How to promote a company on social networks. SMM promotion on social networks

But for those who manage to do this, the business brings a good profit. How to start promoting, and what to focus on in this process?

Let's evaluate budget ways to promote your business on social networks.

But first, let's determine if this is necessary in your particular case.

Pros and cons of promoting a business in social networks

Today, 85% of people who have access to the Internet create accounts in various social networks and spend a huge amount of time there.

Russia has the palm in Europe in terms of the number of registered accounts and the time people spend on the Internet.

Social media business: the merits

Small investment.

The cost of one attracted client via the Internet is much lower than when using other promotion methods.

If in other methods in order to:

• lure potential customers,
• found a community,
• conduct a conversation with consumers.

An investment is required, then on the Internet you can do without spending money.

However, you need to be realistic: free promotion will always be slower and not as effective as paid promotion.

"Word of mouth" distribution.


Online business promotion in this way is the fastest. How does it work?

An interesting article is posted in a group.

It was read by 100 visitors of the portal, of which 11 shared a link of a unique work with their friends.

Among them, there may also be those who share with other friends and so on.

It is at such moments that a viral program is launched that will make a business on social networks successful.

By the way, with the help of SEO it is very difficult to get the same result as in SMM.

Development.

Promotion of your own business on the Internet is gaining immense popularity every year, as the number of portal users is growing.

Few facts about the number and age of visitors to various social networks.

Low competition.

Most firms have not yet realized all the benefits that a business can bring in social. networks.

They do not understand how profitable it is, since such methods bring good returns with minimal capital investment.

All this results in reduced competition (compared to the real market).

Disadvantages of business promotion on social media

Not subject to detailed analysis.

It is simply impossible to analyze subscribers like, for example, using "Google Analytics".

The marketer can only assess the number of visitors and determine whether the business is moving on the right course.

Control by the administration.

Often such a framework interferes with full-fledged promotion, you have to look for workarounds.

Group worker.

Each project requires control, even (especially) if it is built on the Internet. A group or community must have its own administrator.

The work of the administrator consists of the following tasks:

• polling group members,
• publishing posts,
• active support of communication in the group,
• removing spam,
• content update.

You will need to hire such a person and pay him a salary.

But by doing so, free yourself from petty work, and proceed to larger processes of promoting your product.

If the founder or administrator of a group is not keeping an eye on the page, then customers will feel great and the community will quickly decline.

It is deplorable, but this can also affect the offline reputation.

Overview of ways to promote in the TOP 5 social networks

1. Promotion of Vkontakte.

The vk.com website is the most popular portal on the Russian-speaking Internet.

The number of registered people (or rather, pages) totals 380 million, more than 80 million people visit the contact every day.

Options for increasing business profits on Vkontakte:

• Placing advertisements in communities with similar topics;
• Targeted advertising (reproduction of content depending on the preferences of visitors), which is paid for by the number of impressions and clicks.

  Example of action: a person previously searched the Internet for information about air travel to China.

• Broadcasting advertisements to well-known urban groups.
• Creation of a specialized Vkontakte page on which all business products will be posted.

To attract consumers to a group, it is best to come up with an interesting and memorable name, as well as a bright avatar.

Basically, the audience of "Contact" is young people, so the offered product or service should be inexpensive.

2. Promotion in Odnoklassniki.

The site ok.ru is a resource dominated by an older audience of visitors (30–55 years old).

It is not as "crowded" as Vkontakte, but it also enjoys enviable popularity.

The number of users exceeded 201 million, of which 46 million visit their page on the social network every day.

Options for promoting a case in Odnoklassniki:

• advertising in apps or games,
• creation of a personal page for business,
• targeted advertising,
• promoting your business by posting in other popular groups.

Content on Odnoklassniki should be aimed at attracting the attention of customers in various ways.

These can be intriguing statuses, interesting videos, pictures that are unobtrusively shown to visitors.

For example, a person has put a "class" in a group that is founded to sell products for children.

This "like" will be automatically reflected in the feed of friends. If they like the product, they like it too.

In this way, in the shortest possible time, you can familiarize people with your business.

In Odnoklassniki it is possible to implement and offer services of various levels, since there is an audience of different levels of solvency and tastes.

3. Promotion on Facebook.

The site facebook.com is one of the largest networks in the world. It has over 1.6 billion accounts! 50% of them are viewed by users every day.

People with middle and high incomes, aged 25–45, are often registered on Facebook. In such social. even politicians, entrepreneurs, stars are registered in networks.

If, for example, "Vkontakte" and "Odnoklassniki" have a more entertaining character of the relationship between people, then "Facebook" is more business-like, since they register there in order to exchange information.

Ways to promote on Facebook

4. Promotion on Twitter.

Twitter.com offers its users a quick exchange of information with each other.

Various segments of the population are registered on Twitter, ranging from politicians to loaders and security guards.

Of course, it is quite difficult to promote a business, but there are still tools that allow you to do this.

For example, maintaining an account and creating a personal hashtag for your business helps to promote and increase awareness.

You can agree to place this hashtag on well-known accounts that "boast" the maximum number of people subscribed to it.

The hashtag should point the way to the business page and nowhere else, so it should be absolutely unique.

This method of promotion is more suitable for Internet projects, and not for product sales.

5. Business in the social network "Instagram".

The site instagram.com is based on the exchange of short videos, photos and personal messages.

Still, images are at the forefront.

In you can create a page and promote your business by promoting the group.

It is also possible, for a set fee, to advertise activities in more promoted accounts with a large number of subscribers.

In order to attract customers, it is necessary to publish interesting videos, colorful and vivid pictures, photographs.

4 methods of promoting on social networks

# 1. Content is the main promotion assistant

Every marketer will say: "Without decent content, it is impossible to promote a business on social networks."

Three basic rules of content:

Consistency.

The material should be systematically updated in the group.

Two, four, six posts a day - these indicators depend on the direction of the business and the audience of customers.

Posting should be regular and not dependent on the number of subscribers.

Exclusivity.

Each material that will be sent from the moderator to the page must be highly unique, and interest the visitor from the first lines.

You should not plagiarize and copy articles from other sources.

It is better to focus your attention on creating exclusive works for business.

Viral promotion.

All materials should engage the client as much as possible.

It is at this moment, as described earlier, that the viral spread of information is launched.

# 2. The role of targeting in promotion

This method of advertising is aimed at a specific audience. The definition of "your client" is in accordance with her interests.

The opportunity to promote a business using this method can be found in all the listed social networks.

For a better understanding, consider the types of targeting:

For example, a fitness center is opening in Khimki.

This means that information about the opening should be shown to residents of Moscow and settlements close to the new fitness center.

This is the setting that is set when advertising is launched. As a result, only your target audience sees it.

Socio-demographic.

For example, a budding entrepreneur whose business is selling products for children needs to advertise in groups of young mothers and married women.

Contextual.

If a person is fond of fashion, then he will participate in the groups "Style", "Fashion", and not in the communities of carpenters or steelmakers.

For example, a person is fond of Latin American dancing and travel.

Then the owner of a travel agency is simply obliged to offer the person a tour ticket to Cuba.

First, it is necessary to analyze whether the proposed product is suitable for the user. Secondly, create a well-designed advertisement.

Number 3. Community promotion

This type of promotion has already been discussed earlier, but it is still necessary to recall its essence.

At the same time, the entrepreneur should be aware that the more “promoted” the community is, the more money will be spent on advertising on their page.

Within a day, for a set fee, subscribers will be shown an advertising post ordered by them.

Detailed plans for promoting different types of companies in social media. networks, Ilya Balakhnin will tell in his video:

No. 4. Social media business: professional promotion

There are specialized services that, for a set fee, will advertise a business on social networks.

They often develop content themselves, activate the targeting mechanism, and negotiate advertising in thematic communities.

All these functions are offered, for example, by the site plibber.ru. "Plibber" gives an opportunity for business development by attracting clients from social networks.

To work here, a novice entrepreneur must:

• log in to the site,
• start advertising your products yourself or contact qualified Plibber employees,
• in the first case - to analyze your target audience and develop the required advertising post.

The site moderates the proposed task, after which you can start promoting.

If you adhere to the above methods and analyze the information received, then business on social media will bring good income with minimal investment.

The main thing is to know your target audience well, to appoint a responsible person in the group and not to forget about the systematic replenishment of articles, photos, videos.

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Social media has quickly become a new hobby for humanity. Economists will soon be talking seriously about the Gross National Repost and counting the number of likes per capita. And, of course, blogs are increasingly being used for commercial purposes.

Naturally e-commerce could not pass by this phenomenon. Actually, this is just such a law of nature: where more than a hundred people gather, there will definitely be some kind of retail outlet. What can I say, if millions constantly hang out in one place. However, the early excitement of the blogging business opportunities has now subsided a bit.

Problem of choice

Indeed, neither Vkontakte nor Facebook is the most convenient place for direct sales. The only advantage of such a blog is that it will not cost anything, but more or less serious companies prefer to open an online store. There are areas where a social network can be enough. These are, for example, mini-hotels, various wedding services and the like. But they are trying to create their own website. It has more opportunities, as a trading platform, it is more convenient, and its cost, especially if you use templates, is quite affordable. So it turns out that only promotion, the so-called SMM or social media marketing, remains for social networks.

Who is sitting where?

First you need to deal with the audience. In Russia, according to Mail.Ru Group, the most popular social network is already for a long time remains "Vkontakte". It is noticeably inferior to Odnoklassniki, followed by My World, Facebook and Twitter. Obviously, the main focus should be on the leaders. Less popular networks will not give the required response. Of course, now networks are smoothly flowing into each other: people open accounts in several at once, a message can be repost not only within one social network, but also spread further. But all the same, the larger the site itself, the more chances of finding a potential client, but there are interesting nuances here.

Despite the fact that the user easily flows from one network to another, the composition of their audience is still slightly different. As you can see from the same report, Vkontakte can boast of the youngest audience. Not only is she significantly younger than on other social networks, with the exception of just Twitter, but she also has the most students. It should be noted that these are relative data. If we translate them into absolute numbers, it turns out that half of young Russians hang out on Vkontakte and Twitter, while older people prefer Odnoklassniki, Moi Mir and Facebook.

Very interesting employment data. Most managers and specialists in relative terms prefer Facebook, if you multiply them by the total audience of the network, then the numbers become equal. We can say that the management staff there is represented in a more concentrated form.

Obviously, it is better to promote a business where there are more wealthy clients. Of course, one cannot say that the youth audience in Russia is completely insolvent, but you must admit that those who are older often buy trips to Egypt, dear mobile phones and order flowers. In this regard, it is worth promoting the company using Facebook, other social networks are still slightly inferior in this indicator. On the other hand, the total audience of Vkontakte is twice as large. So, starting an SMM campaign, you will have to wonder where to direct the main efforts.

There is one more factor in favor of "Facebook" - this is territorial distribution. Most of the users of this social network live in the Central Federal District. Thanks to Moscow, it is the most attractive market for most Internet projects.

Like me or not like me ...

The matter is not limited to the audience only. In the end, with a competent approach and some methodicality, you can form a good circle of "followers" everywhere. It is also very important to understand how the social network is prepared for social marketing. Of course, you can overcome all obstacles, moving towards your goal and potential buyer, but is it necessary? Maybe it is better to immediately choose an easier and more effective way?

It is generally accepted that this social network simply has no flaws. In fact, many SMM firms preferred to create not pages or groups, but profiles, due to the fact that it was much easier to attract new “friends” this way. But now the network administration is fighting this practice by simply blocking such pages. As a result, the possibilities of communication were somewhat limited.

The possibilities of the social network Twitter for promotion are even more limited. The popularity of "chirping" in Russia has not yet declined, although many experts insisted on this. But on the whole, his audience is increasingly merging with the Vkontakte public. But most importantly, the range of technical opportunities for promotion is limited here. Often this social network is used as an additional tool for promoting the main blog.

Summing up all this thinking, you can make a small rating of the best social networks for e-commerce. The first place is still occupied by "Vkontakte" mainly due to its policy and the largest coverage. In second place was Facebook, for its unconditional success in targeting. Twitter is in third place, thanks to the fact that it can be used somehow. But the fourth or fifth places were shared by Odnoklassniki and My World.

Max Usachev has registered in all social networks

Sales Generator

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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, a working tool. Such a marketing tool helps to significantly expand the target audience. That is why promotion in social networks is becoming so relevant today.

In 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 self-promotion of services or goods
4. TOP 6 best social networks for brand promotion
5. Basic promotion tools
6. How is website promotion possible?
7. Free promotion goods
8. Brand promotion through social networks using special services
9. How is a promotion strategy 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 in social networks (), such a tool has shown its tremendous effectiveness and has gained admirers among experienced marketers. It helps to expand the audience of potential customers at the expense of those users who cannot be attracted by other marketing methods.

However, despite the high efficiency of SMM promotion in social networks, this tool remains poorly studied due to the fact that this process customer engagement is constantly transforming.

The users themselves do the direct distribution. By voting with “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 machine tool manufacturing, drilling services, or plant chemicals. While companies operating in large, medium or small sectors use this tool very successfully in their marketing campaigns.

In addition, intimate topics are unacceptable for discussion on social networks. Questions of personal life do not become the object of discussion. Here, a person will not discuss the symptoms of their illness 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 in social networks cannot be reduced only to attracting new customers. PotentialSMM marketing much wider and includes:

• sales growth;
• retargeting;
• expanding the circle of regular customers;
• increasing product recognition;
• neutralization of negative reputation;
• brand creation and development of its image;
• qualitative and quantitative traffic improvement.

What are the pros and cons of social media promotion?

Advantages:

• user confidence in SMM messages is higher than in ordinary advertising information;
• the ability to expand the number of potential customers at the expense of users of social networks, who may be immune to other marketing tools;
• higher targeting, allowing you to clearly highlight 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 customers that does not require the installation of third-party software;
• high speed of content distribution among interested users.

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disadvantages:

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

Promotion of services or goods through social networks on your own: 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, tools for interaction with consumers are selected.

Stage 2. Creation of the platform.

To promote the brand and company, a page or thematic group is used. The platform is also integrated with the site.

Stage 3. Content creation.

To attract the attention of the audience and generate demand for a product, a company is needed. These can be articles, advertising texts, videos, photographs and other materials that can induce users to take certain actions.

Stage 4. Attracting the audience.

To search and collect subscribers, interested users and customers, personal invitations are used, different kinds advertising, viral marketing.

Stage 5. Organization of interaction.

Successful promotion in social networks is based on building effective communications in the group. Participants must be motivated to communicate, comment on posts, likes, re-posts, etc. It is imperative 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.

Disadvantage: high competition (it is necessary to fight for the attention and favor of users constantly, updating the content and often supplementing it with interesting messages).

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

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

1. Facebook

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

Disadvantage: 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 represented by young people, well suited for brand promotion.

Disadvantage: the visual presentation does not always allow for 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 about two times ahead of the audience of other media.

Disadvantage: Software limited message size.

1. Youtube

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

Disadvantage: Many users use third-party resources to view and publish videos.

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

Basic social media promotion tools

The most advanced technologies for storing and transmitting information are almost immediately successfully mastered by social networks. Complementing this parameter with the widest coverage of the most diverse audience, 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.It is used for learning, entertainment, attraction.

For example, You Gif Ted specializes in recruiting members for private training. On his YouTube channel, he regularly uploads instructions for homework.

1. Audio. This can be music, podcasts, audiobooks, and other audio files that interest your target audience.
2. Images.They are used to illustrate their products, services, and more.

For example, the Kazan firm "Chocolate Paradise" regularly uploads photos of its products to Instagram:

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

For instance, magazine "General Director" in his group on VKontakte he regularly uploads excerpts of his articles to go to the main site:

How is it possible to promote a website through social networks

White methods

Targeted ads have some of the best performance indicators. The success of this method is due to the right setup, 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. It should be remembered that the success of your campaign also depends on the choice of the site, since each of these resources can have its own specific audience.

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

This method is effective only when you need to quickly increase the number of subscribers or the number of "likes" of one ad message. Even low-cost prizes attract many people.

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

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

Gray methods

1. Cheat bots or offers

The cost of attracting bots to the community you are interested in will be significantly lower than the cost of promoting on social networks using offers (users who are invited for payment to wind up likes and re-posts). However, you cannot get targeted subscribers with these methods.

The undoubted advantage of such promotions is the ability to bring your community to the first places in the rating. Those groups that have the majority of subscribers go to the TOP.

1. Spam in comments or private messages

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

And although spammer accounts are quickly blocked, a small increase in the number of subscribers can be achieved in the short life of such a page.

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 private messages, users promptly complain to the support service, which leads to a quick blocking of the spammer's account.

1. Massfollowing

Massfollowing is a subscription to those users who will subscribe to your page in response. This method shows the best performance on Instagram.

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

Free promotion of goods through social networks

• Creation of a community or group.Promotion of groups in social networks does not require financial investments either at the stage of creation 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.
• Public or fan pagesare created to attract a target audience interested in your products.
• Promotion of media content.Media content is favorably accepted 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 trademark 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 social media promotion. Forumok offers a wide range of customization options and interesting designs. 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, Moi Mir, Odnoklassniki, Google+, Youtube). Most of the performers are real users.

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

There is no automatic tracking of completed tasks, so the check has to 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 the offers of similar exchanges.

Vprka

On the first visit, this service gives rise to ambiguous 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 effectively promote these social networks yourself.

Users acquired with the help of this resource can be held 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 getting started, you need to sync your social media accounts with each service. Because of this, the authorization process is very delayed.

This service is distinguished by 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 sites for advertising in groups and communities.

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

There is a free service technical support, which promptly helps in case of questions.

Minuses.There are many small flaws that can reduce quality. For example, on Facebook it is impossible to "like" a particular post, there is no way to increase the rating of "reposts".

The cost of “Likes” and subscriptions for Instagram is very high, with many users not working. Real promotion on social networks using of this resource unlikely, since it is more suitable for cheating counters.

How is a social media promotion strategy developed?

A social media promotion plan should necessarily begin with 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 promoting a business on social networks must first answer a number of clarifying questions:

Stages of the strategy:

Defining SMM campaign tasks

• Sales

Most often, the method is used 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 stimulate the user to go to the company's website and place an order.

Often, these communities are like online stores where you can make a purchase without leaving your social network. The functionality allows you to make payment via electronic transfers.

It is necessary to maintain the interest of the subscribers of this community by offering various promotions and discounts. In this way, consultants who communicate with users can encourage them to make a repeat purchase and maintain loyalty 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 negativity neutralization

Target audience and their habitats

Any promotion on social networks is based on the characteristics of the target audience to which it is targeted. If you have a portrait of a potential user who will definitely be interested in your offer, and information about which sites he "lives", you can set up targeting of your advertising campaign.

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

• Geography, or geo targeting

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

• Socio-demographic criteria

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

• Hobbies, interests, hobbies

This criterion cannot be ignored when setting up an ad campaign. The 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 continuous cooperation.

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

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

What behavioral characteristics are typical for your audience?The behaviors of your target audience are able to determine the interests and selected topics of the 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 IT communities.
• 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 course and nature of the discussions. Most often they can be found in the retail segment. Despite their passivity, these users can actively purchase a product that is being discussed in communities by other participants.

By highlighting the category of people most of whom are the target audience of your community, you can determine the 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 of promotion in social networks is necessarily based on topics that can interest your potential user. You need 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, its interests, as well as on the data of the sites where your communities are located. Be sure to consider the following indicators:

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

If you exclusively repost the same material on thematic communities of different social networks, this can also scare off the 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.

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

Development of a metrics system

The analysis of performance indicators of a campaign to promote in social networks 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, traffic quality, 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 in a social network, focus groups;
• special events using dedicated phone numbers, coupons and promotional codes.

The analysis of these criteria will show the 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 metrics will also help you assess the effectiveness of your investment in order to determine the return on your investment.

Scheduling

Each marketing strategy is based on a schedule of certain promotional events. It needs to clearly identify due dates for launch and completion dates, a publication schedule for social media promotion, and an analysis of the results and performance measurement.

A plan like this will help in creating a marketing campaign outline. At the same time, he should be able to make comments and adjustments along the way. Don't forget about the need for external administrative control.

Effective promotion through social networks: 4 ideas

If you think that in order 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, KLM (Royal Aviation Company, Netherlands), whose revenues are replenished by 25 million euros annually through SMM.

Carline Vogel-Mayer worked at KLM for many years before joining the Social Media Department. She talked about the company's social media strategy, drawing on previous customer experiences to help shape the right marketing moves.

According to Carline, the following parameters are priority for successful brand promotion on the network:

Publish quality content that users will love

The company, which deals with air transportation around the world, simply cannot ignore the socio-cultural characteristics of the regions, whose residents often become its passengers. Despite the 95-year history and the seemingly archaic "ossification" in this regard, she 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 in social networks depends on him. We must respect those people who are in your communities and “like” messages that are interesting to them.

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

The managers of the airline came to this conclusion based on their own negative experience. After the World Cup (2014 World Cup), their message “Goodbye Friends” (Adios, Amigos) appeared on social media communities after the Dutch victory over Mexico. The tweet was followed by 90,000 entries, 70% of which were negative.

Prompt communication with clients via social networks

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

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

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

Exact response time for a request on social networks

Using the last click model (the transition that led to the target action, that is, the purchase), the airline can raise 25 million euros annually through sales on social media. This became possible due to the shift of attention to the client experience, which became the basis of the company's SMM strategy.

The marketing policy of the company, or rather, the segment that is responsible for promotion in social networks, is based on the following principles:

• services;
• brand and reputation;
• commerce.

The quality of the services provided is determined not only by the field of 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 carry a pronounced negative attitude.

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

However, in the company, the average time allotted for processing one request is approximately 23 minutes, despite the fact that communication is conducted in 14 languages \u200b\u200bof the world.

Although this processing speed requires significant human resources, there can always be a passenger for whom this period will seem too long, especially during a rush to a connecting flight. In this regard, a timer was set in the header of the page on Twitter, informing users about the amount of time it takes to answer a question.

Pay directly on social networks

By maintaining prompt communication with customers and responding to their requests, the airline's managers know what can be interesting for passengers in order to implement projects to improve the service. For example, following the support of the community subscribers' proposal, a new payment tool was introduced directly through social networks.

This service is available facebook users and Twitter. For payment, the passenger receives a link in a personal message, and then independently selects the preferred payment method and completes the transaction. The social agent of the company receives a message that the payment has been received, and the passenger receives a confirmation of the payment.

The project cost 3500 euros and now brings 80 thousand euros from 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 social media promotion won't bring results

Mistake # 1. Demanding immediate results

If someone tells you that some customers were getting instant feedback, you shouldn't immediately call your marketer and demand to speed up the process. Such cases are extremely rare exceptions to the rule.

The waiting time is determined by the specifics of your brand. Sometimes it takes three weeks and sometimes three months. However, you always have to 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 media:

• When your product or service is complex and costs over $ 1,000. However, do not give up, disappointed in SMM. In social networks, you can customize your company's customer service, dedicated to communicating with users and publishing interesting content.

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

• When there are many questions and complaints about your company. Loss of image is always accompanied by negative attitudes from customers. 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 in the future such situations will no longer arise.

Demonstrate how you fixed the problem and what steps you are taking to prevent it from occurring in the future. Only after the restoration of the "good name" of your company can you start promoting in social networks.

Mistake # 2. Thinking social media promotion is easier than a steamed turnip

If you think that the task of SMM promotion can be entrusted to a non-specialist, arguing that everyone is guided in 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 promoting in social networks is entrusted to the employee who can allocate a little time for these actions during the working day.

As a result, there are accounts of companies represented by a real person. This violates the rules of social networks, which leads to the blocking of such pages.

Another mistake of this approach is that upon dismissal, the person on whom such accounts are registered can "take away" all your communities. The risk of such a loss increases if your company does not part with this employee very well.

Even an experienced marketer who is first faced with social media promotion will not be able to build a high-quality strategy by acting standard methods... Many large companies that decide to engage in SMM hire specialists to train their staff.

Mistake number 3. Take and Quit Social Media Promotion Halfway

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

Second, these users expect consistently high quality content in your communities. Dropping groups will leave your followers unattended. And this can negatively affect the image of your company, since users will not be able to get advice on issues of interest to them.

Lack of feedback indirectly tells subscribers that something is wrong with your company.

Mistake # 4. Believe there are magic promotion tools

An advertisement that promises to bring your brand to the TOP of the ranking clearly cannot be true. It is impossible to quickly and one hundred percent turn all ordinary users into an audience loyal to your company. If the number of subscribers for you is a criterion of effectiveness, then this is a deep misconception.

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

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

If users expect gifts from you for some action, give them away just like that. Surprise them, and then you will see an astounding increase in your members, subscribers, followers and whoever.

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

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

Social networks are made for communication and interaction. Therefore, you must always be ready to enter into a dialogue with users, answering questions or giving recommendations. Such communication must be prompt: a subscriber who has to wait for a response to his request for several days is likely to look for another community.

If the response to a question comes within an hour, then this is considered the norm. That is why promotion in social networks requires significant human, time and financial costs, since communication must be conducted 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Mistake # 6. Count only on yourself

Delegation of authority is a great tool for optimizing social media promotion. Any marketing executive who is first faced with such a sales-boosting tool should be aware of it.

Yes, at the initial stage - determining the target audience, its interests, socio-demographic indicators, etc., one cannot do without the participation of a manager, but this is a maximum of 1-2 weeks.

Further steps should be taken 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 the assigned tasks.

Mistake # 7. The lack of a goal of promotion on social networks (started because it is fashionable)

You cannot promote on social networks just because it is fashionable among large companies. The 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, subscribers can get a negative impression of the company as a whole, which in the future will lead to speculation and the loss of a positive image of your brand.

When deciding to start promoting a product on social networks, you must clearly understand what you want to get as a result. Setting goals will help you estimate the size of the budget required 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?
• Testing a novelty 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 negative information to arise due to certain reasons)?
• Increase customer loyalty to encourage them to make a purchase from you?
• Build brand or product awareness?

Mistake number 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 a positive result.

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

Mistake number 9. Copying someone else's content

Copying content taken from competitors will not lead your company to the top of the ratings. Promotion in social networks is especially successful in cases when 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 shy, considering that your idea will not be interesting to anyone. Get involved in promoting a blog on social networks that will tell you in detail about your product, about the stages of its creation and about who it will be useful to. Develop the status of an expert whose advice really helps and improves your work.

Mistake number 10. Lack of competitor analysis

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

To begin with, it is enough to highlight the strongest players in your market. Take a close look at their marketing technologies and promotion tools. Try to implement these ideas in the realities of the Russian segment of these social networks. If the project is successful, you can gradually expand to other sites.

Mistake number 11. Ignoring negative reviews

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

Working with negativity, responding quickly and eliminating the source will increase user loyalty, who will see your attitude towards your own work and attentiveness to reviews.

Never delete negative reviews from the pages of your corporate account on social networks, and even more so do not block the user who made the comment. Even if you do it 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 can log in from another account and attract the attention of others. Such hype is definitely not going to do any good for your brand image. Better to take the time to study the negative review and solve the problem. And your subscribers will see how attentive you are 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 promoting in social networks.

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

Such companies study SMM tools much more closely, following the latest trends, novelties 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 explore the portfolio.

Each experienced and self-respecting agency has a portfolio of completed works that 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 indicators of achievement of goals the agency uses.

When contacting an agency, you must 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 how they will manifest themselves when analyzing your brand strategy, you should not contact this company. Most likely, the agency just wants to choose lighter criteria for itself, regardless of 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 \u200b\u200bits experience. Do not be lazy to clarify the same information with those employees who will directly work on your project.

The team that will be engaged 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 accuracy of the information can be easily checked if the reviews are accompanied by information about the people with whom the agency contacted during the work, and about their contacts (phone numbers, e-mail addresses, etc.).

Tip 6. Do not choose an agency because of the low price.

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

What is the cost of social media promotion

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

Having studied these criteria for evaluating the effectiveness of promotion in social networks, you will be able to understand what constitutes the price of such services. The completion of each of these points requires a certain amount of time, which must also be monetized.

However, this information is not unique, therefore such a message should be supplemented with the author's text. It takes about two hours to prepare a high-quality article that meets the requirements.

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

At least 10 of them must be 100% unique. It turns out the following calculation formula: 25 * 80 + 10 * 120 + 90 * 10 \u003d 13,700 minutes or 228.3 hours, that is, about 228 hours per month is spent only 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 launched promotions also takes time (about 30 hours per month). Total: about 40 hours a month are spent on advertising.

It also takes time to prepare and conduct various incentive competitions. After finishing it is necessary to make an analysis of the effectiveness, take stock and communicate with users. This entire process takes about five hours.

You also need to spend time communicating with users. To be constantly in touch and promptly 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 social media promotion 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 of an SMM specialist will be 17 rubles. For that kind of money, you won't get a high-quality result.

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

But before you start promoting goods and services in 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 through a professional website audit.

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We released new book "Content Marketing on Social Media: How to Get Into the Heads of Subscribers and Fall in Love with Your Brand."

Social networks are resources created for communication on their pages. Their functionality is growing, as is their popularity. Users mobile devices have long preferred social media over conventional sites. They contain everything: news, recipes, what's new with friends, entertainment, online shopping, tips and much more. A place where many people are attracted to business. Doing business on social media has become the norm and a successful marketing ploy. Let's consider the main features of building a strategy, stages of work and possible mistakes.

Social networks to help business

How exactly can social resources be useful for business? What tasks can be set for them? There are two main directions: informational promotion and conversion (sales).
The main goals are:

• Introducing consumers to new brands, products and services.
• Increase in sales, purchase amount per customer.
• Growth in the number of regular customers, adherents of the company.
• Increasing brand loyalty, improving the image, removing the existing negative.
• Consulting and customer support on a wide variety of issues from selection and checkout to use, settings and repairs.
• Feedback, collecting opinions from the audience on new items.
• Transitions to the site.

Who is it for

Business through social networks is promoted by a wide variety of companies - from small online stores to monopolists in their industry. Many giants from different spheres are present on social networks: telecommunications companies, car manufacturers, global sports industry giants and others.

A few years ago, it was not worth going to SMM, because there were no customers, large enterprises in the B2B category. However, now there are a variety of people on social networks, including managers and managers of factories and industries, banks, transport companies and many other enterprises. Of course, it is more difficult to reach state-owned companies, to sell expensive goods (over a thousand dollars) as well, but there are chances.

It is not worth investing large funds in organizing the page and promoting it in the case of selling a low-quality product (for example, cheap, low-quality fakes). Customer testimonials will convince the next visitors not to buy, and you will have to create a new page to avoid negative comments and build sales.

How to promote your business on social media

The process is quite painstaking and lengthy. Having guessed, with the choice of a resource, publishing material that is good and interesting for the target audience, you should expect loyal customers and sales in a few months. And this is not a one-time event, business promotion on social networks is to constantly maintain your pages and communicate with subscribers.

It is worth deciding in advance who will do the main work. Depending on the size of the company, the goals set, the size of the budget, this can be entrusted to both SMM specialists and a company employee. Of course, if opportunities permit, it is better to choose a marketing agency. Knowledge of working methods, the peculiarities of using certain tools, significantly saves time, effort and makes the result more predictable and successful. To work on filling and maintaining the page, you will need a designer, copywriter, seo-specialist, content manager.

The cost of such services starts from 5-10 thousand rubles per month and more. This can be explained by the time spent on planning a campaign, creating a page, constantly searching and filling it with materials, tracking audience reactions and commenting. The cost of a mistake is high - the expected effect may not be obtained, and sometimes the relationship with clients may deteriorate.

There is an abundance of SMM services on the market, both from independent experts and from companies that organize complex marketing campaigns, including through social networks. When choosing with whom to cooperate, you should pay attention to the following factors:

• The general profile of the agency is to give preference to those who deal only with SMM, and not a little bit of everything.
• A narrow specialization increases the professionalism and experience of employees.
• Portfolio, examples of maintaining pages of other companies, customer reviews.

When concluding an agreement, it is worth discussing in advance the timing and parameters of measuring the results, by which it will be possible to see how the process is progressing.

If, for some reason, you decide to do everything yourself, then maximum attention should be paid to creating the page. A common practice is to hire a specialist (freelancer) for this task, and then carry out further promotion on your own.

Stages of business promotion on social networks

Any task will seem simpler and clearer if you break it down into several small steps. So in the case of promotion on social networks, we will draw up a step-by-step action plan:

• Choosing a social network.
• Strategy Development.
• Creating a page (group, account) in the selected resource.
• Filling with materials, maintaining the page.
• Attracting clients.

Choosing a social network for business

The best social media platforms for business are those with a target audience. And of course, it is better to choose among the leaders in popularity: VKontakte, Odnoklassniki, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and others. Let's briefly analyze the most common ones.

In contact with

Resource number 1 in Russia and the CIS countries. It is distinguished by a large (462 million people) and young audience (about 25% - under 18, the most massive segment is 18-34). High activity, willingness to participate in competitions, challenges and discussions, a large number of publications, love of visualization and entertainment content are the main characteristics of the network. VKontakte is most suitable for businesses related to the sale of goods (clothing, appliances, furniture, cosmetics) and services. Advantages of work: you can set up deep targeting, different payment options (for impressions or clicks), post your publications in thematic public pages (on a paid basis or for a mutual service).

Classmates

Russian network with an older audience (compared to VK) - from 34 to 55 years old and older. Women predominate (more than 70%), Odnoklassniki users are distinguished by more conservative tastes, not supporters of everything new. The classic portrait of a user is a middle-aged woman living in a small town (with a population of up to 500 thousand people). Produce and sell clothes, goods for the house, garden, handicrafts - Odnoklassniki is a worthy choice of the site.

Facebook

Social network number 1 in the world, in Russia it is one of the five most popular. It is here that the largest number of managers, IT specialists, bankers and other wealthy people are found. In order to attract subscribers and visitors to a Facebook page, you need to get into the news feed. This can be done in two ways: by paying for placement or by receiving a large number of "Like" marks and re-posts on the material. Trainings, programs, expensive goods, news, brand promotion - Facebook is good for everything.

Instagram

The network is promising due to a large increase in users and growing demand. Built on visual content, many people call it a photo network because of the great possibilities for editing and posting photographs. Long texts with logical inference chains will not resonate here. And the goods of the fashion industry, cosmetics, jewelry, everything for the image and appearance, cars, travel, real estate - are quite suitable. The high activity of the participants requires a very quick response to comments.

Strategy Development

It means searching for answers to questions:

• Social media goals.
• Content types - what you plan to publish.
• Time and frequency of posts.

It is important to understand what actions are expected from people who are interested in the publication: subscribing or going to the site to make a purchase. The last option is applicable for those goods that are in demand and you should not persuade them to purchase it for a long time. If the product is specific, it takes time to form a need, interest, and only then offer, then you need subscribers to the group. This will work with a range of materials that generate demand.

Create a page

There are several concepts: account, page, group. Account is what is available after registration. Inside it, you can create a group or page. The group is more suitable for personal purposes, unites by interests (up to 500 people in friends). A page is a more formal concept, there are no restrictions on the number of subscribers, it is used to promote companies and brands.

SMM experts recommend adhering to a single corporate identity when creating a page (including when publishing on different resources). This increases awareness and in itself serves to advertise the brand. Contacts and links to other resources, if any, should be indicated.

The main focus on high-quality and attractive design of the avatar, cover and header - this is what people see first of all when they go to the resource. The page title uses either the brand name (if we are talking about a specific company) or keywords that will help you understand what can be found here.

What we publish

The created page is filled with material that will be interesting and useful to visitors and, at the same time, will increase the popularity of the company as a whole and the products it offers. All materials can be roughly divided into several groups:

• selling;
• educational;
• expert;
• involving;
• entertaining.

On the page, they should all be in one or another quantity. You won't be able to write only about yourself - visitors will get bored, not everyone will like the tactics of aggressive sales. You should not rush to the other extreme and pay attention only to humor, forgetting about your interests in social networks. Therefore, we combine all types of materials and give them one by one. In order not to get confused, a content plan is drawn up, where it is written in advance (preferably for a month) when what publication should be.

It is worth paying attention to the day and even the time of the broadcast. Good times are the hours of the highest user activity on this network. For example, for Instagram this is morning from 8 to 9 o'clock, evening after 17 and night from 24 to 2 o'clock. The day affects the workload of a person and his willingness to spend time reading Internet resources. So, it makes no sense to publish selling posts on Monday, Tuesday - the time for shopping is not suitable. And the closer Friday is, the more relaxed the mood, the workload decreases, which affects the growth of activity.

Let's dwell on the types of materials with examples and possible varieties.

Selling publications

This is not just a "buy-buy-buy" in the forehead or an online store, but the material that presents the business from the advantageous point of view, shows how it is organized, what professionals work in the company, what excellent results are obtained and what is confirmed. These tasks are done well:

• Descriptions of goods / services or processes.

It’s foolish to think that among 90 million users, you will not find customers. However, users are already saturated with numerous communities and groups, they are much less willing to join new ones. Competition also affects, if a person is already subscribed to a couple of groups "Cargo transportation to ...", then, most likely, he will not go to another one. Of course, if he is not pushed to do it, which I will talk about in this article.

Defining the goal

You need to start SMM promotion with a clear definition of the goal. Many do not understand what they need and that is why they immediately go down the wrong path. Why should a company that operates in a city with a population of 20 thousand people catch up with 50 thousand in its group? For likes and comments? But the company needs sales.

The goals can be as follows:

• Receiving feedback from clients;
• Sale of goods or services;
• Informing clients;
• Brand promotion;
• Recruitment of the target audience for further work with it;
• Hiring employees (you can create a personnel reserve);
• And many more options.

Having defined the goal, you will define your target audience, which will greatly help in further promotion, choosing a social network and a presence strategy.

Choosing a social network

Today, most often they work with Facebook, VKontakte and Odnoklassniki and Instagram. You can make communities and pages in all social networks, but you can choose only one or two. In general, VKontakte has advantages in terms of audience size in almost any area. One simple example.

The most popular Facebook community for Kazan:

And Vkontakte:

But this does not mean that you need to limit yourself only to VKontakte, even if there is the largest audience.

When choosing, you should focus on the format of the social network.

In contact with - the most popular social network in Russia, demography is presented as widely as possible. Suitable for publishing any content. There is a lot of competition, especially when it comes to communities in general, of which there are a lot. That is, VKontakte users do not lack attention, most often a lot of new posts appear in their news feeds every day.

Classmates - the audience overlaps with the VKontakte audience, most of the users who are on Odnoklassniki are also on VKontakte. It used to be thought that Odnoklassniki had a more adult audience, but today there are many young people. If a user puts "Class" on your post, then he shares it with his friends, this is the main feature that you need to consider. That is, in Odnoklassniki, you can promote a page through excellent content.

Facebook - the audience is more mature and solvent, thanks to which this network is considered one of the best platforms for B2C. There is access to an international audience, Russian social networks do not have such an opportunity. Cheap targeted advertising is also a Facebook feature.

Instagram - well suited for the visual presentation of your products and services. The audience here is much younger than on any other social network, the number of registered users is growing. A good platform for B2C, however, Instagram is also good for brand promotion, not just sales.

Twitter - suitable for informing about important events, with its help you can redirect users to other social networks, informing about new posts. The Twitter audience is politically and socially more active offline, in this it is about twice ahead of the audience of other social networks.

Youtube - the audience is huge, but many people watch videos on third-party resources. Suitable for promoting a brand (often personal), goods or services. Better than other social media for B2B, many CEOs watch videos that are relevant to their industry.

The best solution is to use multiple social networks to leverage their strengths. In some social networks, you have the ability to search by specified parameters, so you can estimate the size of the audience, its interests and other information.

SMM promotion methods

SMM methods can be divided into white, gray, and black. The difference lies in cost, efficiency, and compliance with social media rules and sometimes legislation.

White methods

Targeted advertising

Contests

A popular method that allows you to significantly increase the number of subscribers in a short time, even when you are using inexpensive prizes. The downside is that a large number of freebie lovers will subscribe. For the entertainment community, this method of promotion is quite acceptable, but for business it is not very effective. It is better to offer not prizes, but limited discounts. This will increase the likelihood that those who are really interested in your products or services will subscribe.

In fact, a good and useful community will grow on its own, although the initial audience will have to be spent. SMM promotion for companies should not be about finding subscribers, but about finding clients, you should never forget about this. And customers are much more expensive than subscribers.

SEO

SEO should also be applied in social networks, where keywords must also be specified in the descriptions of communities and pages, both for searching in the social network itself and for search engines. It will not become the main way to promote SEO, but it will be able to give additional subscribers. Please note that there is a Vkontakte group in the TOP for many commercial requests.

Interaction with users

Time consuming method, but free and can be effective. It is suitable for Twitter and Instagram, where the company's account has the ability to like or comment on user posts, and in this case it is very easy to search for them by hashtags. In other social networks, the method is less effective and looks more like crowd marketing. I classified this method as white, since in this case spam in comments or other actions that are useless for users are not supposed.

Gray methods

Cheat bots or cheat with offers

Catching bots into the community can be quick and relatively cheap. Offers (people who subscribe, like, etc.) will cost more, but in both cases, the effectiveness of this method of SMM promotion will be low, since you will not get targeted subscribers.

The plus is that on social networks, one of the ranking factors is the number of subscribers. For example, VKontakte will always show the groups and communities with the most participants in the first places. The downside is that using this method can block your community, offers are banned less often than bots, but there are complaints about this on thematic forums. Commercial communities are more at risk.

Spam in comments or private messages

Spam is prohibited by the rules of any social network, spammer accounts are quickly banned, but this method is much better than the previous one. Just because you spam with links to your community, if a person subscribes, it means that he is at least interested in it. That is, you can get some kind of audience.

You can write to private messages, but today it is less and less effective. Firstly, users are increasingly closed private messages from strangers, and secondly, after several complaints about spam, the account will be blocked. In some social networks, it can be quickly unblocked, here you can study the rules of social networks.

Massfollowing

Massfollowing is a subscription to users in the hope that they will subscribe in return. The method is relevant, first of all, for Instagram, where it is one of the main in promotion. It is possible to use this method in other social networks, where fake pages of people are created for this, who are massively added to friends, and then offer to subscribe to the pages.

Black methods

Black methods usually violate not only social media rules, but also constitute a criminal offense. For example, here spam is made from hacked accounts, and links are sent by friends who trust the sender much more in this case.

Black methods of SMM promotion are associated with hacking accounts or with the vulnerabilities of the social networks themselves. I do not recommend using them.