Hi! Welcome to SocialSurge Marketing.
As you can see, the word “social” is in our name and that isn’t by mistake! Social Media marketing was the service that we built our company around because we have the knowledge and expertise that create a successful social media strategy no matter what your business is!
So how do we do it? Is it some deep and complex system that would take a Ph.D. to understand?
Definitely not! It’s actually all based on an extremely simple concept that anyone can understand and implement – The Social Media Marketing Ecosystem.
It’s how we view social media here at SocialSurge, and it’s what really helped us tip the scales in our favor when we’re working with a client. Our marketing ecosystem doesn’t mean a whole lot to you yet, so let’s start breaking it down…
There are 4, (well 5) parts of our marketing ecosystem that all work together to achieve one common goal – to be found online. Let’s start at the top of the ecosystem with content.
Content
Content is king when it comes to digital marketing. It always has been, and it always will be. Content is on top of the ecosystem exactly because of this. It’s the fuel that fires the social media engine, and without it, there is no fire. But not all fuel is the same. Some is just normal gasoline, while other kinds of content can act like rocket fuel! What type of content is which?
Original Photos
This is going to be one of the most popular because it’s really the easiest one to create. There are so many different things you can take pictures of that will resonate with your audience.
You can take pictures of you, your team, your business, your services, your products, your events, your parties, your successes, your disasters, and everything else you can think of that you can tie to help you tell your story.
You don’t need any fancy equipment (the smartphone in your pocket will do just fine) to take really awesome photos that will do great on social media. Authentic and organic photos are well worth the time and thought over ever posting stock photos.
Original Videos
Another type of content that is amazing for your marketing ecosystem. Video almost always resonates better than photos, but it’s definitely harder to make the right way. Editing a video takes a lot longer than throwing a filter on a photo, and it takes more to think of video that will do well on social media.
Great video ideas include videos of you creating your product, showcasing services, and talking to the camera to give tips to just name a few.
One thing to remember is that while what you do might not feel very interesting to you, to someone else it might be the coolest thing ever!
Video is definitely something that you’ll have to put a little more thought into, but you’re still able to make a really good looking video with just your smartphone. If you don’t believe me, know that Hollywood movies have been shot on smartphones and this video from Koss was made with an iPhone X.
Graphic Design
Sometimes you need something a little extra to get your message across on social media. That something extra could be some sort of graphic design!
In a lot of cases, you won’t have to go out and learn how to use Photoshop to get something that will work for you. There is a tool out there called Canva, which is a well-guarded marketing secret because of how awesome and simple it really is. You can easily create graphics, remove backgrounds, or even create simple video overlays to take things up a notch! If you need any graphic design work, give it a shot!
Website Blogs, Articles, or Other Posts
I won’t dive too deep into this one since we’ll cover it later, but there is a lot of content that can be incredibly useful for social media from your website too.
If you’re good at or enjoy writing, this is a way for you to really shine. Being able to write blogs or articles that live on your website can be awesome for you to share across your social media platforms.
If you make sure it’s content that is beneficial to your following and is something they’ll want to share, that content will do great!
Bonus: We wrote a blog on how to pick the right content for social media for your business.
Social Media
Now this is where you actually get to post this content, but you don’t want to just post away without a plan. Step 1 is figuring out what platforms you should be posting on. I’m going to keep this pretty short, but I won’t leave you high and dry. We have an entire chapter of our social media guide dedicated to developing your social media strategy. So check that out if you have any questions or want more details afterward.
Facebook is the “catch-all” of social media marketing. Most content can have success on Facebook, and most people use it.
Instagram continues to grow and got its name for becoming the photo platform, but has since developed all different sorts of unique video abilities. Stories are the huge advantage of Instagram as well and give you another great tool in your toolbox!
Good old Twitter is best used for having real conversations. Do the exact opposite your mother always told you and start up conversations with strangers to get the most out of Twitter! It can take a lot of time and extra effort to have success here, but it can also pay much bigger dividends.
LinkedIn is a no brainer in the B2B space. While it is known as the business platform, it has become much less formal than it used to be and there is a lot of creative things any business can do on it…. Even if they aren’t B2B.
Snapchat
The key to Snapchat is documenting. It’s very authentic, and it’s very much used by the younger generations.
TikTok
The biggest up and coming (and we are not even sure we can say this anymore because it is so huge!) platform in today’s landscape, it should be used if you are trying to target a younger demographic with your messaging. Be ready to be creative on this platform and spend some time learning the lingo… a little bit of research will go a long way for you here!
Social Media Paid Advertising
For better or for worse, social media ads have become a necessary part of a social media strategy.
Organic reach on most social media platforms is not great, which means the content you worked so hard on won’t be shown to every one of your followers. Enter paid ads.
You don’t need to go and break the bank to really be successful with paid ads. If you’re a local business, you’ll be able to get by with $100/month and still hit a huge amount of your target market.
Paid advertising on social media is a lot more powerful and affordable than most people typically think. You basically are able to pick who your ad is shown to by targeting them by things such as:
- Age
- Sex
- Demographic
- Interests
- Career
- And much more
Since you’re able to really narrow down who sees your ads, you’re able to eliminate a lot of irrelevant impressions and clicks of your ads. This alone is one of the key reasons why social media ads are so powerful and overall better than older types of advertising, especially for small businesses.
Boosting posts is oftentimes what we recommend for people that are just starting out with paid advertising. If you boost a post the right way, you can gain so much extra reach over your organic strategy alone!
Website
Moving along the marketing ecosystem, next up is the website. Your website is where a lot of the information you want your visitors to see. Your products for sale, the services you offer, the location of your business, and whatever else you want them to see.
Your website is the home of your online presence, and it’s incredibly important for a lot of businesses to succeed online. While there is a lot social media can do, there is still a lot that a website does better. Showcasing services, serving as an online store, and hosting articles/blogs to name a few of the most important.
What all that being said, social media is a perfect complement to your website. You can share the things listed above on social media, with a video, photo, and link to draw interest. If someone is interested in what they see on social media, they can get the full story on your website.
Retargeting
Last but not least, retargeting. The way we like to explain retargeting is when you’re online shopping for a new pair of shoes. For whatever reason, you didn’t quite pull the trigger on the new pair of shoes, and now everywhere you go on the internet, you see these shoes.
That is retargeting.
There is a snippet of code placed on websites that use cookies to track you. This snippet of code allows digital marketers to serve you up ads based on the fact that you viewed a website or viewed a specific product.
98% of website traffic doesn’t convert on the first visit, and this is why retargeting is such a key piece to the puzzle.
So what happens after that… well. It’s back to content…And around and around the marketing ecosystem we go. It’s a never-ending cycle of creating new content, posting it in the right places, using paid advertising to show it to new people, and driving them to your website. When done correctly, this ecosystem becomes a machine that generates more and more interest in your business the longer it operates! Eventually, the marketing ecosystem might even run itself and will allow you to be constantly creating and driving traffic without much thought.
That is why we love our marketing ecosystem idea so much, it’s so simple, yet so effective!