisations a platform to broadcast live events or announcements.
Social messaging apps such as Whatsapp, WeChat, Facebook Messenger and Telegram are great tools for marketers to communicate directly with customers via instant messaging. Additionally, disappearing content apps such as Snapchat Stories give marketers a creative way to promote their products or services entertainingly. Social shopping networks like Lazada and Shopee offer e-commerce solutions for businesses looking to boost sales online.
Interactive social media apps such as Trivia Crack help increase engagement on various platforms. Other social media sites include discussion forums where customers can ask questions about products or services, microblogging platforms where short snippets of news can be shared quickly and community blogging sites allowing members of the same industry network to interact online. Finally, businesses in Singapore can also use review sites such as TripAdvisor, social curation and bookmarking sites.
Overall, social media marketing strategy is invaluable for businesses in Singapore to reach their target market, engage with them and build relationships. With the right strategy and execution, marketers can use various platforms to promote the brand and increase exposure online.
1. Social networking sites
Social networking sites allow marketers to build awareness, create a community of ideal customers and followers, and drive website traffic. Platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter enable organisations to reach out to their target audience and interact with them meaningfully by sharing, commenting on posts and following other users and businesses. Marketers can post engaging content, share videos or images and keep up with current trends to remain relevant. Additionally, they can quickly respond to customer comments and messages to build relationships with them.
Social media sites offer businesses in Singapore a great way to increase exposure online and effectively engage with their customers. Brands can also benefit from social media sites to build awareness for their products or services and create a community of customers and followers. By using content strategy to create informative and engaging content that appeals to their target market, brands can cultivate customer relationships and generate leads.
Facebook is the most prominent social media marketing platform, with over two billion monthly users. More than 25% of the world’s population is active on Facebook. Facebook provide businesses with detailed data about their brand performance through user statistics, which can help better understand how to improve products or services and identify where potential leads might come from. Social networking sites also allow companies to measure the success of their campaigns by tracking comments and interactions that they receive from users on each post. This data is invaluable in helping a business grow and succeed in today’s competitive marketplaces.
Moreover, Facebook ads enable social media marketers to target customers based on their profession, interests, location, past activities, and other criteria. When running social media ads on the platform, ensure targeted ads according to the audience’s interests to generate more lead conversions through Facebook.
LinkedIn is another excellent platform for business in the B2B segment and targets people who mainly fall in the millennial bracket. This social media channel houses users with the highest average disposable income. Recruiters, top education facilities, and high-end B2B products and services are the best types of enterprises that benefit the maximum after using LinkedIn.
Twitter is known for being able to connect influencers with regular audiences. With over 300 million active monthly users, it is the perfect channel for organic engagement. Several e-commerce brands use Twitter to promote their names and to advertise specific products for direct conversions. For Twitter, the word count in each post is set to 100 characters, but marketers can accompany them with rich visual media.
2. Photo and image-sharing sites
Photo and image-sharing sites have become incredibly popular in recent years. Studies suggest that visual content is more likely to receive engagement than written content, making it a key priority for modern marketers. Curate and share quality visuals with powerful aesthetic appeal that can draw attention and tell a brand or product story without any words.
Other platforms such as Pinterest, Snapchat and Imgur allow users to capture their images or draw from an established library of images on these sites. When choosing visuals for a brand strategy, focusing on high-quality social media banners with creative elements that will stand out is essential. For example, photos taken from a unique perspective or stock images with vivid colours tend to attract more viewers than typical pictures in Google searches. Unique visuals are crucial when creating engaging campaigns that accurately represent your brand identity on digital platforms.
Instagram, which now boasts over 1 billion monthly active users alone, is one of the most widely used photo and image-sharing platforms with an extremely high engagement rate. Use the unique concept of Instagram stories and Instagram reels to appeal to users through stunning visual media. Instagram marketing caters to the younger generation and is skewed more toward women. If a business wants to target this audience segment, then Instagram is the best bet.
Pinterest is a visual social media platform with an active female user base comprising almost 80 % of its 200 million monthly users. It boasts a high engagement rate, and posted images focus on customised products. For marketers with creative offerings, Pinterest is a good option with a highly targeted search engine for brands to promote their products.
3. Video-sharing sites
Half of the users in social media say that they prefer video content to any other kind of content; the visual aspect of watching video clips is a highly efficient way to absorb information quickly. With sites such as YouTube, TikTok, and Vimeo now hosting large collections of videos worldwide, attracting the target market with engaging content can take time.
Video content requires less effort for viewers to absorb than other forms of content, making it easier to digest and more memorable than other forms of media. Creating compelling social media promotional videos with stories that customers can relate to can help create an emotional connection with them, leading to higher engagement rates and sales conversions. It also allows marketers to showcase their products in action or give customers a behind-the-scenes look at what goes into creating the product or service they offer.
Video marketing is also popular due to its low effort requirement for viewers. There is no reading or scrolling through pages upon pages like text-based articles – click play, and viewers are ready to watch content. This makes video especially effective for educating audiences on relevant topics; providing tools like subtitles and visible captions within the video player simplifies understanding complex concepts. Companies can effectively leverage these platforms to reach larger audiences and drive business growth.
What Should You Be Using Social Media For?
Marketers use social media marketing campaigns in Singapore to reach their target audience, build relationships, and increase brand awareness. The key is to use it strategically and focus on creating engaging and relevant content for your business. This means creating blog posts, videos, infographics, and other content that provide value to viewers.
Using social media services as a platform to promote a business, products, or services is about more than just pushing sales or marketing efforts. It’s about creating content that builds relationships with followers and customers alike. Sharing useful information, responding to customer commentators, displaying the culture and values of your brand, and highlighting positive experiences with existing customers are all critical aspects of using social media for success.
By diversifying content within a social media strategy, the goal should always be finding what resonates best with the target audience. Posting 5-10 times weekly to promote products or services will turn potential customers away rather than gaining their interest. Try to use that same amount of effort posting relatable content such as news articles in your industry, tips related to product uses, inspirational quotes, behind-the-scenes at how projects/products come together and include photos/videos of happy customers who have used the product. This combination creates an engaging environment around the brand and allows followers to learn more about how it functions and how they can benefit from it.
Type of Social Media Marketing
1. Influencers
Influencer marketing allows marketers to showcase products/services through an individual that consumers already interact with on social media. By leveraging influential figures, brands can further engage and build relationships with their existing followers and attract new customers.
Finding individuals who resonate with the target audience is critical to successful influencer marketing. Research and understand the influencer’s content, follower demographics, and post engagements before engaging in a collaboration or relationship. Once this is established, create strategies around how the influencer will best assist in achieving your business objectives, such as raising brand awareness or driving sales.
Micro-influencers have more impact than those with huge followings due to their more dedicated and engaged audience. According to Socialbakers, micro-influencers generate more engagement by up to 60%, making them great allies for businesses wanting to get the most out of influencer marketing while creating long-term customer relationships.
2. Paid Promotion
Pay-per-click advertising is an increasingly popular type of social media marketing. By utilising sponsored posts, businesses can reach a broad audience in a highly targeted way. Through creating a sponsored post, companies can create and place content that resonates with their intended demographic or audience, increasing the likelihood of conversions or sales.
The cost of a sponsored post can vary depending on the effort put into crafting it and targeting it specifically for specific users. Paid promotion allows businesses to target users likely interested in their product or services, guaranteeing exposure and potentially wider reach than other social media marketing tactics.
3. Contests
Contests effectively increase social media engagement, reach new customers, or reward existing loyal customers. This type of social media marketing is especially fruitful when it involves user-generated content (UGC). Marketers running the contest will get more people to talk about the brand and get more viewers.
A great example of a campaign for real estate agents would be a street photography contest to engage with clients and simultaneously be part of the vibrant local culture. They could use hashtags and filters, professionally curated photos and other general posts by entrants as part of their campaign. Although running such successful campaigns is challenging, such methods can help marketers achieve results faster than traditional marketing techniques.
4. Hyper-Targeting
Hyper-targeting is an incredibly powerful tool that allows marketers to create custom audiences and display their content only to those users who fit specific criteria such as age, gender, location, interests and even behaviours. Marketers can maximise their ROI from social media campaigns by targeting the right people with the right message at the right time.
For example, a business selling college tutoring courses can use hyper-targeting on Facebook and other platforms to target a social media profile of 18-25-year-old students in Singapore who may be looking for higher education. Another example is a restaurant in Singapore that could create a campaign focused on students by promoting student discounts or highlighting student-friendly menu items. Similarly, a business selling beauty products may focus its messaging on female customers by highlighting new products and deals geared towards them.
By doing so, it can ensure that its content reaches the exact demographic it desires, resulting in more targeted clicks from individuals with a greater chance of a conversion. Through hyper-targeting, marketers can narrow their reach and increase the effectiveness of their online presence.
5. Retargeting Ads
Retargeting is essential to any social media strategy that yields excellent results far exceeding traditional online advertising. It can increase conversion rates by up to 10 times, depending on the approach used. Retargeting social media ads target users who have already visited the website and reach individuals who may be interested in what you offer and connect with them meaningfully. Retargeting allows marketers to take advantage of users already showing interest, connecting with them and presenting relevant products or services that will bring them back to the site and convert them into customers.
Marketers can also personalise retargeting social media ads using user data such as past purchases, interests and preferences. A typical application for retargeting is reaching out to people who have abandoned their cart or checkout page on an E-commerce store. This allows marketers to capture lost sales opportunities when customers didn’t complete their purchase or weren’t taken through the funnel in the first place. This can encourage customers to return to the store, remind them of discounted offers, and suggest related items they may be interested in purchasing – such as previous hot-selling products, increasing conversions and nurturing customer relationships.
6. Content Marketing/ Content Creating
Content marketing is a strategic approach focusing on creating and sharing meaningful types of content to reach and engage new customers. Through targeted content distribution, marketers can showcase products or services more effectively while at the same time engaging current customers and increasing brand loyalty.
Successful social media content can be implemented by understanding the target audience and researching popular topics. Good content should be well-written and logical and provide helpful information for social media users. To maximise success, companies must stay up-to-date with industry trends and regularly update their content to remain relevant among competitors. Once the content is created, it can be used as part of a content marketing strategy by distributing using social media services.
Feel free to contact us to learn more about social media services and work with reputable social media marketing agencies to help create different content types to build a loyal community for online marketing.
