Social Media Marketing and its importance :- Social media marketing is widely used in various businesses small business, banking, retail marketing and so on. It mainly focuses on people not products. With the explosion of internet based messages transmitted through the social media, they are now a main factor in influencing many aspects of consumer behavior like Awareness, Opinions, Attitudes, purchase decisions, post-purchase evaluations. Social media marketing helps marketers to track and measure what is shared in the social media in order to improve the offered message and adapt it more to the customer needs. The Internet has now become the most common tool that consumers use to find information on products or services that they planning on buying. Social media marketing services in India and across the world can be utilized to gain maximum visibility, increase sales and improve brand awareness. Therefore social media mainly affects the purchase decisions of customers because they usually seek opinions and recommendations of others.

1. SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING
By Akash Saha

2. INTRODUCTION
Social media marketing is widely used in various businesses small business, banking,
retail marketing and so on. It mainly focuses on people not products.With the
explosion of internet based messages transmitted through the social media, they are
now a main factor in influencing many aspects of consumer behavior like Awareness,
Opinions, Attitudes, purchase decisions, post-purchase evaluations.
Social media marketing helps marketers to track and measure what is shared in the
social media in order to improve the offered message and adapt it more to the
customer needs.
The Internet has now become the most common tool that consumers use to find
information on products or services that they planning on buying. Social media
marketing services in India and across the world can be utilized to gain maximum
visibility, increase sales and improve brand awareness.
Therefore social media mainly affects the purchase decisions of customers because
they usually seek opinions and recommendations of others.

3. STATISTICS
2000000000
1500000000
700000000
328000000
1200000000
0
500000000
1E+09
1.5E+09
2E+09
2.5E+09
MONTHLY USERS
FACEBOOK YOUTUBE INSTAGRAM TWITTER WHATSAPP
From this
graph, we can
see the
number of
active users
per month in
any online
social
platform. So
for companies,
there is a huge
potential for
boosting their
revenue if they
ideally market
their product
or services.

4. STATISTICS
2000000000
1500000000
700000000
328000000
1200000000
0
500000000
1E+09
1.5E+09
2E+09
2.5E+09
MONTHLY USERS
FACEBOOK YOUTUBE INSTAGRAM TWITTER WHATSAPP
2014,
7520000000
2015,
9740000000
2016,
11720000000
2017,
13510000000
2018,
15360000000
2019,
17340000000
0
2E+09
4E+09
6E+09
8E+09
1E+10
1.2E+10
1.4E+10
1.6E+10
1.8E+10
2E+10
2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019
SPENDING ($ BILLION)
From this
graph, we can
see that over
the years
companies are
spending
more and
more for
promoting
their products
or services
using Social
Media
Marketing.

5. Essential Elements of Social Media Marketing
Identify Business Goals.
Set Marketing Objectives.
Identify Ideal Customers.
Research Competition.
Choose channels and tactics.
Creating a content strategy.
Allocate budget and resources.
Assign Roles

6. Benefits of Social Media Marketing
Improved Brand Recognition.
Improved Brand Loyalty.
Improved Conversion Rates.
Reduced Marketing Costs.
Better Search Engine Ranking.
BetterTargeting.
User Generated Content (UGC).
Established Authority

7. Improved Brand Recognition
Advertising through social media has been shown to increase brand
recognition. Regular posting on social media platforms allows companies to
interact with the clientele on familiar grounds. This constant interaction
creates a picture of credibility and an eagerness to listen to what the clients
have to say. Once customers are familiar with your brand, they are more likely
to recommend your brand to friends and family, therefore increasing your
brand reach.

8. Improved Brand Loyalty
For any company to stay afloat, it needs a loyal clientele base. New
customers are a happy addition, but without loyalists, the conversion rates
would be somewhere between sad and non-existent. Advertising on social
media creates an open service platform where customers can express their
views and feelings about services and products offered. By listening to
consumer opinions, customer satisfaction levels rise exponentially, and along
with them loyalty to your brand is forged.

9. Improved Conversion Rates
The majority of the population is on social media. Social media and
advertising are two components used together to target the potential clients
on social media platforms, such as Facebook and Instagram. With the
increased brand visibility that comes with advertising in social media, more
leads will visit your website, and the chance of conversion also increases. With
a well-articulated media advertising plan, a company can improve its sales and
profits.

10. Reduced Marketing Costs
Compared to conventional marketing, social media marketing does not
require a lot of monetary resources. With an internet connection and
computers, a company can minimize its marketing costs by a significant
margin. But as the business landscape continues to evolve, traditional
marketing methods begin to fade out in favour of less resource-intensive
methods. Therefore, using social media to market products and services is an
efficient way of reducing companies’ operational costs.

11. Better Search Engine Ranking
While a social media page does not exactly improve search rankings, the
page will certainly get you more traffic. More people use Google, Bing or
other search engines to find products or services online. If your business has a
social media listing, chances are, it will appear among the top search results of
a related product or service, leading to a wider visibility. Search Engine
Optimization(SEO) tools are another attractive option due to their ability to
drive more traffic to company websites and achieving higher search rankings
on the same.

12. BetterTargeting
Social media has made it a million times easier to reach the right audience
by providing a level of granularity to targeting no traditional advertising
medium was ever capable of. This is really the age of micro-targeting, where
a potential customer base can be narrowed down to the level of an area pin
code. Varied interests, right from playing football to listening to jazz music, in-
market segments (which are groups of individuals who are actively searching
for a product/ service similar to yours across the Google display network) and
the ability to target a lookalike audience are just a few cases that illustrate our
point.

13. User Generated Content (UGC)
The term refers to the needs and expectations of the customer. A clear
understanding of the same by marketers leads to product/ service improvements.
Social media helps business-owners stay connected to their audience. But, more
importantly, brands get to know what their best spokespeople, their customers, think
about them. They constantly, and in real-time, receive feedback through the various
comments posted. “Social listening”, or, simply, paying attention to what an audience
is saying, online, can help inspire ideas for bettering a product/ service, line- or brand-
extensions, new marketing campaigns, and so much more. This, in reality, is the most
rewarding aspect of social media advertising – the continuous feedback loop that tells
brands if what they are doing is right or if they can do more.

14. Established Authority
There are countless social media platforms. As true as it is that a brand does
not need to be present across all of them, there are certain platforms that
work for specific niches. Through consistent posting of astutely-researched
content, a business or individual comes across as a well-informed source of
information. This, in turn, provokes an audience to turn to the business or
individual, whenever he/ she is in doubt. The more an audience recalls
information provided by a brand and the more times they visit their social
media pages for information in the particular niche, the higher the brand
authority is and the more established the brand becomes in its vertical.