Today we will talk about business promotion on social networks. In this article, I will talk about why you need to promote a business on social networks, what problems can be solved by this, and will focus on the specific features of promoting a business on each of the most popular social networks. So, first things first.

Why promote your business on social networks?

First of all, you need to understand that social networks are a huge target audience for promoting goods or services. There are hundreds of millions of users registered there who can become your clients, or at least learn about the existence of your company/product.

Promotion of goods on social networks is interesting both for large companies at the global, state, regional level, and for local ones. This method of promoting and advertising a business is also interesting because the costs for it, in comparison with other types of promotion and advertising, are relatively small, in some cases they may be completely absent. At the same time, business promotion on social networks shows quite high returns, especially if done correctly.

Often entrepreneurs who want to integrate their business into social networks do not fully understand or have a clear idea of ​​why they are doing this. For example, they believe that being present on social networks is fashionable, this is the current trend, “everyone is doing it, so that means I need it too.” This approach will not bring good results, since a businessman must first clearly understand what exactly he wants to achieve with his presence on social networks, and build his promotion policy based on this.

There are 3 main goals that business promotion on social networks may involve:

1. Increasing the number of sales of a product or service. This is the main, but not the only goal. In this case, the optimal method of promotion would be advertising companies on social networks promoting certain goods and services. Here you don’t even have to create your own account or community - people who click on the ad can go directly to the company’s website and make purchases there or use contact information.

2. Promoting a brand of a product or service. This is a different task that requires a different approach. For this purpose, it is best to create a thematic page or community and increase the number of its subscribers/participants. For example, by holding competitions that encourage reposting posts, inviting friends to the community, etc.

3. Increasing customer loyalty to the company. This is the most difficult task and requires the most painstaking work. This will require high-quality accounts/communities with constant publication of news, answers to complaints and questions from subscribers, and the ability to resolve conflict situations. That is, such work will require a separate competent employee of the company (for large companies - even several such employees). However, the possibility of direct dialogue between a consumer and a business representative is always an undeniable competitive advantage.

Achieving the second and third goals has an indirect impact on the main goal - increasing sales volume.

Many entrepreneurs who are just learning how to promote their business on social networks think that it is enough to create an account or community on each social network and periodically place advertising ads there. In practice, this approach is unlikely to bring any result at all, it will only take some time.

Business promotion in VKontakte.

VKontakte (vk.com) is a social network that is the leader in RuNet in terms of audience size. The number of its users exceeds 270 million, of which more than 60 million access their pages daily. The average age of users is 17-35 years. The main disadvantage here is that in this social network there is a fairly large percentage of people with a low level of solvency (schoolchildren, students, the unemployed).

The opportunities for promoting business in contact are quite wide:

– Creation of public pages or communities to promote goods and services;

The ideal material for attracting the attention of VKontakte users would be an interesting thematic picture with a brief overview of the product/service/community.

Business promotion on VKontakte is suitable for a wide range of activities, primarily for inexpensive goods and services aimed at young people, local businesses, online stores, promotion of any nature.

Business promotion on Facebook.

Facebook (facebook.com) is the world's largest social network among the most popular in RuNet. In total, almost 1.5 billion users are registered here, about half of them are active daily, the number of the Russian-speaking segment is about 10 million. Facebook, unlike VKontakte, is visited mainly by people of average and high social status and income, aged from 25 to 45 years, the percentage of insolvent audience is minimal here. Famous businessmen and politicians have their own Facebook accounts. If VKontakte is more of an entertainment social network, then Facebook is a business and information network: people come here to get information.

The main directions for promoting goods and services on Facebook:

– Creation and promotion of your own from public pages;

An important difference between Facebook and VKontakte is that likes here are displayed in the news feed of all the user’s friends, thus the advertising post is more easily distributed to a wider audience.

Promoting a business on Facebook is suitable for goods and services aimed at business-literate people, promotion of all kinds of conferences, seminars, business trainings, and informational websites.

Business promotion in Odnoklassniki.

Odnoklassniki (ok.ru) is the first social network to become popular in RuNet. Today, its popularity has fallen somewhat, however, there are more than 200 million registered users, and about 45 million use the service daily. The main feature here is that among the users there are a lot of elderly people of retirement age; the average age here is maximum in comparison with other social networks: 25-50 years. In addition, many Russian-speaking network users are emigrants living abroad.

Opportunities for business promotion in Odnoklassniki:

– Creation of thematic groups;

The ideal content for promoting a product or service on Odnoklassniki will be an eye-catching picture/status/video of a cool or socially significant nature that unobtrusively advertises your brand. Here, as on Facebook, every like (class) is displayed in your friends’ news feed, so by posting bright, funny, meaningful statuses, pictures or videos that will make you want to click “class,” you can promote your brand well.

Business promotion in Odnoklassniki is designed for the simplest, ordinary people, mainly the older generation, and is also suitable for goods and services intended for the widest audience, media sites.

Promoting your business on Twitter.

There are significantly fewer opportunities for business promotion here. However, here you can create a hashtag for your own brand (for example, #fingeny) and promote it by purchasing advertising in well-promoted accounts with a large number of subscribers.

To promote on Twitter, you need to use a short message, preferably with hashtags (your own or popular), containing a link to your website.

Promoting your business on Instagram.

Instagram can be used to promote your brand by posting thematic photos and videos on your own account and purchasing such placements in the most visited thematic accounts.

To promote on Instagram, you need high-quality, bright, funny, attention-grabbing photos and videos. When posting, it is advisable to use hashtags (both your own and popular ones).

Promoting a business on Instagram is ideal for promoting youth product brands.

You have gained some idea of ​​what business promotion on social networks includes, what directions and options you can use for this. Of course, this is just general information; in future posts I will explore some important aspects in more detail over time.

In conclusion, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that you do not always need to try to cover all social networks at once - it is better to choose the 2-3 or even one that are most suitable for your situation and concentrate all your efforts on it. In addition, you need to be very careful when choosing your target audience (targeting), on which the success of the advertising company will greatly depend.

See you again on a site that will teach you effective ways to earn money, invest, manage personal finances and family budgets, and build competent cooperation with banks.

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It is difficult to imagine a modern person without social networks. For some, they are a way to connect with other people around the world, and for others, they are a work tool. This marketing tool helps to significantly expand the target audience. This is why promotion on social networks is becoming so relevant today.

From this article you will learn:

1. For whom business promotion through social networks will not bring results?
2. What are the pros and cons?
3. 5 stages of independent promotion of services or goods
4. TOP 6 best social networks for brand promotion
5. Basic promotion tools
6. How is it possible to promote a website?
7. Free product promotion
8. Brand promotion through social networks using special services
9. How a promotion strategy is developed
10. 4 ideas for effective promotion
11. 11 mistakes in which promotion through social networks will not bring results
12. 6 tips on how to choose an SMM agency that you can trust with marketing and promotion

What are the features of promotion through social networks?

Despite the relative “youth” of promotion on social networks (), such a tool has shown its enormous effectiveness and has gained admirers among experienced marketers. It helps to expand the audience of potential clients by including those users who cannot be attracted by other marketing methods.

However, despite the high efficiency of SMM promotion on social networks, this tool remains poorly studied due to the fact that this process of attracting customers is constantly being transformed.

Direct distribution is carried out by the users themselves. By voting using “likes” and “reposts”, users increase the number of site visitors who become clients of the company.

The popularity of this tool for attracting potential customers has several reasons:

For whom business promotion through social networks will not bring results?

Users do not search social media for information about the production of machine tools, drilling services, or plant chemicals. While companies operating in large, medium or small sectors are very successful in using this tool in their marketing campaigns.

In addition, topics of an intimate nature are not acceptable for discussion on social networks. Issues of personal life do not become the subject of discussion. Here, a person will not discuss the symptoms of his disease with a doctor or consult a lawyer. Such questions are asked in a personal conversation.

In all other cases concerning the discussion of content by a large number of users, SMM promotion on social networks becomes an ideal tool.

However, the possibilities of promotion on social networks cannot be reduced only to attracting new customers. PotentialSMM marketing significantly wider and includes:

• sales growth;
• retargeting;
• expanding the circle of regular customers;
• increasing product awareness;
• neutralization of negative reputation;
• creating a brand and developing its image;
• qualitative and quantitative improvement of traffic.

What are the pros and cons of promoting through social networks?

Advantages:

• User trust in SMM messages is higher than in regular advertising information;
• the ability to expand the number of potential customers through social network users who may not be receptive to other marketing tools;
• higher targeting, allowing you to clearly identify the target audience of interest;
• the cost of promotion on social networks is significantly lower than the cost of an advertising campaign in the press or on television;
• the ability to communicate with clients without requiring the installation of third-party software;
• high speed of content distribution among interested users.

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Flaws:

• the first results will not appear immediately;
• to maintain the interest of existing users and to attract new ones, content must be constantly updated;
• inability to calculate the final cost of promotion on social networks due to the constant influence of many factors;
• the final result cannot be predicted;
• to find a product of interest, people more often use search engines;
• the cost of a mistake is extremely high: low literacy or unreliable content can lead to the loss of a significant part of subscribers;
• A fairly large number of users try to ignore even such advertising groups;
• lack of opportunity to promote your products to many specific business segments.

Promoting services or goods through social networks yourself: 5 stages

Stage 1. Planning and strategy development.

To achieve your business goals, you need to create an effective advertising campaign strategy. To do this, an analysis of the market and target audience is carried out, and tools for interaction with consumers are selected.

Stage 2. Creation of the platform.

A page or thematic group is used to promote a brand and company. The platform is also integrated with the website.

Stage 3. Content creation.

To attract the attention of the audience and create demand for the company’s product, it is necessary. This can be articles, advertising texts, videos, photographs and other materials that can encourage users to take certain actions.

Stage 4. Attracting the audience.

Personal invitations, various types of advertising, and viral marketing are used to search and collect subscribers, interested users and clients.

Stage 5. Organization of interaction.

Successful promotion on social networks is based on building effective communications in a group. Participants need to be motivated to communicate, comment on posts, like, repost, etc. It is extremely important to ensure active interaction between users.

Brand promotion through social networks: TOP 6 best

Advantages: the largest audience in Russia, the ability to publish diverse content.

Flaw: high competition (you must constantly fight for the attention and favor of users by updating content and often supplementing it with interesting messages).

Advantages: the number of audience practically coincides with VKontakte users, a “like” from a user automatically distributes your content to his subscribers.

Flaw: a significant part of the audience is made up of older people, although this social network is gradually filled with representatives of young people.

1. Facebook

Advantages: an adult and fairly wealthy audience, there is access to an international audience, cheap targeted advertising.

Flaw: A significant part of the Russian youth audience belongs to VKontakte.

1. Instagram

Advantages: ideal for visual presentation of your product, constant growth in the number of users, a significant part of the audience is young, well suited for brand promotion.

Flaw: Visual representation does not always provide a complete description of the product.

1. Twitter

Advantages: prompt notification of events, the ability to redirect users to other social networks, the audience is approximately twice as large as the audience of other media.

Flaw: software limited message size.

1. YouTube

Advantages: a huge audience, an excellent option for promoting a brand (sometimes personal), goods or services, an excellent option for B2B.

Flaw: Many users use third-party resources to watch and publish videos.

For the most successful promotion, it is best to use several social networks at once, focusing on their advantages.

Basic tools for promotion on social networks

The most advanced technologies for storing and transmitting information are almost immediately successfully mastered by social networks. By supplementing this parameter with the widest coverage of a wide variety of audiences, you will receive an excellent tool that will help you not only in promoting your own brand or web resource, but also in influencing users.

1. Video. Used for education, entertainment, attraction.

For example, the company You Gif Ted specializes in recruiting participants for private training. On his YouTube channel he regularly posts instructions for homework.

1. Audio. This could be music, a podcast, an audiobook, or other audio files that are of interest to your target audience.
2. Images. Used to illustrate your products, services, etc.

For example, the Kazan company “Chocolate Paradise” regularly posts photos of its products on Instagram:

1. With its help, users are introduced to the company and its activities.

For example, magazine "General Director" In his group on VKontakte, he regularly posts excerpts of his articles for transition to the main site:

How is it possible to promote a website through social networks?

White methods

Targeted advertising has some of the best performance indicators. The success of this method is determined by the correct setting, which helps to attract users only from the target audience you need and turn them into customers.

1. Advertising in communities or accounts

This method is quite effective if you put the necessary effort into creating an attractive advertising message. At the same time, you need to remember that the success of your campaign also depends on the choice of site, since each of these resources may have its own specific audience.

Often, the pages of famous people whose accounts have many subscribers are used to post messages. This method is actively used on Instagram.

This method is effective only when you need to quickly increase the number of subscribers or the number of “likes” of one advertising message. Even inexpensive prizes attract a lot of people.

However, for the most part, this audience is represented by so-called freebie lovers who will not show high performance. Therefore, to promote an online store on social networks using competitions, it is better to offer discounts that will interest regular and new subscribers.

SEO queries can also be used for promotion on social networks. By using keywords in the description of communities or pages, you can attract users and those who make queries using search engines. However, SEO will not be effective as the main method of promotion.

Gray methods

1. Cheating by bots or offers

The cost of attracting bots to the community you are interested in will be significantly lower than the cost of promotion on social networks using offers (users who are invited for a fee to get likes and shares). However, you will not be able to get targeted subscribers using these methods.

The undoubted advantage of such promotions is the ability to bring your community to the top of the rankings. Those groups that have the most subscribers reach the TOP.

1. Spam in comments or private messages

Despite the fact that spam is prohibited on any social network, by placing a link to your resource in such messages, you can attract interested users who will click and go to your site.

And although spammers’ accounts are quickly blocked, in the short life of such a page it will be possible to achieve a small increase in the number of subscribers.

Spam in private messages is not very effective, and there are two reasons for this:

• many user accounts are closed to messages from guests;
• After receiving spam in personal messages, users promptly complain to the support service, which leads to a quick blocking of the spammer's account.

1. Massfollowing

Mass following is a subscription to those users who will subscribe to your page in return. This method shows the greatest effectiveness on Instagram.

Figuratively, it looks like in our illustration - shooting at sparrows.

Free product promotion through social networks

• Creating a community or group. Promoting groups on social networks does not require financial investments either at the creation stage or at the stage of attracting subscribers and posting messages. When attracting interested users to your community, make sure that they visit your resource and become regular customers.
• Publics or fan pages are created to attract a target audience interested in your products.
• Promotion of media content. Media content is favorably received by all users, even if it is purely advertising in nature. Most often used to promote media content

Brand promotion through social networks using special services

To promote your brand on social networks, there are services that will help you achieve maximum efficiency. Each of them has its own advantages and disadvantages.

Forumok

This service is perfect for promotion on social networks. Forumok offers a wide range of settings and interesting design. Thanks to this service, your resource will have real users, and not rating numbers, which are mostly fake.

Pros. This service works with most social networks (Twitter, VKontakte, Facebook, My World, Odnoklassniki, Google+, Youtube). Most of the performers are real users.

Minuses. The service does not work with Instagram, which has a significant number of users interested in such promotion.

There is no automatic tracking of completed tasks, so the check must be done manually by clicking on each link. This is extremely inconvenient in the case of a large number of control groups. Prices do not differ from offers from similar exchanges.

Vprka

When you first visit this service, it gives you mixed impressions, since the design of the pages is extremely unprofessional. However, Vprka works with most resources (VKontakte, Facebook, twitter, Google+, Youtube, Odnoklassniki) and allows you to carry out effective promotion on these social networks yourself.

Users acquired through this resource can be retained by various lotteries, auctions and exchanges.

Pros. Compared to other similar services, the cost of promotion is very low. All necessary checks are carried out independently without the participation of the customer. The resulting users are real and have valid accounts.

Minuses. Before you get started, you need to synchronize your social media accounts with each service. Because of this, the authorization process is very delayed.

This service has a good set of functions, thanks to which it has gained great popularity. Works with VKontakte, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. There is a search for platforms for advertising in groups and communities.

Pros. The cost is quite low (from 13 kopecks per action). Prices are fixed, which eliminates the possibility of dumping by competitors. The service has a large number of participants (about one million people), so any task immediately goes to work.

There is a free technical support service that promptly helps if questions arise.

Minuses. There are many small flaws that can reduce the quality. For example, on Facebook it is impossible to “like” a specific post, and there is no way to increase the “repost” rating.

The cost of likes and follows for Instagram is very high, and many users are disabled. Real promotion on social networks using this resource is unlikely, since it is more suitable for boosting counters.

How to develop a promotion strategy on social networks

A social media promotion plan must begin with developing a strategy for the entire campaign and its main parameters. There is nothing unusual in such planning, since all these stages are necessarily present when creating any advertising project as part of a marketing policy.

Any SMM manager for business promotion on social networks must first answer a number of clarifying questions:

Strategy stages:

Defining SMM campaign objectives

• Sales

The most commonly used method is in which the created community generates direct communication with potential customers, answering questions and providing detailed information about the product of interest.

As a rule, in such groups the main task of such communication is to encourage the user to go to the company’s website and place an order.

Often these communities are similar to online stores where you can make a purchase without leaving the social network. The functionality allows you to make payments via electronic transfers.

It is necessary to maintain the interest of subscribers of this community by offering various promotions and discounts. In this case, consultants communicating with users can encourage them to make repeat purchases and remain loyal to your brand.

• Traffic

If you have done the right setup, this approach will allow you to get a large number of real users - leads. By establishing communication with them, you can turn them into your customers or subscribers.

• Branding

• Reputation management and neutralization of negativity

Target audience and its habitats

Any promotion on social networks is based on the characteristics of the target audience it is aimed at. If you have a portrait of a potential user who will definitely be interested in your offer, and information about which sites he “lives” on, you will be able to target your advertising campaign.

To highlight the main characteristics of the target audience, it is necessary to identify several points:

• Geography, or geotargeting

The geography of residence of your potential users must be clarified. To be more specific, it is necessary to identify not only the country of residence, but also the region (down to microdistricts).

• Socio-demographic criteria

These characteristics include gender, age, marital status, education, place of work, position, and income level. Knowledge of these criteria will allow you to more accurately customize advertising promotion on social networks and increase the effectiveness of the entire advertising campaign.

• Hobbies, interests, interests

This criterion cannot be ignored when setting up an advertising campaign. Hobbies that users enjoy in their free time can take up a significant portion of their Internet traffic and determine the choice of communities.

With the help of such channels, you can reach your potential client by offering him a product that really interests him. Such communication will be the key to ongoing cooperation.

Having identified the main characteristics of your target user, you need to select the sites that are best suited for searching according to these criteria.

Promotion on a social network (VKontakte or Facebook, for example) allows you to use the functionality of these platforms, which helps determine the number of registered network members who meet the entered criteria.

What behavioral characteristics are typical for your audience? The behavior patterns of your target audience can determine the interests and chosen topics of communities. It is necessary to take this aspect into account in order to build the most effective communication with users through the selection of suitable content.

There are several types of users:

• Content generators independently set the topic and format of communication. Most often they can be found in communities dedicated to IT.
• Discussion participants prefer to communicate in already formed discussions, asking questions and participating in discussions. This communication format is typical for financial and medical topics.
• Passive users prefer to observe the progress and nature of discussions. Most often they can be found in the retail segment. Despite their passivity, these users can actively purchase a product that is discussed in communities by other participants.

By identifying the category of people most of whom are the target audience of your community, you can decide on content that can interest them. Be prepared for the fact that in the case of passive users, you will have to constantly generate content despite the lack of activity. Otherwise, even these subscribers will leave you.

Content creation and management strategy

The content strategy for promotion on social networks is necessarily based on topics that can interest your potential user. It is necessary to carefully plan and predict the format of communication in order to maintain and increase the target audience of your community or group.

When creating a content strategy, you can rely on the socio-demographic characteristics of the target audience, their interests, as well as data from the sites where your communities are located. Be sure to consider the following indicators:

• style of communication(depending on the audience data and the selected content, the communication format can be formal, informal, professional, etc.);
• topic of interest;
• post format(it is necessary to maintain a ratio of 25% promotional posts and 75% neutral posts, otherwise the community will be overloaded with advertising information, which can scare off a significant part of the audience);
• forecast for next publications.

If you exclusively repost the same material on thematic communities of different social networks, this can also scare away your audience. The content should take into account the format of each site and be interesting for those users who are registered in several social media and are your subscribers.

Campaign Resources

• human;
• temporary;
• financial.

The allocation of resources and determination of their percentage should be carried out at the planning stage of the SMM campaign. Budgeting can be done based on total advertising costs.

Development of a metrics system

Analysis of the performance indicators of a social media promotion campaign depends on the goals and objectives set. There are several criteria that will help evaluate the success of the SMM strategy, for example, the overall reach of the audience, its activity, the quality of traffic, traffic attracted to the site, sales and registration in the community.

Efficiency assessment is carried out using:

• web analytics systems (Google Analytics, Yandex Metrica);
• analysis of user actions;
• internal statistics of social network communities;
• statistical indicators on third-party sites;
• sociological surveys on a social network, focus groups;
• special events using dedicated phone numbers, coupons and promotional codes.

An analysis of these criteria will show a social media promotion specialist how successful the SMM campaign was, whether it was able to solve all the tasks assigned to it and how its results will affect the business. These indicators will also help evaluate the effectiveness of financial investments to determine the degree of return on investment.

Drawing up a calendar plan

Each marketing strategy is based on a calendar plan for carrying out certain promotional events. It needs to clearly outline the deadlines for start and end dates, the schedule of publications for promotion on social networks, as well as the analysis of results and evaluation of effectiveness.

Such a plan will help in creating a marketing campaign outline. At the same time, he should be able to make comments and adjustments during execution. Do not forget about the need for external administrative control.

Effective promotion through social networks: 4 ideas

If you think that to increase sales you need to use SMM methods, then you should pay attention to the experience of those brands that have been successfully using these technologies for a long time. For example, the KLM company (Royal Aviation Company, the Netherlands), whose income is replenished by 25 million euros annually through SMM.

Carline Vogel-Mayer worked for many years at KLM before joining the social media team. She spoke about the company's social media promotion strategy, which relies on previous customer experience to help develop the right marketing steps.

According to Carline, the following parameters are the priorities for successful brand promotion online:

Publish quality content that users will like

A company that operates air transportation all over the world simply cannot ignore the socio-cultural characteristics of the regions whose residents often become its passengers. Despite its 95-year history and the seemingly archaic “ossification” in this regard, it was able to adapt to the realities of global communication and new marketing strategies.

When creating an SMM concept, company managers focus on the consumer, since the success of promotion on social networks depends on him. You must respect those people who are in your communities and “like” messages that are interesting to them.

Therefore, all content posted must be relevant, high-quality and impartial, otherwise you risk losing users loyal to your brand.

The airline's managers came to this conclusion based on their own negative experience. After the World Cup 2014, their message “Farewell, friends” (Adios, Amigos), written after the victory of Holland over Mexico, appeared in social networking communities. There were 90 thousand posts in response to the tweet, 70% of which were negative.

Prompt communication with clients through social networks

Other channels for the operational transmission of information were overloaded. Therefore, the company had to bring in this alternative source to answer customer questions.

The appearance of the Icelandic ash cloud fatally interfered with KLM's marketing efforts, which previously used social media only to publish standard advertising messages.

Faced with the dilemma of whether to respond to the requests or ignore them, the company chose the former. Managers began responding to their clients as the situation unfolded. This was the beginning of a social strategy that remains the basis of their success today.

Exact response time to a request on social networks

Using a last-click model (a click that led to a targeted action, i.e. a purchase), the airline can raise €25 million annually through social media sales. This became possible thanks to a shift in attention to the client’s experience, which became the basis of the company’s SMM strategy.

The company’s marketing policy, or more precisely, the segment that is responsible for promotion on social networks, is based on the following principles:

• services;
• brand and reputation;
• commerce.

The quality of services provided is determined not only by air travel, but also by communication with users on social networks. Therefore, it is so important to answer all questions from your community subscribers, even if they have a pronounced negative attitude.

Statistical analysis showed that the weekly number of reviews sent to the airline is about 45 thousand. And only 5000 are real requests that require detailed study and solutions.

However, the company's average time spent processing one request is approximately 23 minutes, despite the fact that communication is conducted in 14 languages.

Although this processing speed requires significant human resources, there may always be a passenger who finds this period too long, especially when rushing to catch a connecting flight. In this regard, Twitter installed a timer in the header of the page, informing users of the amount of time required to answer the question.

Payment directly on social networks

By maintaining prompt communication with customers and responding to their requests, airline managers know what might be of interest to passengers in order to implement projects to improve service. For example, after supporting the proposal of community subscribers, a new payment tool was introduced directly through social networks.

This service is available to Facebook and Twitter users. To pay, the passenger receives a link in a personal message, and then independently selects his preferred payment method and completes the transaction. The company's social agent receives a message that the payment has been received, and the passenger receives confirmation of payment.

The project cost 3,500 euros to implement, and now brings in 80 thousand euros in sales weekly.

However, not all of these projects can be implemented by everyone who sees their effectiveness and wants to implement them in their business. To develop such a strategy and tools, the airline had to go through its own negative experience.

However, the competence of the staff and significant financial support helped to get out of unpleasant situations with dignity, drawing certain conclusions.

11 mistakes when promotion through social networks will not bring results

Mistake #1. Demand for instant results

If someone tells you that some customers got instant returns, don't immediately call your marketer and demand that they speed up the process. Such cases represent an extremely rare exception to the rule.

The duration of the wait is determined by the specifics of your brand's activities. Sometimes it takes three weeks, and sometimes three months. However, you should always be prepared for the fact that the SMM strategy will not bring results at all. The thing is that promotion on social networks does not directly affect sales, like contextual or banner advertising.

When you shouldn’t expect quick sales from social networks:

• When your product or service is complex and costs over $1,000. However, you shouldn’t give up, being disappointed in SMM. On social networks, you can customize your company’s customer service by devoting it to communicating with users and publishing interesting content.

Of course, with the help of social media you are unlikely to be able to get users to purchase agricultural equipment produced under your brand. However, on your company’s page a person will find detailed information about the product he is interested in, as well as answers to all the questions that are important to him.

• When your company has accumulated a lot of questions and complaints. Loss of image is always accompanied by a negative attitude from clients. Therefore, all your efforts aimed at SMM business promotion on social networks will be in vain until your company’s reputation is restored.

First you need to find the source of the problem and make every effort to eliminate it. Be sure to inform users that all difficulties have been overcome and similar situations will not arise in the future.

Demonstrate how you corrected the problem and what measures you are taking to prevent it from occurring in the future. Only after restoring the “good name” of your company can you start promoting on social networks.

Mistake #2. Believing that promotion on social networks is a piece of cake

If you think that the task of SMM promotion can be entrusted to a non-specialist, citing the fact that everyone is familiar with social networks, then the result of such inept actions will certainly disappoint you.

This mistake is most often encountered by small companies that do not have their own marketing department. In this case, the task of promotion on social networks is entrusted to the employee who can allocate some time during the working day for these actions.

As a result, accounts appear for companies whose representative is a real person. This violates the rules of social networks, which leads to blocking of such pages.

Another mistake of this approach is that when fired, the person to whom such accounts are registered can “lead” all your communities. The risk of such a loss increases if your company parted with this employee on bad terms.

Even an experienced marketer who is encountering promotion on social networks for the first time will not be able to build a high-quality strategy using standard methods. Many large companies that decide to engage in SMM hire specialists to train their staff.

Mistake #3. Stop promoting on social networks halfway

If your SMM promotion strategy has not brought success, this does not mean that social networks cannot be an effective tool for your business. Firstly, under no circumstances should you abandon those users who have already become subscribers of your communities. They can be converted into customers using other marketing tools.

Secondly, these users expect to constantly receive quality content in your communities. By abandoning groups, you will leave subscribers without attention. And this can negatively affect the image of your company, since users will not be able to get advice on issues that interest them.

The lack of feedback indirectly tells subscribers that not everything is in order in your company.

Mistake #4. Believing that there are magical promotion tools

An advertisement that promises to bring your brand to the TOP of the rankings clearly cannot be truthful. It is impossible to quickly and completely turn all ordinary users into an audience devoted to your company. If the number of subscribers is a criterion for efficiency for you, then this is a deep misconception.

The entire process of promotion on social networks (from start to finish) is dedicated to daily work on quality content that will not only be interesting to users, but will also encourage them to invite other people to your community.

In order to always maintain the interest of your audience, you need to be one step ahead and not be afraid to exceed their expectations. If followers want to see useful information in your community, offer them newsworthy news, as well as a prize for everyone who shares it on their social network feed.

If users expect gifts from you for some actions, give gifts just like that. Surprise them and you will see amazing growth in your members, subscribers, followers and whatever.

Mistake #5. Just broadcast content without paying attention to users

Maintaining a community on social networks requires a different approach than working on a corporate website. SMM communications must be two-way, since only a small number of users are content with viewing content and passively observing discussions taking place on the forum.

Social networks are designed for communication and interaction. Therefore, you must always be ready to engage in dialogue with users, answering questions or making recommendations. Such communication should be prompt: a subscriber who is forced to wait for a response to his request for several days will most likely look for another community.

If a response to a question is received within an hour, then this is considered normal. That is why promotion on social networks requires significant human, time and financial costs, since communication must be carried out 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Mistake #6. Rely only on your own strengths

Delegation of authority is an excellent tool for optimizing promotion on social networks. Any head of a marketing department who first encountered such a tool for increasing sales should know about it.

Yes, at the initial stage - determining the target audience, its interests, socio-demographic indicators, etc., it is impossible to do without the participation of the manager, but this is a maximum of 1-2 weeks.

Further steps should be carried out by social media promotion specialists. The head of the marketing department should not flirt with reposts and likes. It is much more important to devote your time to the necessary management, as well as monitoring the implementation of assigned tasks.

Mistake #7. Lack of goal of promotion on social networks (started because it was fashionable)

You cannot promote on social networks just because it is fashionable among large companies. Groups created in this case in most cases quickly become “dead”, since they lack effective two-way communication with users.

If there is no activity in the corporate community, followers may have a negative impression of the company as a whole, which will further lead to speculation and the loss of a positive image of your brand.

When you decide to promote a product on social networks, you must clearly understand what exactly you want to get as a result. Setting goals will help you estimate the budget needed to achieve them. To make things easier, you can answer the following questions to help clarify why do you need an SMM strategy:

• Create and maintain communication with the user?
• Organize an additional sales channel?
• Create a 24/7 call center?
• Should you test a new product before offering it to the market?
• Organize an additional sales channel for regular customers?
• Contribute to the growth of the average check?
• Eliminate negative reviews about your brand or product?
• Prevent the possible appearance of negative information that could damage your image (provided that you expect the occurrence of negativity due to certain reasons)?
• Increase consumer loyalty to encourage them to make a purchase from you?
• Increase brand or product awareness?

Mistake #8. Spending too much money on social media promotion

Without preliminary testing, which will show which communication channels and which social media are suitable for your goals, not all investments will be able to bring positive results.

In this case, thoughtful and painstaking mathematical analysis will suggest the right choice. Don’t be afraid to waste time on (at first glance) useless testing if you are confident in advance about the chosen communication channel.

Mistake #9. Copying someone else's content

Copying content taken from competitors will not bring your company to the top of the rankings. Promotion on social networks is especially successful in cases where the author offers his own unique developments that are interesting and useful to users.

Don't be afraid to experiment. And even more so, do not be modest, believing that your idea will not be interesting to anyone. Promote a blog on social networks that will tell you in detail about your product, the stages of its creation and who will benefit from it. Develop the status of an expert whose advice really helps and improves your work.

Mistake #10. Lack of competitor analysis

However, you should not completely ignore the experience of competitors. After all, a positive result can suggest a couple of ideas for testing on your project, and a negative result can help prevent such mistakes.

To begin with, it is enough to identify the strongest players in your market. Carefully study their marketing technologies and promotion tools. Try to implement these ideas into the realities of the Russian segment of these social networks. If the project is successful, we can gradually expand to other sites.

Mistake #11. Ignoring negative reviews

Negative information that harms reputation is the reality of any business. You will never be able to avoid speculation from competitors or negative feedback from dissatisfied customers.

If you work with negativity, reacting quickly and eliminating the source, this will increase the loyalty of users who will see your attitude towards your own work and attentiveness to feedback.

Never delete negative reviews from the pages of your corporate account on social networks, and certainly do not block the user who made the remark. Even if you do this as quickly as possible and unnoticed by other subscribers, negative information will still break through to your blog.

A user whose review you ignored in this way may log in from another account and attract the attention of others. Such hype will definitely not benefit your brand image. It is better to spend time studying the negative review and solving the problem. And your subscribers will see how much attention you pay to working with clients.

6 tips on how to choose an SMM agency that you can trust with marketing and promotion on social networks

Tip 1. Choose those who are exclusively engaged in promotion on social networks.

It is impossible to do several things at once equally effectively. Even if you have a huge staff. Therefore, promotion on social networks is best entrusted to the agency that specializes only in it, without being “sprayed” into other marketing channels for attracting clients and capital.

Such companies study SMM tools much more carefully, following the latest trends, innovations and trends. Therefore, they will always be aware of how to set up a marketing campaign in the most effective way.

Tip 2: Ask to review the portfolio.

Every experienced and self-respecting agency has a portfolio of completed works, which can always be presented to future customers. As a rule, the company's website contains a section that details the successes of previous projects and links to performance indicators posted on the Internet.

Tip 3: Ask what performance metrics the agency uses.

When contacting an agency, you need to have a clear strategy that will help you see what goals and objectives you set for promotion on social networks. This information will help determine the criteria by which the effectiveness of the activities carried out will be assessed.

If agency employees use the names of various indicators (for example, KPIs) without explaining exactly how they will manifest themselves when analyzing your brand strategy, you should not contact this company. Most likely, the agency simply wants to choose easier criteria for itself, without paying attention to the client’s needs.

Tip 4. Pay attention to the experience of specialists.

By examining the agency's portfolio, you can get an idea of ​​its experience. Take the time to check this information with those employees who will directly work on your project.

The team that will be involved in SMM promotion of your business on social networks should be aware of which marketing tools will be most effective for your company.

Tip 5. Read reviews about the company.

For the most objective picture, it is best to study both positive recommendations and negative reviews. The reliability of the information can be easily verified if the reviews are accompanied by information about the people with whom the agency came into contact in the process of work and their contacts (phone numbers, email addresses, etc.).

Tip 6. Don't choose an agency because of the low price.

When concluding an agreement with an agency for promotion on social networks, do not focus on a low price. A high-quality SMM strategy cannot be cheap.

What is the cost of promotion on social networks

When offering your company an SMM strategy, agency specialists announce a price, the size of which depends on the tools that will be used:

By studying these criteria for assessing the effectiveness of promotion on social networks, you will be able to understand what the price for such services consists of. Completing each of these points requires a certain amount of time, which must also be monetized.

However, this information is not unique, so such a message must be supplemented with the author's text. Preparing a high-quality article that meets the requirements takes about two hours.

The text must be supplemented with a suitable picture, the search for which also takes time (about 10 minutes). If your community is represented on only one social network, you must publish at least three posts per day. Within a month their number grows to 90.

At least 10 of them must be 100% unique. The following calculation formula is obtained: 25*80+10*120+90*10=13,700 minutes or 228.3 hours, that is, about 228 hours per month are spent just on content selection.

The next stage is advertising. Setting up an advertising campaign can take up to 20 hours, but on average it takes about 10 hours. Tracking and analyzing running promotions also takes time (about 30 hours per month). Total: about 40 hours a month are spent on advertising.

Time is also spent on preparing and conducting various incentive competitions. After finishing, you need to analyze the effectiveness, sum up the results and communicate with users. This whole process takes about five hours.

You also need to spend time communicating with users. To be constantly in touch and quickly respond to user requests, you need to view the community feed once an hour. This means that it takes about 30 minutes a day, and 15 hours a month.

The total amount of time spent on performing these manipulations is 288 hours.

Many companies believe that promotion on social networks is a simple process that cannot cost more than 5,000 rubles. If this amount is divided by 288 hours, it turns out that in this case the cost of one hour of work by an SMM specialist will be 17 rubles. You won't be able to get quality results for that kind of money.

Yes, price is one of the main arguments in choosing an agency whose specialists offer promotion on social networks.

But before you start promoting goods and services on social networks, you should check the quality of the site to which the flow of your potential customers will be directed from social networks. And the easiest way to do this is with the help of a professional site audit.

You probably also have a lot of friend requests on Facebook from “Wedding Photographer Natalya”, “China Therapist Ivanov” and “Evgeniy Profnastil”. Or (even worse) “Sandwich Restaurant” or “Old Hag Clinic”. Tell me, do you accept them? So I don't. I understand that people came to the social network to sell their services. But in most cases, it seems that people heard a ringing, but do not know where it is. They may even have chosen the right channel for promotion, but they haven’t learned how to work with it.

Once again having received a friend request from Victor Repair, I decided to write a short guide for those who independently decided to promote their professional services on social networks.

Tip number 0: You can't make a first impression twice.

Therefore, before you become friends with everyone, design the page properly, maintain it for some time, make it interesting. Stop constantly reposting from your website or your company’s website. If your page is empty, was created just yesterday, or is filled only with reposts from some sites or pages, no one will subscribe to it, because there is a chance that you are a robot. Or a person, but you are not interesting to read in any case. And, accordingly, there is no need to keep them as friends.

If you want to promote your professional services yourself, create your content and behave accordingly, pay attention to your page. Without work, you yourself know, nothing will work out.

1. Use your real first and last name

No one wants to keep the incomprehensible “Andrey elite real estate” as a friend. If you are truly rooted in this work and are sure that you will be a realtor for the rest of your days, then use your real name. People are more likely to add as a friend the unknown Andrei Ivanov, who enthusiastically writes about real estate in their city, than the faceless “Andrei elite real estate” with a photo of a house instead of an avatar and constantly reposting from different real estate sites.

2. Tell stories

Everyone is interested in looking behind the veil of secrecy about professional tricks. Otherwise, the “How It Works” format on The Village would not be so popular. If you really don’t know where to start, read these columns by anonymous experts - get an idea of ​​what people are interested in reading about.

But the most important exercise is to remember what you talk about with your non-professional friends in your industry, what you can laugh about together. For example, if you are a dentist, talk about the funny behavior of your clients (well, they really act very funny sometimes!). Of course, everything should be as anonymous and kind as possible, and ideally even with some kind of morality - like, don’t take your children for a walk in Africa.

3. Share your experience

Surely, you have been in this profession for so long that you have a whole list of obvious tips and recommendations that no one ever does. For example, if you are a financial advisor, you know that you need to have an emergency reserve amounting to 3-6 months of expenses. But, to put it mildly, not everyone knows this.

Tell us, model the situation, again, using the example of your clients and real cases, illustrate what this leads to. Sometimes people don't realize they have a real problem with something until they see the real consequences. Based on your many years of experience, you can talk about these consequences and give advice. Plus, this is another way to prove to your followers that you are an expert and worth spending money on.

4. Don't skimp on good photos

By looking at your avatar (and the page in general), a stranger should understand that you are a professional. A good portrait photographer will help you create this impression. Professional photography is not that expensive, but the effect is permanent.

Take a photo set of 8-10 photographs that are different from each other at once, so that you can change them from time to time and use them in other resources - for example, in the media.

By the way, if you suddenly get your hands on a photo from some professional get-together, post it in the news with a note that “Here, I told you about new trends in N on the M forum.” Show your subscribers that you are part of a professional community.

5. Write simply

No need for abstruse formulations. Remember that your readers are mostly people who do not understand your topic. Therefore, write your posts on social networks in the same language in which you communicate with the client when he asks stupid questions.

6. Make it possible to subscribe to your page

VKontakte and Facebook have the ability to subscribe to a page for non-friends. That is, a person may be embarrassed to knock on your friend’s door, but he is interested in what you write. In this case, a subscription is required.

7. Chat with subscribers in the comments

If you wrote an interesting post and your subscribers bombarded you with questions, take the time to answer their questions, give advice, and clarify unclear points.

People need to see that you are a real person and not a bot.

There are, of course, a number of moral and ethical restrictions here - that, for example, it is impossible to make a diagnosis using a social network. But I hope you know about such subtle aspects of your profession.

However, you don’t need to immediately sell your services in the comments. If you can give free advice that a subscriber can use to solve their problem on their own, give them this advice - it will only strengthen the level of potential loyalty.

8. Have your own opinion

Everyone in the industry periodically experiences a fashion for something: black furniture and brick walls, rhinestones in teeth, Chinese toilets - you never know. You probably also know about this, and you have some kind of personal and professional relationship to it. You can clearly state your opinion (this will be especially popular if you criticize this fashion trend).

For example, you are a dentist and you think that rhinestones are good only on perfectly white teeth, and in other cases they only emphasize the yellowish tint of the enamel. Or that it is unsafe for teeth and not entirely hygienic (for example). Your opinion may be based on your practice, a recent patient's experience, or something else. But a reasoned opinion from a professional is always interesting to read.

9. Don’t write about things you don’t understand.

Those topics that online trolls can happily savor are taboo for you. You are too busy to discuss the cost of Peskov’s watch and the political consequences of an invasion of some little-known country (unless you are a watchmaker and political strategist, respectively).

10. Be yourself

You can write not only about work - it is also important to remain a person.

You can post photos of bouquets sent by satisfied patients or colleagues, share jokes and professional humor, tell a little about your life, your time studying and becoming a professional. Then it will seem to your subscribers that they have known you for a thousand years, and it will be easier for them to trust you to perform the service.

11. Don't spam

If you have some kind of super service and you want to talk about it, write about it in your own words. Something like “Hurray 🙂 Finally we can talk about it. My colleagues from Clinic X and I have finally launched service N. It’s something like... and it solves the problem with... In our city, no one is doing it yet, although in the USA almost everyone is already practicing it. In general, if you’re interested, I’ll be happy to tell you and show you everything.”. Agree, this is much more pleasant to read than “Clinic X is pleased to offer you a full range of services for N. High-quality work, a professional approach to their work - this is what unites the professionals of Clinic X!”.

12. You are not a company

Firstly, everyone is very annoyed by company accounts that are added as friends. Everyone understands that they will spam. A separate page should be created for the company, and if you want, put a link in your profile that you work for this company. The link will be active, and by working on your personal page, you will thus attract attention to the employer brand. In other cases, you will only benefit from the fact that you are a professional who is passionate about your business, and not an impersonal company profile.

13. If possible, make a portfolio

Of course, this works for those professions where you can show results. Designers can show photos of interiors they designed. Builders - photos of built houses. If you decorate the premises with balloons, this can also be shown.

Photos must be beautiful and high quality! Remember - everything on your page should speak about professionalism and a serious approach to business.

And most importantly, add a few words from yourself, write what you felt and what difficulties you encountered while working on the project, what the client wanted, where were your personal suggestions. This always helps to build personal relationships with subscribers who are not yet very interested.

But, still, if you have such an opportunity, it is better to hire a professional who understands something about managing social networks, the technical and reputational aspects of personal pages. If your budget is very limited, then hire such a person at least at the very beginning - to design the page. It doesn’t cost that much, and the result is not immediate, but guaranteed.

I want you to promise me that you will NEVER create such mediocre pages as those of the so-called “Victor Repair”, okay? They do not solve the problems of potential clients, they do not captivate, but most importantly, they do not bring any financial or reputational results to Victor himself.

Social Media Marketing (SMM) is a set of works to promote a business by attracting additional traffic or attention from potential buyers to the brand, the company, its products and services using social networks on the Internet.

Due to the implementation of a new policy by search engines, their trust in those sites that have groups on social networks is much higher. Accordingly, this brings them to better positions in the search.

How it works?

What will promotion on social networks give?

It will increase brand awareness and increase the number of sales of services and goods.
It will help the company analyze consumer opinions about the products (works) offered, as well as find the target audience according to the necessary criteria.
Ability to maintain active feedback with customers.
Timely provision of information about promotions, possible changes, discounts, etc.
Increasing the site's reputation. Due to SMM promotion, its positions in search engines are significantly improved.

VKontakte is one of the most popular Russian social media with about 30 million active users. Initially, it was created for communication between friends and acquaintances.

Today, almost everyone has their own profile on this social network, so it is a potentially profitable and in-demand trading platform with a high probability of finding the target audience. The VKontakte group is convenient for posting posts and conducting various surveys. Its main task is considered not just to attract new visitors, but to turn them into regular users of its resource. This promotion strategy allows you to choose a contingent specifically based on your topic, which further contributes to increasing the popularity of your brand.

Instagram

Why you should promote yourself on Instagram:

• People use this network literally on the go with the help of modern mobile gadgets.
• The core audience is young people aged 18 to 29 years.
• In terms of gender, women dominate.
• 57% of owners check their account at least once a day, and 35% of users do this several times a day.
• Visual content is perceived by people many times faster than textual content.

It is also worth remembering that effective promotion of an Instagram account means daily and constant work with photos and their descriptions, thematic hashtags, increasing the audience and likes. And thanks to the reviews left on the post in the comments, potential customers will trust the brand more, which can attract additional traffic to your website and have a positive impact on the purchase of a product or service. All kinds of competitions and sweepstakes are also actively practiced here, which increases the number of people interested in purchasing products. Therefore, advertising on Instagram is an excellent promotion tool.

As you know, Facebook is one of the top five most visited websites in the world. Promotion of an organization in this network will not only be an effective way to attract potential clients to your own website, but also a good opportunity to find new business partners. Most of the users here are adults with higher education and a stable level of income, in contrast to the young audience of VKontakte. Therefore, by choosing Facebook, you create ideal conditions for yourself to develop and popularize your business. Promotion of groups (pages) will help to significantly increase the number of visitors to your site and expand the geographic reach of consumers.

Prices for promotion on social networks

The cost of website promotion on social networks will depend on the type and volume of work performed, as well as the competitiveness of the topic. When drawing up an agreement to create and promote a group on the VKontakte or Odnoklassniki networks, significant discounts are provided on prices for work on the second and subsequent groups.

More detailed information can always be obtained from our qualified managers.

Advertising on Instagram

– a convenient service for sharing videos between users. And if earlier this site was viewed with skepticism, today it is an excellent platform for posting advertisements. Users love bright pictures and minimal descriptions. Advertising on social networks is aimed at precisely this.

Users on Instagram earn money depending on the popularity of their page. enjoys following her idols, which is why advertising posts of famous people are expensive. For example, Ksenia Sobchak demands 200 thousand rubles for placing an ad, and Sergey Shnurov demands as much as 1.5 million rubles. It's a lot of money, but the method of attracting stars for advertising is very effective. It is believed that for every ruble spent on such advertising, you can return 4–10 rubles. Types of ads on Instagram:

• following a link– placement of the advertiser’s website address on the star’s page;
• video advertising– thirty-second videos describing the product, and if the budget allows, the idols themselves will advertise the product;
• installation– You can also advertise programs on your phone on Instagram. According to statistics, thousands are ready to download them every day;
• carousel– a selection of images describing the product. This format is considered better than just one picture;
• attracting followers for promotion– the more subscribers, the greater the chances of becoming famous and selling your products.

Facebook Advertising

Advertising on Facebook appeared much earlier than on other social networks. The site has managed to develop many tools and convenient formats for promoting goods and services. In addition to the types of advertising used on Instagram, it offers the following options for product presentation:

• photo with a brief description (up to 90 characters);
• collection– use of videos and photographs in advertising;
• circular gallery– simultaneous placement of up to ten videos or pictures with links;
• canvas– a blank slate for the advertiser’s ideas and creativity. You can place anything on it and in any order.

Advertising on social networks provides many opportunities to express creativity. Facebook not only facilitates this by developing many ad formats, but also offers several options for posting posts:

1. Placement through group administration. The cost of advertising depends on popularity. The approximate price per day is 1000–2000 rubles.
2. Ads for mobile devices and targeted advertising on social networks is placed independently by selecting the correct publication settings. Payment is made for impressions and clicks. In the first case, the advertiser sets a daily budget and his price per 1000 impressions. In the second, payment is made based on useful user actions (link clicks). The cost varies between 8–20 rubles. Payment is made from a bank card or through.

Self-hosted social media advertising is a relatively inexpensive way to promote a product. The sites, although created for communication, are also convenient for the advertiser, who can always get acquainted with publication statistics, change tariffs or adjust settings.

Advertising on VKontakte

Not so long ago, the resource was a network for schoolchildren. But the developers, having heard about the success of other social networks in the field, decided to keep up.

The social network Vkontakte has its own targeting tool. If on Facebook and other sites data about the user is taken from information about the computer’s IP address, then Vkontakte draws information from the information specified in the user’s profile. Why is this convenient?

A person living in Moscow and going on a business trip to Barnaul for a couple of days is unlikely to be interested in new deliveries to Barnaul boutiques. VKontakte will show those advertisements that relate to the user’s permanent place of residence.

VKontakte offers several ad formats. Large images or advertisements of communities are popular. Placement can be either independent or through the administration of groups.

The cost of accommodation in communities starts from 200 rubles. depending on user activity and quantity Is there free advertising on social networks? Yes. For people with free time, you can consider one of the following promotion options:

• promoting your page or, moreover, over time you can make good money from this;
• posting advertisements in local communities;
• mutual promotion of products through the VKontakte, Facebook and Instagram exchanges.

Advertising on social networks is very convenient for busy and freer people. For users with a limited budget and a thick wallet. All growing companies and small businesses should take note of these methods of product promotion, which today are striking in their all-encompassing nature.