Digital Marketing on Social Media: Do It Yourself or Hire an Agency?

Today, social media marketing is about more than just cats and likes; it's about actual sales. Of course, you can simply create a community, publish 5 posts per week, and wait for a flood of new customers to arrive. But it does not work that way. There will be no results if a systematic approach is not used. In this article, we will provide you with a wealth of information about self-promotion, allowing you to draw your own conclusions about how justified labor costs are when compared to outsourcing this work.

Aside from social media, digital marketing includes a wide range of online marketing activities such as websites, email, SEO, and PPC. Social Media Marketing, on the other hand, focuses on using social media platforms for marketing purposes. Successful businesses always outsource this promotion work to special agencies because it is a massive amount of work that necessitates qualifications, knowledge, and experience. But if you decide to do it yourself, we will explain the steps involved in this difficult process.

Strategy of digital marketing in social media will assist in defining the tools of presence in public media, how to achieve them, prioritizing, and, most importantly, predicting the potential effect and not deviating from the planned path. To create an effective strategy, you should:

• Evaluate the brand's current position in social networks: the number and activity of subscribers;
• Find all mentions - what and how people are talking about you;
• Complete competitive analysis;
• Compile a consumer portrait;
• Develop a unique selling proposition that distinguishes the company and its products/services from competitors. It's beneficial to brainstorm with colleagues and survey clients about why they chose you. It's not just low prices that can distinguish you from your competitors.

In addition to developing an effective strategy, you must define the format in which you and your company intend to position yourself in the media space. You must define the format of your presence on social media platforms for digital marketing. There are several basic formats:

Commercial Format

You do not hide your commercial interest and openly offer to buy your product or service. As a rule, such groups contain a product catalog, discussions with questions, and feedback from customers, and the content is commercial in nature. The purpose of the commercial format is sales.

Interest-Based Format

These communities create a sales funnel. The goal is to gather as many potential customers as possible from the target audience, and then gradually publish advertising. In most cases, subscribers are unaware that the resource is owned by the enterprise. Users engage with the public through their interests, publishing useful and relevant information and research about music, business, fashion, cooking, and so on.

Mixed Format

The company acts as an expert, publishing useful thematic materials that are periodically diluted with commercial content. If the information is useful, unique, and relevant, your reputation as an expert will grow, as will the traffic's loyalty. Your opinion will be trusted, your advice will be taken seriously, and most importantly, it will be consistent with the brand you are promoting. The level of professional competence is one of the most important factors influencing the purchase decision. It is excellent when community administrators recognize that having only commercial banners causes boredom and negativity, and they strive to provide useful information about the business while mentioning the brand.

A corporate account serves as the public face of your business. It must appear professional: design branded avatars and covers, and create a post layout template that will make your posts stand out in subscribers' newsfeeds. It's known as social media optimization in digital marketing:

• Name: Create a community name using the "brand" principle combined with the main keyword query. Consider how potential customers might search for you and which keyword query is most appropriate in your situation;

• URL address: It should match the brand name and be consistent across all social networks. Sometimes the desired address is already taken. It's worth looking for a short, memorable name that can be used on business cards, packaging, and signage;

• Company description: Keep all information brief and to the point. State your advantages right away. These factors influence the position of your groups in search engine results. Create main topics and keep their information up to date: reviews, the ability to ask a question about a problem, discounts, and promotions. Instagram does not have a similar feature, so you can solicit feedback in your posts on a regular basis. Facebook has reviews, and using ranking tricks, the reviews that sparked the most lively discussion rise to the top. So, don't forget to respond to both positive and negative reviews;

• Set privacy settings: Always allow anyone to join. Do not disable comments. Allow only administrators to add photos and videos to albums. Every day, check for comments on all of your activities;

• Set alerts: To respond quickly to group messages, set up alerts and monitor your email for notifications;

• Set showcase: Facebook allows you to add goods and services as cards with prices. There are services that allow you to automatically upload products from the site's catalog to accounts' storefronts. We recommend using them if you have a large product catalog with frequent price changes;

• Use labels: Geo-tags and branded hashtags should be created and used in the official community so that users can find and share your content on social media.

What is content marketing? It is the creation and dissemination of useful information that is relevant to your audience's interests and aids in the resolution of their problems. What purpose does information marketing serve? To demonstrate your competence, gain the public's trust, increase their loyalty, and eventually convert that loyalty into money. Investments in media products are strategic: brand loyalty does not develop overnight, so expect a commercial impact in 3-6 months. Content is the cornerstone of successful social media business promotion. A content strategy should address the following questions:

1. What do we want to communicate to our audience?
2. How often will we discuss it?
3. What type and style of content will we use?

Content Categories:

• Entertainment: It is what users come to you for. This type of data receives high viral coverage, which means that everyone actively shares it with their friends;

• Educational: Assists the user in solving problems, educates them, and broadens their horizons. This is an excellent way to demonstrate the company's expertise in its field;

• Commercial: This is an offer for your products or services. Encourage everyone to click the link, call, or perform another targeted action. Do not abuse such content; you will only receive unsubscribes for endless promotional posts. This content is ideal for promotion;

• Userial: Anything your customers post. Testimonials about your services, product reviews, restaurant photos, and anything else that mentions your brand or its distinctive products or services. It helps well in getting user feedback to hold a contest;

• News: Subscribers are interested in what you create. No beautiful photo from a photo bank will convey more about your company than a photo taken by you. Do not be afraid to discuss the inner workings of your business, introduce your employees, and share your successes and failures. Your sincerity fosters trust among your subscribers. People don't buy from businesses. People buy from people.

What Else Should Be Considered When Creating Content?

1. Communicate with subscribers in "their language";
2. Break up large text into blocks to make it easier for the reader to comprehend;
3. Continue to publish issues on a regular basis.

What Should You Do If You Don't Have Enough Ideas?

Information hunger is common in business-to-business segments. If you write 50 posts in the first month and then realize you have nothing to write about in the second month, that is a bad scenario. Evaluate your strengths carefully, and decide on the headings and sources of information. Here's an excellent example of rubrics and content sources for a business-to-business client:

• An introduction to the company's employees - a few photos in the workplace, a short story about the inner kitchen of the business and its members;
• Photos and videos of the production process immerse the reader in the company's atmosphere;
• Photos of products in the interior: visually demonstrate how the product can be used;
• Repost user publications containing branded goods;
• Chronicles of events you participate in, such as professional development courses, exhibitions, and seminars;
• Graphics created by the designer, such as branded holiday greetings or product presentations.

Publishing content isn't enough; you also need to promote it. To ensure that your publication is seen by the intended audience, you must achieve reach, or as many views as possible. It's beneficial to have a large and loyal audience of your own who actively share your content. What to do if your own reach is insufficient?

Currently, there are the top 5 social media platforms for digital marketing. These platforms include Facebook, Instagram, X, LinkedIn, and YouTube. Targeted ads on these platforms are text-to-graphic ads that are only visible to users who meet specific criteria, such as gender, age, geography, and so on. The following are the main payment models for ads on these platforms:

• CPC - pay per click;
• CPM - payment per 1000 impressions;
• Payment for interaction (comment, like, repost, view photo or video) is available on Facebook and Instagram.

When launching targeted advertising, keep in mind that the cost per click, display, or interaction is also influenced by:

• The relevance of the content to the selected audience—the more relevant and useful it is, the lower the price per click;
• The amount of text in the image—the more text, the higher the cost per click;
• Competition level - the more advertisers who show ads to the same audience, the higher the cost per click.

What publications should be promoted? First and foremost, commercial ones. You can make an informative post with a link to the product. Don't forget to include UTM tags in your ad links to track their effectiveness in analytics systems like Google Analytics. Along with commercial posts, promote entertaining, unique, and interesting content. This will provide you with extensive and low-cost coverage, an engaged audience, and a media effect.

Advertising for Popular Groups

Advertising in communities is a tool that will assist you in informing your target audience about your product via popular thematic platforms on Internet networks. Algorithm for placement in popular groups:

• Make a list of groups appropriate for posting: When selecting a community, consider its users' activity (the number of comments and likes left under posts). We've repeatedly seen that a group has 50,000 subscribers, with an average of 5-7 likes and comments. Bots subscribe to such pages;

• Submit a request to the administrator to place an advertisement: Request pricing and terms: specify when your publication will appear for the first time and how long the administrator will keep it. Request access to community statistics so you can better assess people's engagement;

• Following payment and release, monitor effectiveness: How many people clicked on the link to the website, and did the number of subscribers increase?

Opinion leaders are individuals whose viewpoints have an impact on their audience. Why? The answer is one word: trust. Use this to your advantage:

1. Increase brand awareness;
2. Get new subscribers;
3. Increase sales.

Who can be an opinion leader? It is not necessarily a well-known actor, athlete, or politician. A mother of multiple children, a fitness trainer, a food blogger, or a car or video game reviewer can now influence the opinions of hundreds of thousands of people.

Online reviews have an influence on purchase decisions. People share feelings evoked by products or services, rather than technical information about them. Reputation management is a tool designed to bridge the gap between how a company or brand positions itself and how its target audience perceives it.

1. Be open to feedback and criticism;
2. Respond to all messages about your brand, including both positive and negative feedback;
3. Work on your mistakes.

Do not delete negative reviews or leave them unattended. An angry user who has been ignored, misunderstood, or banned will continue to complain about you wherever they can. Act as a lightning rod: direct the user's energy to the location where it is most convenient for you to respond. If you can provide a discount, free shipping, or a small gift, do so; however, do not allow yourself to be blackmailed in public. Negativity can help your business if handled correctly.

Contests can be divided into three categories:

1. Repost contests: A prize is awarded to a random user who reports a particular publication;
2. Creative contests: For example, write a story, draw a picture, etc. These activities have a smaller reach than reposts because it takes a lot of effort to participate;
3. Photo contest: This format promotes user-generated content. Standard rules require the participant to post a photo with a branded hashtag.

If you have a low-cost product or service that you can provide for free, this is the best option for a prize. Remember, however, that the prize determines the participants' activity, so don't skimp. How to choose a good prize:

• Seasonal relevance: For example, a kebab grill in the summer is good, while an artificial Christmas tree is bad;
• The importance of the contest: Users will not be lazy about pricing before participating. Focus on the equivalence of people's efforts and the company's status;
• The utility of the prize: Will demonstrate genuine concern and knowledge for your users; it's like a birthday present that hits the "spot". The prize should correspond to the theme of your business. You should not give away movie tickets if your online store sells sofas. Exceptions may occur in joint contests, in which you are not direct competitors but share an audience.

Once the prize is chosen, the most important work begins:

• Writing text and designing a banner layout you'd like to share;
• Finding communities to post in;
• Communication with administrators. We recommend personal communication rather than using exchanges. You can negotiate a discount;
• Purchase and monitor placements;
• Summarizing the findings.

This is where activity analytics will be needed. Here are the metrics you should monitor in groups:

• Increased subscriber numbers;
• Number of unsubscribes;
• Audience reach: users who saw community posts on the wall or in the newsfeed;
• Post engagement ratio: the average number of likes, comments, and reposts divided by the number of followers, multiplied by 100;
• Involvement to reach ratio: the average number of likes, comments, and reposts divided by reach and multiplied by 100;
• Commercial comments: asked for the price, where to buy, store address, and so on;

What Metrics Should Be Measured to the Website:

• The number of organic and commercial conversions from social networks;
• The quality of traffic from social networks: bounce rate, time on site, number of pages viewed;
• Conversions on the site by traffic from virtual networks: adding to cart, sales, and completing forms;
• Associated conversions: A Google Analytics report that shows how many conversions were made by social networks;
• Calls: In order to track which calls came from visitors from social networks, you must enable call tracking.

All of these indicators should be analyzed only in terms of costs. Based on this, you can calculate and optimize the following key performance indicators:

• Subscriber price = social media budget/subscriber growth over the chosen period;
• Conversion price from social networks = budget spent on social networks divided by the number of conversions on the site from organic (non-advertising traffic) from social networks;
• Conversion price from targeted advertising = budget spent on targeting divided by the number of conversions from commercial transitions from social networks.

Social media is more than just creating a group, filling it with pictures, and inviting your coworkers to join; it is your face, much like a website. It's an additional sales channel. There is no universal recipe for success because everything is dependent on the type of business and the target audience. At the end of this article, we will highlight the main theses and provide some helpful tips.

#1. If you act on your own and you are very lucky, there is a chance to get users and it is really almost free. But for 100% results, it is better to hire an agency. The manager most often does not have time to deal with virtual network accounts. You can, of course, entrust a sysadmin, a sales manager, or even an accountant to manage social networks. However since SMM is not included in their main duties, the quality will be low and the result will be appropriate;

#2. Starting a group requires strategizing and planning for the future. It makes no difference whether you post once a week, once a day, or once an hour; the important thing is consistency;

#3. Create interesting content, and you won't have to pay for reposts;

#4. Participate in contests without fear of losing money;

#5. When building a community, remember to respond, answer questions, and comment on feedback;

#6. If you have a limited budget, focus on one social network: don't duplicate all of the popular ones; instead, invest your money and develop each one separately. Developing a product, including video, that no organization should be without is an expensive endeavor that necessitates a significant amount of internal work;

#7. Social networks, as well as any other form of Internet marketing, will pay off once the business's processes have been adjusted. If a manager is rude to customers, couriers deliver broken goods, and competitors offer the same goods for half the price, social media groups will not help, but will instead accumulate negative feedback.