Social Media Marketing 101: Learn What It is + History of Social Media
With the recent popularity of The Social Dilemma and over three billion social media users worldwide, it’s clear that social media is shaping our society.
If you’re anything like over half of the world’s population, chances are you’re on at least one social media platform.
But what does this mean for business owners and marketers?
For starters, it means it’s time to hone in on your social media marketing strategy. But in today’s ever-changing society, that’s easier said than done.
With loads of social networks to choose from, you may be wondering which social platforms to focus your marketing efforts on or the types of content you should be sharing with your audience.
It’s a competitive landscape and marketers are vying to capture the attention of users across the globe.
To have a chance at standing out from the noise, you have to be strategic and forward-thinking when it comes to crafting your social media marketing strategy.
But before we dive into the best social media marketing strategies, let’s start with the basics of what social media marketing is and how it has evolved over the past decade or so.
What is Social Media Marketing?
Social media marketing is the use of social platforms (such as Facebook or Instagram) to promote your products or services.
With the average person spending an average of 2.5 hours on social media applications and 54% of social browsers using social media to research products. It’s a no-brainer that it’s one piece of the marketing puzzle that should not be ignored.
Social media marketing can be used to achieve many objectives from increased brand awareness and web traffic to simply engaging with your customers (and prospective customers) in a meaningful way.
All of which can also result in higher conversions and more sales, making it a win-win for your efforts.
The caveat? No two platforms are the same, meaning that each will need its own unique strategy in order to be successful.
Take Pinterest for example, an image-heavy search engine platform:
Obviously, the content you share on Pinterest isn’t going to work for YouTube, a video dominant platform.
The plus side? It’s likely you won’t need to be on every single platform in order to be efficient with meeting your social media marketing goals.
Later, we’ll cover the different types of social media marketing and an overview of the main platforms used today, as well as tips to build your social media strategy.
But first, let’s take a quick tour of the history of social media marketing and how it has evolved over the years.
History of Social Media Marketing
Did you know that Myspace was actually not the first social media platform to exist?
Believe it or not, social media networks date back to the 1990s, with Six Degrees actually being the first to set the stage.
Let’s take a look at where it all began and how social media has evolved since its inception.
1997: Six Degrees
In 1997, the first known social media site, Six Degrees, was born. In a nutshell, this social media site allowed users to upload photos and connect with others the way many social platforms do today.
As you’ll see below, their slogan was “you’re only six degrees away from everyone…” (hence the name, six degrees)
No comments: