Social media marketing is the use of social media platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter to market products and services to customers. Companies use social media to engage with customers, gain market insights, generate leads, and increase sales. Effective social media marketing requires setting goals, choosing the right platforms to reach your audience, creating engaging content, measuring your results, and adjusting your strategy based on feedback. While social media provides opportunities to reach many potential customers, marketers must also address challenges like identifying the best platforms, declining engagement rates, advertising costs, and competition from other businesses.

1. Social Media as a Marketing Tool
• Social media marketing is the use of social media to market
and
sell different products and services.
• According to Appel et al., (2020), social media are software
based
platforms that are digital and where the users get to send and
receive information over a social environment and interactions.
• The social media platforms allow companies to reach their
intended audience through the interactive platforms by posting
the product and service listing, customer care services and also
selling.
How do you understand
social media marketing?
Why
Social
Media?
Companies develop loyal fans.
• Loyal fans are the people who give feedback on
the products and services.

2. Gain market intelligence
• Understand the response of consumers
towards particular products
Generate leads
• Possibly sell through social media
Other benefits include:
• Increase product and service exposure
• Increase traffic
• Expand business partnerships
• Improve sales
• Reduce marketing expenses
How do you use social media as a
marketing tool?
• Facebook is the most
preferred platform for B2C
while LinkedIn is the major
interactive platform for B2B.
• Social networking allows a
company to gain popularity.
Social Networking
• Uses social media to create
awareness of a brand.
• Encourages people to share
advertising messages and
posts.

3. • Intended for creating interest
for new users
Viral Marketing
• Social media news platforms
can be used by companies to
engage their fans in company
news and updates
Social News
These are social media features
where companies can actually
communicate through instant
messaging to the customers who
respond directly to the posts.
Instant Chat Messaging
Social media
marketing activities
• Content Promotion- This is boosting ads to a customized
audience in order to reach more social media users.
• Product Launch- lets users know and understand new
products and services
• Content creation- post content on products and current
trends in the industry

4. • Event management- let fans know about company events
and also events in the industry
• Corporate communications- communicate with fans on
issues related to products thus offering customer care
support.
• Crisis management- respond to issues and also offer PA
management.
Social Media
Marketing Statistics
500 million users
35% conversion rates
100million users
25% conversion rates
1.4billion users
45% conversion rates
1.85billion users
85% conversion rates
110million users
20% conversion rates
Set Goal
• This is the goal of
the content-is it a

5. product or service?
Determine Audience
•Adopt the needs of the audience
to the content
Choose Platform
•Choose the appropriate social
media platform to reach the
target customers
Create Content
•Appropriate content and captions to get
your audience attention
Implementation
•Post the content on social media.
Track and measure progress
•Keep track of the comments, concerns and also the
conversion rates on the social media platforms.
Adjust
•Adjust the content to fit the
feedback provided by the audience
and also depending on the response
of previous content
Strategies to use in Social Media Marketing

6. Skills for a Social Media Marketer
Conversion Rates- How many customers are able to
buy your products as a result of social media
marketing?
Social Media traffic and subscription growth- number
of likes, comments and chats on social media
platforms
Social Media Sharing- the number of shares of the
posts, products and pages.
Sales Revenue- increase of sales from the social
media marketing advertising and marketing.
What Metrics do you
use to evaluate social
media marketing?
Challenges
of social
Media
Marketing
Identifying the right platform
• The challenge comes when identifying the
platforms that the target audiences use.

7. Declining Organic Reach and Engagement Rates
• Companies and marketers are unable to
balance between goals and budgets.
Expensive advertising
• Due to the increased social media advertising,
the cost of sponsoring ads.
Other challenges include:
• Competition
• Maintaining the connections
• Creation of original content
• Quality visuals
Social media marketing allows company to generate ideas, and
publish content in a
digital environment reaching many people. It’s a marketing
platform that both
traditional and modern organizations cannot avoid.
References
Appel, G., Grawel, L., Hadi, R., & Stephen, A. T. (2020). The
future of social media in marketing. Journal of the Academy
of Marketing Science volume, 48, 79-95.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11747-019-00695-1
Bansal, R., Masood, R. Z., & Dadhich, V. (2014). Social Media
Marketing-A Tool of Innovative Marketing. Journal of

8. Organizational Management, 3(1), 1-
7.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318225418_Social_Me
dia_Marketing-
A_Tool_of_Innovative_Marketing
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11747-019-00695-1
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318225418_Social_Me
dia_Marketing-A_Tool_of_Innovative_Marketing