The ability of an individual to effectively use social networking websites for reaching new customers and engaging the existing ones in order to promote a product or service is known as his social media marketing skills.

Social media marketing skills require using internet and the social networking sites as a marketing tool where interesting and engaging content is produced and shared so that users can help broaden reach and increase brand exposure by sharing the content further with their own social networks. Such social platforms usually have built-in analytics of their own which can help the individual gauge progress as well as the effectiveness of the overall campaign.

Why is social media marketing important

The ever-growing popularity of social media has changed the entire marketing landscape, opening avenues for marketers that had never existed before. The pervasiveness of any content shared through this powerful and inexpensive marketing tool is matchless. It enables you to give your brand a personality and allows for quick and free interaction with the users to keep them engaged.

Social media marketing not only helps with branding and engagement but helps in driving traffic, which was once done solely by focusing on search engines. Well-placed and interesting posts on social media helps in driving targeted traffic towards your page, which in turn boosts your website’s SEO and wins you the top spots in search engine rankings.

How to improve social media marketing skills

Following are some guidelines to help you improve your social media marketing skills:

  • Stick to a plan. In order to improve your social media marketing skills, you must learn to plan everything first. For instance, setting a limit on the number of tweets or posts per day because being active is good but being overly active can be bothersome for users/followers. You may want to begin by conducting an industry research in order to figure out the average amount of content your competitors are publishing every day.
  • Every channel must be treated as an individual entity. Every channel has a separate kind of audience. So, treating all such channels as an individual entity, your strategy must be adjusted accordingly even if the content being shared is the same. For instance, audience on Instagram may expect an engaging visual content only but the audience on LinkedIn is more likely to want an in-depth and educational content, even if the news shared on both channels is the same.
  • Track and analyze. Time-consuming an tedious as it may be, tracking the effectiveness and progress of your efforts is still one of the most important steps for bringing about the sought improvements. Take out some time every month to track and analyze certain stats such as number of posts, likes and shares, growth in number of followers and page views etc. one way of analyzing is to look at each channel individually and compare with the largest rival to see progress. You may also want to analyze and look for the most effective type of content as well as the least effective type so that you may avoid making the same mistakes in the future.
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