If you are into digital marketing and often need to deal with social media projects, you must agree that it remains the main concern for all clients: “How much time does social media need to show results?” Of course, the question is not valid for time-bound social media campaigns like events, contests and sweepstakes. But for projects like bringing brand awareness into existence or creating a sales funnel, clients always come up with this query first, if not anything else.
So, how much time do you need to show results? 3 months? 6 months?
Well, the right answer would be “It depends.”
It depends on one rule of thumb: Follow the best practices to show faster results. Now the question is, what are those best practices?
Let’s talk about some of them.
Have the right strategy in place:
You need to understand that every business is unique in its own way, so should be it’s strategy. A good strategy is the pillar of any successful campaign and social media marketing is not an exception. Think of all aspects before creating one. Consider niche, target audience, frequency of original and curated updates, relevance of chosen networks etc. If you manage to sketch it effectively, half the job is done!
Create compelling content:
On social media marketing, you need to create engaging, informational and entertaining content, no matter what your niche is. Remember, nobody wants to read boring stuff on the internet, even if he belongs to the most serious one of all professions. Offer value to your readers’ time. The more you do it, the faster rewards you get.
Less is more:
When it comes to social media marketing, the mantra for success is “Less is more” . According to expandedramblings, the second most common reason for a Facebook user to unlike a page is too many posts a day. In terms of network selection as well, you need to cut down on the excess tires. Opt for those channels and tools, which are manageable and feasible, based on the hour and money spent on the project.
Decide your brand’s voice and tone:
According to Kevan Lee, the Content Crafter of Buffer App, a brand’s voice and tone are two separate things. Lee said that voice is “your brand personality described in an adjective. For instance, brands can be lively, positive, cynical, or professional.” On the other hand, he described tone as “a subset of your brand’s voice. Tone adds specific flavor to your voice based on factors like audience, situation, and channel.”
Here is an explainer image for your better understanding.
Invest to get return:
Social media indeed is a crowded place, but not for a new or a lesser-known brand. If a brand needs success on social media, he needs to invest a few bucks, at least in the initial stage. It’s just to build a strong community around the brand, which will play a bigger role later, in terms of creating word-of-mouth and generating user-generated content.
When it comes to running ads for building a strong follower-base on social media, you need to target the people, who would matter to your business or would be interested to your product or service. Else, your hard-earned money will be drained for no reason.
Apart from that, there are a few factors, which play a fairly decent role in determining how fast your social media efforts will show results. They are:
Likability factor of your brand: Some niches are closer to mass and it plays a major role in social media marketing. For an instance, a restaurant or an entertainment website or a lifestyle brand takes off better than a heavy machinery brand or a law firm or a shade sails brand.
You also can say that the first group makes general light conversations and belongs to the mass-oriented category while the latter is an interest or necessity oriented narrow group. You can show good results in the initial 3 months for the first group, since you can set your target broadly and easily.
You will face more challenges to create a social media fan-base for the second category. It may take 6 to 9 months to show a significant growth. However, since it would be a narrow-targeted group, the engagement is expected to be higher, provided you are doing everything right.
Popularity of your brand: The offline popularity of a brand also plays a pivotal role in social media success. For example, if Levi’s introduced a new clothing line on social media, it would take up faster than a new and unknown brand. So, trustworthiness and reliability is also important.
B2C performs better than B2B: And again, if you cater to people and are a consumer brand, you would connect with your target group more easily and faster than a B2B business. For B2C, 6 months is a fair time to show some tangible results, unline B2B, where it might just take a year.
Conclusion
What you should do: As explained above, social media may take some time to work for you. However, if you need faster result, you may want to try different segments of digital marketing like PPC or email campaigns.
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