Nearly five billion people use social media platforms worldwide, and marketers know that managing their brand’s social media presence and interactions is a critical priority. Part of that is knowing your audience and how to market to them effectively. Establishing your brand through social media and creating loyal customers increases your bottom line.
Earning a Master of Business Administration (MBA) with a concentration in marketing positions you as a leader in any organization and equips you to identify marketing insights, create actionable business plans, and apply strategies in digital marketing for both business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) environments. The online MBA with Marketing Concentration program from Emporia State University (ESU) helps you develop leadership skills, business knowledge, and marketing savvy.
Social Media Marketing Today
Social media marketing has evolved and no longer involves just random posts from your business account. Brands that understand the power of social media to reach their intended audience, establish a loyal customer base, and market effectively to them take social media marketing seriously.
Business profiles on social media platforms are a crucial part of your brand’s identity and need to be maintained, optimized, monitored, and active. Creating a content calendar with text, images, videos, and stories helps create timeless content — but that is not the whole picture. Your social media presence means addressing and resolving questions, comments, and consumer issues in real time.
Connecting and interacting with customers, partners, influencers, and related content creators helps reinforce the image of a business that is engaged, current, and human. This involves liking and following appropriate content, sharing links, building relationships, and making sure not to look like an automated marketing bot.
Strategies in Social Media Marketing
Not all social media platforms may fit your brand, so it’s vital to explore the popular options to see which ones help you connect the most effectively with your target audience. It’s better to have a strong, active presence on a couple of platforms than a weak, generic presence on many of them.
Social media platforms allow you to build brand awareness, gain followers, generate leads, and increase sales. Facebook, Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and TikTok are seven main platforms that appeal to distinctly different audiences. According to Sprout Social, you should focus your social media strategy with these statistics in mind:
- Sixty-eight percent of consumers follow brands on social to stay informed on new products or services, 46% want access to exclusive deals or promotions, and 45% of people follow brands to see entertaining content they post.
- Over half (53%) of consumers say their social media usage has been higher in the last two years than in the previous two years, and 78% of consumers agree that a brand’s social media presence greatly affects their trust in the brand.
- Only 30% of marketers say their brand actively engages with customers on social media. In fact, 71% of business leaders agree that most companies aren’t doing a great job on customer service and care with their social media presence.
Tracking engagement on social media is key to understanding your business’s performance. When you can see which posts generate interest and gather likes, you better understand your audience and present them with more content they like. For example, consumers do not often like brands that post only promotional content. They want to see educational content, informational content, user-generated content, and customer testimonials.
Additionally, social commerce is on the rise, and more people are buying directly from a brand’s social channel. Younger consumers, especially, like purchasing products directly through social media. With 80% of consumers making buying decisions based on a friend’s social media post, virtual word of mouth is a powerful marketing tool. Given this, consumers like to leave product or service reviews, so managing your business’s review strategy is crucial. Eighty-five percent of consumers say that customer reviews are influencing their purchase decisions, per Sprout Social. Engaging with reviews and addressing positive and negative feedback can help strengthen brand loyalty.
Social listening can help your brand discover content that needs a response so you can actively answer questions, manage your community, and help keep negativity at bay. Whether a user tags your brand or mentions it by name, it’s important to be aware and respond quickly.
Earn Your Online MBA in Marketing From Emporia State University
The online MBA in Marketing program from ESU is AACSB-accredited and prepares you to be an astute marketing leader. You’ll acquire the knowledge and skills to operate successfully and effectively in the digital marketplace.
In addition to business courses on economics, financial management, information systems, business policy, and more, you will also study marketing analytics, electronic marketing, and consumer behavior. ESU’s program sets graduates up to be successful marketing professionals in the digital-focused, media-heavy world.
Learn more about Emporia State University’s online MBA with Marketing Concentration program.
