What is the difference between social media and social networking?
SOCIAL NETWORKS – translated into Italian as “social network,” is precisely the creation of a network of interpersonal relationships, especially online. The social network social structure arises from the relationship (virtual and otherwise) of people. Although it is a recently born term, it is an ancient practice, think of the ancient Greeks who met in the agora to question the problems of the city, or the great philosophers who gathered to exchange views on the unknown and the creation of the world. (Today our Agora is Tik Tok, and at best we are doing a dance with a pop song in the background; you regret the Polis period too, don’t you?)

SOCIAL MEDIA – instead is the tool, app or software, through which users create communities and exchange content, information and personal messages. An example of social media is precisely Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter…
What is social media marketing and why does everyone say it is so important?
Social media marketing (often abbreviated SMM) is the use of social platforms to:

  • connect with your audience or future customers
  • create and reinforce brand dentity
  • increase sales
  • drive traffic to our website
  • turn users into customers


It sounds like a dream, doesn’t it? Instead, it is absolutely achievable! “But how?” you may be wondering: by creating and publishing specially designed content right on the company’s profile, by listening to and taking care of your followers’ needs and concerns, by analyzing the results you get each month from both the contacts you take and the outcomes of the sponsorships you have created.
The best social media for business
“Okay I get it, and now that I’ve decided to use social which one should I choose for my business?” Often many people fall into the trap of “this social is going so much so I’m putting all my eggs in that basket” WRONG.

Every business has a different focus; what is good for one type of business may not be suitable for another. To understand how to best harness the power of social media, it is essential to conduct a preliminary analysis of your audience and plan a marketing strategy.


THE 5 PILLARS FOR A PERFECT SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING PLAN
Let’s follow this outline together on the 5 pillars of Social Media Marketing!

Ready to take notes?


STRATEGY
First you must start with the most important question: What is your goal?

Ask yourself how a social could help you achieve it. Every business has its own ultimate goal-for example, have you just opened a store in town? Surely your goal will be to make yourself known to as many people as possible and on target!

Which social platform is most in line with your audience? As we said a few lines above, you need to figure out where your ideal customer is.

After you have identified it, you have to choose the most suitable communication channel (it is not mandatory to choose to use only one!).

Another important check, before finishing this step, is definitely the one related to content.

Again to return to your typical customer, it is important to know what kind of content he/she prefers most, whether images, videos or links. Does he/she care more about content that educates or content that entertains?

In short, the questions to ask yourself are not few


PLANNING AND PUBLICATION
Posting on social in a professional and strategic way is something different from saying “Nice photo! Now I’m going to post it so I’ll get lots of likes” Did you think it was that simple? Sorry, it’s not!

Creating and developing a digital marketing strategy requires a lot of study, analysis, testing and experiments.


DO YOU WANT TO RELY ON PROFESSIONALS TO MANAGE YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA?



After you have chosen the social channel best suited to your business and the type of content, you need to start creating an editorial plan in which all the posts you have decided to publish will be present with date and time.

You also need to figure out the most appropriate time to post in order to reach as many people as possible. Another important step is the study of hashtags, some socials like Instagram give us the possibility to use up to 30 hashtags so as to reach more people and others like Facebook that really prefer a few.

But why do we talk about planning?

After studying hashtags and the best time to publish you can certainly not stand behind your phone waiting anxiously for the X hour to strike, there are (and here social media managers have breathed many sighs of relief) tools that help automate the publication of a content, an example? Later or Creator Studio, which is already in the Facebook suite.

LISTEN

Remember that once you acquire a customer you should never leave them to their own devices?

A customer should always be pampered…if they need something, if they have a concern, if they have a complaint, but also for a positive thought, we need to be there. That’s why it’s useful to monitor conversations on social media, respond to positive comments, but especially to negative ones that help us grow, improve and can be a useful opportunity to resolve the misunderstanding or correct the course.

Any comments, easily detected if the user tags us, become more difficult to keep track of if no “tag” is associated with the comment But it is not a problem because even in this case someone has already come to the rescue of social media managers and created special tools, to name one: Hootsuite.

ANALYSIS

During this journey there will be days when you will want to know if this “Way to Santiago” is going well. You will be able to do this through the study of Analytics on social channels. Each platform has a special section to monitor the progress of your marketing strategy: how many followers you have, who stopped following you, which post performed best or the age range of your followers.

All of this is designed to help you post, at the best times, and most importantly, identify your typical customer.


THE SPONSORED
ADVERTISING ON FACEBOOK AND INSTAGRAM
After completing these steps you will need to start considering the use of sponsored that is, advertising campaigns on such as Facebook or Instagram. These will help you reach more users than you already have and if placed within a targeted strategy will give a strong boost to your company’s economic growth.

Campaigns must be directed, like everything else when it comes to marketing, to a specific target audience, and because of this, a sponsored one will not be able to fit everyone. Imagine a campaign on the beautiful beaches of Stintino…aimed only at Stintinos!

Or a sponsored one about Airpods to a hearing-impaired person or even a campaign about the changes of adolescence…to a 50-year-old.

Also in this case it is useful to study the audience to which our sponsored will be addressed, on Facebook and Instagram it is possible to create targeted and very specific audiences based on demographic data, user interests and behavior, but also to target all those users who have already interacted with our page, our website or whose contacts we have.

Benefits of social networking for businesses

Now that you have the basics for the perfect social media marketing plan, you just have to get started!

On the other hand, in case you are still undecided and hesitant about using social media for your business, I leave here a small list of benefits to help you make a decision, let’s see them together:

  • you can create, grow and strengthen your brand identity
  • you can be easily found online
  • you will be able to manage brand reputation and possible crises
  • increase sales
  • you will be able to drive traffic to your website
  • you can have up-to-date data on your audience have a clear view of their customers (demographics, habits, interests)


As you see the world of Social Media Marketing is very strategic and analytical, it takes a lot of time and a lot of work, but the results always pay off and in a positive way.

It takes a lot of study behind so when I hear “No but my cousin who knows how to use computers does it to me” I have my five minutes of suffering.

I always recommend getting a professional in the field because improvisations, besides being useless (and a waste of money), can often lead to negative results.

I hope I have cleared your mind a bit with this article, and in case you have any doubts or concerns, all you have to do is contact us.