The role of social media in the world is growing year by year. It’s involvement and integration methods are constantly changing and one needs to keep their hand on the pulse of social media to catch up on everything that is going on there.
The number of people using social media daily is growing, which means that companies should adapt their products and customer approach according to modern customers’ needs and requirements. What are potential customers’ needs and requirements? Comfort and putting less effort is what they need.
Social media integration is a huge opportunity for your audience to engage and interact with your brand. It’s becoming more likely that they will share your content and promote your products. With the help of some essential tools you’ll be able to integrate social media with your email, website, and pages on various platforms.
As you see, social media integration plays a huge role in interacting and working together with your viewers.
What Is Social Media Integration?
Social media integration can be considered a whole new science of extending your marketing methods by redirecting your social media followers to your website/application/page and making your social platforms more accessible to your target audience and customers.
Source: AQUSAG Technologies
In the beginning you will need to build a website or create an application, then think thoroughly about social media marketing integration.
After having built the website, page or application, you will be able to define your target market, expand the reach of your content and integrate your marketing tools, making them more powerful in terms of lead generation and sales. The most popular social media platforms used for marketing and promotion are:
- Youtube
- TikTok
This number is growing constantly, with TikTok being the most recent addition.
Nowadays companies do everything to ensure an improved digital customer experience, considering people would better visit a basic website that might give them all the information they need. Integrating social media into your website can enhance the visitor’s experience and make it more interesting and interactive for them. People opt for interactive and educational content, as well as expect to have instant communication with brands on social media. Other well known brands are also using advance mediums such as international phone numbers to provide instant support to their buyers across all geographies
Currently, over 80% of small and big businesses all over the world are leveraging the power of social media to make their business popular.
Why Is Social Media Integration Important?
The importance of social media platforms in our lives is currently hard to overestimate. And, it has long become more than a place to keep in touch with your loved ones: social media has long turned into product discovery platforms and a place where people interact with brands. It’s no wonder that more and more companies are investing in social media management as a primary way of promotion.
Below, we take a look at why social media integration is important.
- People-first social media is essential
Two-way communication is key to success in boosting your organic posts to the top of social feeds. As we know, the algorithm delivers relevant content to all users alongside paid ads. So, an engaged online community who likes your content through likes, comments, and most importantly shares can help you out by amplifying your content.
Many businesses also use social media to acquire customer feedback and opinions which helps improve overall business. Keep this also in the center of your advertising strategies, trying to keep your ads as humane as possible.
- Following You Will Become Easier
With the abundance of available brands, you need to always be in front of your customers, otherwise, you risk being forgotten. Here’s where social media comes into play: when people have the “Follow” button right in front of them, they will get encouraged to hit it. This is crucial as people will very rarely be motivated to visit your website. Social media allows you to always reach them where they are more active.
However, it’s important to not concentrate on the follower count of your accounts. A smaller number of active followers can generate more sales than a large number of inactive or fake Instagram followers, which can even hurt your account, artificially reducing the engagement rate. Don't buy fake followers, using an Instagram growth service is a much better way to get more followers for your account. Keep track of your Instagram followers count history to make sure that your fanbase is growing steadily.
Strategies to Succeed With Your Social Media Integration
Integrating social media to your website can have numerous benefits for your brand, from increased traffic to higher engagement. However, it's very important that you do this correctly. Below, we discuss several strategies you can use for seamless integration.
- Create A Social Log In Action
You have certainly entered a website that asked for login via your Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, and other accounts. These are called social logins, which save our time and patience. Aren’t they perfect?
According to a survey by Hootsuite, most users prefer to login using their Google accounts. 70.99% of users surveyed preferred Google, while only 20% preferred Facebook, and 9.3% of people preferred to log in via Twitter.
So, social media accounts are much easier to log in than creating an entirely new profile, a password, then having to save it somewhere to not forget it. This makes sense, right? After all these procedures, a confirmation letter is coming to one’s personal email and they have to log in one more time when they’re done.
In the case of social logins, things are easier: you just transfer the information from one platform to another. It’s done in just a few clicks and that’s it. This simplicity comes in handy especially in the case of eCommerce platforms, as it both increases trust towards your store and improves the chances of scoring a sale.
- Add Social Sharing Links
Source: EmailDesign
Social share buttons you see on the backside of the weblog posts play an essential role in getting closer to more audiences. They help raise awareness of your content material, and in case readers like it, they use the perfect method of sharing your content with others. It works like a chain. This method has proved to serve as a free-of-charge advertisement.
Choose a few platforms which can be related to your content style and show them. Keep them targeted on the sharable items, e.g. weblog posts, articles etc.
Both practices have proved effective, whether to position them at the beginning or at the bottom of your web page.
- Use Social Media Buttons In Your Email Marketing
Email marketing is still one of the most powerful marketing tools out there. So, if you have an email database, it is a great idea to use it to keep in touch with your audience with the help of email marketing software. Just adding some social sharing buttons can boost email click-through rate. Social media buttons provide a secondary CTA in emails. Your primary call to action may be making a purchase, registering for an event etc.
On the background there are normally the following two buttons:
Follow: This icon takes your audience to your social media pages in order to like your Facebook page or follow your Instagram, Twitter accounts.
Share: This icon offers the readers the option to share a specific piece of content, e.g. Tweet a story or Pin a picture.
- Where to Place Social Media Buttons
The best practice is to put your social media follow icons at the header or footer of your email. Keeping your icons in those two spots of your email makes it intuitive for readers to locate. Of course, it is quite important that these icons are consistently placed where they won’t interrupt the flow of content in the main part of the message.
The main goal of your email is to get readers to take action on your primary CTA, for example, register for a seminar, or sign up at your website. The key focus isn’t for a reader to follow you on Facebook, so don’t let any other CTAs stand in the main CTA’s way.
Here is an example of an email from MOO, a business card design company.
Source: EmailDesign
Social media icons are mainly placed at the bottom of the email, after the main CTA button, so that they do not dominate each other. This is done to ensure that your email is clutter-free.
According to Email Design, people generally read the information in an “F” shape, starting in the upper left-hand corner then moving horizontally downwards. So the information in the top right is usually read. While the next line is read uncarefully and finally people stick to the bottom of the page.
Additionally, make sure your emails are secure with SPF record tools to prevent hackers from accessing your data. Since you’re also using social media buttons, it’s essential to keep everything at a professional level.
Create a Social Media Integration Budget
When planning your social media integration strategy, you need to create a social media integration budget. You need to understand how much you can dedicate to your social media integration campaign and what results to expect from it. If you've already created a social media budget, it could be an excellent place to start. Analyze it to understand how much you've spent, how you've spent it, and what the outcomes were.
Social Media Budget Plan
While being free tools in themselves, having smoothly operating social media accounts come with costs, and you should be aware of this. Here are several aspects of social media that will require budget allocation.
Content creation
On social media, content has always played and still plays a key role. Many social marketers spend a huge portion of their social media campaign budget on quality content creation. Costs will vary according to the final result you want to achieve. You may start with photos and graphics from a free website, in which case you can budget $0 for photos.
Alongside pictures and videos, writing is of huge importance. It is especially crucial for the short character counts of social media posts and ads: as every word counts. Unless you have an in-house social media management team, chances are, you’ll have to find freelance copywriters or agencies or writing service, who will charge you depending on your needs.
Software And Tools
COVID-19 modified the way individuals work together with companies, so it is quite important that the audience is given extra methods to work with. From teams spread around the world to the wider use of electronic signature tools to organize paperwork, everything is different.
Your social media budget will likely include collaboration and product management tools, social media management tools, social media monitoring tools, competitive analysis tools, social advertising tools, social customer service tools, social media analytics tools, and, of course, design and editing tools.
Influencer Marketing
A good way to expand the reach of your social content is a collaboration with influencers. You have to consider both: the amount of money you’ll spend to boost Influencer posts and the money you’ll pay the content creators.
The costs of Influencer campaigns vary from person to person, but the basic formula for calculating influencer rates is $100 x 10,000 followers + extras. However, this is very individual and varies greatly from influencer to influencer.
What comes to finding the right influencer, platforms like Upfluence allow you to look and find social media influencers that fit right with your brand and reach out to them for cooperation.
How To Create A Social Media Budget Plan
Creating a social media budget plan may seem a little overwhelming if you are doing it for the first time. Luckily, it’s not as hard as it may seem! Below are several steps you should follow to make the process of social media budget calculation as smooth as possible.
- Set Specific Goals
Your goals should be SMART: specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely. Specific goals tied to measurable results will allow you to understand the value of social media, so you can determine an appropriate amount to spend for each desirable result.
- Brainstorm with Your Team Members
Whatever you consider absolutely true can be different on the other side of the medal. Look at one and the same goal or decision from different angles. Organize team-building activities, meetings, seminars. Let everyone speak up. Take meeting notes in order to make your communication as efficient as possible. Include as many parties as possible to have a colorful view of the situation.
- Create A Social Media Strategy
Decide a strategy you want your product to be directed through. Analyze the amounts of money you have spent and the efforts you want to make to achieve the goals set in step one. You can decide a reasonable amount to spend on each part of your strategy and start.
- Podcasts
You can even start a podcast about a specific topic and engage your potential customers. This is an effective method of creating a genuine bond with your audience. Just like a blog, you will need to have a clear concept and base your podcasts on it. After having chosen the topic, you will then need to think of a fixed format and acquire necessary equipment.
Podcasting is often viewed as a job or just a hobby. You can set your publishing schedule depending on your personal preference and just start!
Cross Channel Marketing
Cross-channel marketing is a digital marketing technique that provides customers with a sophisticated brand interaction across several digital channels. It is a strategic part of social media integration as it helps design your marketing strategy and create customers’ journeys.
A cross-channel marketing strategy can seem risky from first sight. Several channels need to be taken into account while designing your campaigns. You should keep track of each and every campaign and analyze them.
To create a winning cross-channel marketing strategy, there are several things that you will need.
- Define your buyer persona
Whether you are selling electric skateboards or offer online programming courses, you should gather buyer persona information concerning customers’ preferences, behaviors, buying habits, and preferred communication types. If you already have a following on social media, you can use social listening to achieve this.
Observe your buyers. Go through the entire user experience yourself, from the start to the final payment. This will help you figure out what you need to offer to your customers.
- Align Content With A Specific Buyer’s Journey
Each customer should be treated differently. Consider the content, all the steps a person passes before reaching the final point. So, your content strategy needs to align well with all buyers’ journeys.
- Develop A Customer Retention Strategy
Social media platforms help you take advantage of visuals to engage with your audience. You can divert your traffic to other channels and define your buyer personas. Being constantly present on social media is important to build a powerful cross-channel marketing strategy.
Often, businesses spend more resources in acquiring new customers than finding unique, innovative strategies to better engage with their existing customers. Therefore, it’s important to come up with an effective customer retention strategy to ensure the sustainable growth of your business and help to strengthen customer loyalty.
Source: Qminder
- Invest In Customer Support
Customer support is no longer only the phone call service it used to be. Today, with the abundance of digital means of communication, customers simply expect companies to provide support, be it through email marketing, phone, or social media channels. Many brands, large and small, have realized the importance of customer support and are ready to invest in cloud phone systems to be available all around the globe. Amazon, one of the largest companies in the world, is known first of all because of the superior support team! Support team is very professional and cooperative. They will guide you step by step how much does it cost to sell on amazon. They will tell you Amazon competitor analysis with exact stats which will play a vital role to start your business in Amazon. Running an Amazon competitor analysis is crucial to your success in the marketplace. Using a framework to monitor your competitors’ efforts is a great way to ensure you can beat them at their own game.
Therefore, providing support is no longer a nice-to-have addition to your company, but a must for resolving all of your customers’ problems to improve their satisfaction efficiently.
- Analyze the insights of your findings
Ask yourself whether your social media strategy supports the web strategy or whether you are targeting the right audience on each channel. Taking your time to develop strategic implementation methods you will then incorporate can help your brand outperform competitors by as much as 60%, based on research by FactoHR. So, choose between social platforms. When all channels are well-integrated together, customer experience gets better.
- Explore SEO
While SEO is not part of Social Media Marketing perse, it still plays a huge role in it. Having a well-established social presence helps the overall rankings of your website, resulting in more traffic and conversions. Checking website rankings will give you a clear idea of where your website stands, and tools like Google Analytics will give you an idea of how much traffic you receive from social platforms.
- Cross-Platform Solutions
Smartphones use different operating systems and allow users to choose the platform that better caters to their needs and preferences.
Does this mean that you need to create multiple versions of the same app? No. Here cross-platform app development tools change things by providing the functionality necessary to create and maintain a single universal codebase.
Cross-platform solutions have proven to have major advantages and have overcome the disadvantages that come along. Some of the benefits include quick app development time, low costs, easier maintenance, and having the same consistency in UI/UX on both platforms.
Create A Budget Proposal
Once you know what your benchmarks and goals are, you need to start working on your budget proposal. Depending on the marketing strategies you want to implement, such as SEO, Email marketing, etc., decide which part of your overall marketing budget you will allocate to social media integration strategy. Then, based on that, create an integration strategy tailored to your needs and budget.
What should your social media integration budget include?
- Category: Create a section for each of the relevant items: content creation, software, learning resources, etc. Then break it down into specific line items for each individual expense.
- Spend-per-item: For each category, you need to mention all internal and outsourced costs to indicate a total spend. List this as both a total dollar figure and a percentage of your total budget.
- One-time or ongoing expense: It’s a good idea to note both one-time and ongoing expenses. For example, if you need to buy some machinery for long-term use, it is considered a one-time expense.
Next, don’t forget about security. As the world is witnessing a shift from cash to digital payments, the number of digital payment options has started to grow. This has opened new opportunities for many brands and businesses to operate.
However, this has also resulted in more situations of data and security breaches and even theft. Because of this, many businesses are switching to cryptocurrency payments because of their security and safety. Litecoin is one of the best options to safely transfer funds that you can use. This is one of the ways you can take steps to ensure the protection of your personal data. As more and more brands start to accept it, cryptocurrencies will soon become one of the most common digital payment methods.
If you are using a number of digital currencies, consider using a portfolio tracker as a crypto exchange platform where you can safely exchange, buy, and sell a wide variety of coins.
Common Social Media Integration Mistakes To Avoid
Source: Coding Corner
Mistakes and failures are natural for everyone. Let’s cover some common ones that you need to avoid:
- Not defining your target audience. As it has already been mentioned, not everyone on social media will fit your brand. Defining your target audience will let you concentrate your social media marketing efforts on those people. Otherwise, you lose time, effort, and money.
- Not engaging in conversations. If no one comments or shares your posts, your content is all a waste of time. So you should take time to create content that people want to engage with - content that gives birth to conversations. If your updates get no reactions, perhaps you should change your content strategy. And when you get engagement from your audience, be sure to answer back. A conversation is a two-way street.
- Relying too much on automation. Automation plays a crucial role in the contemporary world, but it does not solve any problem. If you become too dependent on automation, you might lose the human touch around which your brand persona thrives for. Only automation with no human touch can result in embarrassing, emotional moments.
- Not tracking analytics. As it has been noted above, reports should be a living document. For you to improve the tracking section, you need to find good analytics tools and assess your performance, pros, and cons. Track the analytics and create targeted marketing strategies in order to improve the quality of your brand. Understand what is going on with the website’s rankings and the growth of SEO results.
So, social media integration is a trendy marketing tool that helps you use social channels as an expansion of your existing branding and marketing strategies. Social media integration also helps promote brand awareness and increases your marketing campaign visibility.
Businesses that do not use the chance of interacting in specific social platforms risk missing out on new prospects and leveraging their online presence. On the brighter side, social media integrations with your website help engage with your audience, generate more traffic and improve your followership.
Final Thoughts
Over the past several years, share buttons on emails, articles and websites have become the new normal. From "follow us on Facebook!" on a company website to live Twitter feeds on a blog sidebar, digital marketers have incorporated social media integration as a simple, tactful marketing practice.
Therefore, social media integration plays a key role in the modern social media world because it gives your website visitors a simple and fast method to connect with your brand on their preferred channel. The easier it is for your customers to interact with your brand, the more memorable your brand will become.