How Do I Start Social Media Marketing?

One of the most challenging experiences as a marketer I faced ever is running social media accounts smoothly.

I’d like to come up with viral content ideas every day, but the reality is that I failed miserably many times. And realized, we're all human. At times, with planning content, while aligning with the campaign’s goal, we hit a wall.

How can I be a good social media marketer?

If you're a beginner in the social media marketing or a professional - who is looking for a few guidelines to get going, I've compiled a list of useful tips to reinforce your accounts, no matter your expertise level and type of your campaign - organic or paid.

What?	Why?	How?
Sync posts across all social media accounts	To measure metrics across all accounts	Use tools that will let you sync posts across various accounts but remember -“sync” means here same topic, not the same format for all the platforms
Reuse older posts	For re-engagement	Update your backdated content with fresh ideas and republish
Don’t post at odd times but do on weekends	Establish your best time and day to post on social media through experiments for optimum outcome	Ensure that your target audiences can get fresh content during their preferred time and day
Include Hashtags	To increase the relevancy and life-span of your posts, and engagement	Try mixing up existing and popular hashtags with your own custom hashtags - be a trendsetter is equally important sometimes like be a trend follower
Use visuals	Visual content has more appeal at any point in time to anyone	Include pictures, videos, gifs, infographics in your posts whenever possible
Posts often	The usual life-span of any content on social platforms is very little - so posting multiple times a day initially (when the account is like a newborn baby) is important, later when the account will have enough reputation, you can enjoy some irregularity but that again depends on the situation	I am not saying to post every hour – probably doing so may make you feel stress about coming up with new ideas every time and also limit the breathing space of the viewers; rather create a posting calendar and keep optimizing it
Do not forget about branding	Every piece of content should portray the brand you are promoting in an intelligent way	Set a color pattern, tone, and language, topic ideas, etc. for posts - make sure to blend your brand into your social media marketing effort strategically to   establish your brand
Engage through interaction	To make real connections with audiences which essentially help you reduce your social media management costs and set your audience your referrer in the long run	Answer all their queries with the committed mind, reply to the reviews with an open mind, establish a proactive follow-up routine with all the comments you receive, express your gratitude to their feedback, take the criticisms (if any) courageously - but do not stop interaction through your content with audiences to engage better
Invest a few bucks	To get services from real professionals as and when required	Try to understand the thin line that lies between ordinary and extra-ordinary - since your audiences are targeted by your competitors too, it is wise to take the help of, for example, a professional designer to post some visual contents on social media or run a few paid ads for a limited period of the time or proof-read the content through a pro editor - a lot of freelancers are around to provide you such services against nominal fees if in case you have doubt about your own creativity or time constraint - after all behind each social media post, a lot of effort has to invest
Find/invent/explore new ways	To expand your social media strategy	Aim to diversify your social media operation to keep things fresh, innovative, and exciting - do not miss out on opportunities waiting for you to broaden your horizons, if not work, at least you come to know about a new thing which itself is gainful
Tie the knot with influencers	To promote your product and/or service rapidly	Discover and then reach out to the influencers in your industry for partnerships (of course keeping the marketing budget in mind) so they become the advocate of your brand - do not forget to measure how they are actually influencing to grow your brand
Focus on USP	Authenticity matters	Play to your strengths - unless complete monopoly, you have to face stiff competition but that’s fine until you know your unique selling points (USPs) and build your social media campaigns on and around that - and there is always scope for improvement
Dream big but stand on your feet	To sparks lead generation (or goal conversions whatever you set as KPI)	Unless it’s a complete giveaway, never forget to add/include a CTA (call-to-action) in your content to direct your audience for taking your desired path
Confidence, courage, and idea	The focus should be on helping out both users and search engines so that they can understand properly and digest quickly the content they need	Reach out to the right audience at the right time with the right piece of content so they can feel an urge for connecting with me to get even more

Producing meaningful content often can be difficult, even if you're a social media pro. The reality nowadays is, social media trends are changing every now and then based on changing tastes and behaviors of both internet users and search engines, and experiencing it as a social media manager seems like a real challenge.

These tips are neither exclusive nor exhaustive but will help us in many ways like, how to organize and optimize a social media campaign, upgrade your content, and grow your target audience, and many more. But don't stop here. Keep checking my blog on social media marketing for more information.