Social Media Examiner\u2019s sixth annual social media study<\/a> showed that 92% of marketers concur that social media is important for their business, and that social media marketing efforts have generated more exposure for their businesses. Whether you are looking to increase traffic to your website, convert browsers to sales, add on to your list of leads or build credibility to your brand, there is a way with social media. And to add the cherry on the cake, your efforts will be measurable. Sounds good yet?<\/p>\n If you are new to SMM, fear not, because so many people use it these days means you can find tonnes of free resources to help you. It\u2019s a huge topic, but you need to know briefly what your goals are, the resources you need, the tools and channels available and how to measure your returns.<\/p>\n If not, you can always pick our brains here at Pixel Tie for some quick guidance:<\/p>\n 1) Goals<\/strong><\/p>\n Do not make the mistake of some businesses who jump on the SMM hype to start a Facebook Page and then let the account sit in neglect. Always start with your goals. Ask yourself what do you want to achieve?<\/p>\n 2) Choose the right channel for your target audience<\/strong><\/p>\n If you still think Facebook and Twitter are the only two social media channel, you probably got to expand your social media vocabulary. While Facebook is still one of the most popular social networking sites, it may not be the best channel if you are a law firm targeting companies who need legal advice.<\/p>\n Other than these 3 major social media platforms, there are various others, depending on how you want to reach your audience. Prefer video to words on a page? You\u2019ve got Youtube and Vine. Fancy longer form content or content communities? Then you should try out Medium and Quora.<\/p>\n 3) Resources<\/strong><\/p>\n It\u2019s not going to be easy, this much we can say about a SUCCESSFUL SMM campaign or strategy. It\u2019s not just about money\u2019 in fact, it\u2019s less about the money because a well thought-out strategy can be much cheaper compared to traditional marketing tactics. Resources you need to employ includes manpower to produce content (posts, copywriting for ads, sharable content), engagement (prompt replies on your company pages), PR training (for consistent brand strategy and voice) as well as metrics to measure your investments.<\/p>\n And the most important of all\u2026 Time. Why? Because it makes no sense to spend huge on advertising to get thousands of irrelevant \u2018fans\u2019 or \u2018followers\u2019 overnight to like your page. Time is needed to build credibility and trust and you can\u2019t just \u2018engage\u2019 people by being present for one week of your entire Facebook life.<\/p>\n So if you don\u2019t plan, then plan to fail. The success of a social media marketing strategy requires consistency and measurement so allocate an appropriate amount of time for that. Ideally, you need about 2 hours per day on implementation (crafting your headlines, copywriting a brief synopsis of your post, finding an ideal picture, boosting your posts with ad-spend) and an extra hour a week for reviewing your strategy on Mondays, and an hour on Friday for measurement.<\/p>\n And if managing all that social media accounts all at once sounds too daunting for you, consider using Buffer<\/a> or Hootsuite<\/a> as a centralised dashboard for managing all your social media accounts, scheduling posts and measure the impact of your marketing effort.<\/p>\n 4) Measuring your ROI<\/b><\/p>\n Yes, we\u2019ve kept this part to the last, because we know its probably every marketer\u2019s concern and Key Performance Indicator (KPI). Well, similar to measuring the returns on User Experience Design<\/a>, the returns on your SMM efforts are concrete and definitely measureable. There\u2019s probably hundreds of ways to do it, it just depends on how much time and resources you have. First, let\u2019s divide it into the good ol\u2019 quantitative vs qualitative.<\/p>\n Measuring Social Media Marketing ROI<\/p>\n![\"Social](\"http:\/\/www.pixeltie.com.sg\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/article_using-social-media_graph.jpg\")
<\/p>\nHow Do I Start? <\/b><\/h3>\n
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<\/p>\n![\"Social](\"http:\/\/www.pixeltie.com.sg\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/article_using-social-media_smmslandscape.jpg\")
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