Category: Marketing Automation

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In our recent Marketing Trends survey, we learned that social media is the most effective channel marketers leverage, as well as the channel they use most.
But the world of social media is constantly evolving, with new features coming out every month, constant algorithm updates, and disruptive social apps changing the way we communicate.
To get the most out of your social media strategy, it’s critical to keep up with these changes.
The pace of social media can be intimidating. But, the great news is that with change comes opportunities for you to tap into exciting new marketing strategies and help your company grow better.
To help professionals just like you, we surveyed 310 social media marketers across B2B and B2C industries in the United States to find out:

Which social media platforms marketers leverage.
What types of content they’re posting (and what generates the most ROI).
Which formats they use.
The best time and day of the week to post.
What sets effective and ineffective marketers apart.

Without further ado, let’s dive into some data that will help your social media strategy stay up-to-date as we jump into the new year.

2022 Social Media Marketing Trends Survey Key Findings

Facebook is the most used social media platform and has the highest ROI, engagement, and highest quality leads.
Funny, interactive, and relatable content, as well as content that reflects a brand’s values, performs best on social media and will see increased investment from marketers in 2022.
Short-form video is the most popular and effective social media format and will see significant growth in 2022.
When it comes to partnering with influencers, followers aren’t everything. Marketers are placing an emphasis on quality of content, engagement rates, and alignment with values before considering follower count.
Overall, social media marketers located in EST say the best time to post is 6-9PM, while marketers in PST consider the 3-6PM window to be best. 
The most popular demographics social media marketers target are Millennials (25-40), followed by Gen X (41-56), Gen Z (6-24), and lastly, Baby Boomers (57-75).
Younger audiences prefer shorter video content that is funny, trendy, and reflects a brand’s values, while baby boomers prefer interactive/educational content, such as interviews, podcasts, expert discussions and/or live videos.
Nearly two-thirds of marketers are building social media communities, and this number will grow in 2022. .
Social media marketers search for new or emerging platforms/features to leverage often, and the top features they invested in this year are Twitter Spaces, YouTube Shorts, and Instagram Shops.

The Top Social Media Platforms of 2022
There are many factors that go into determining which social media platforms you should consider in 2022. While below we highlight a list of the most used platforms in 2022, here’s a quick graphic with quick stats on a few of the platforms you might want to watch as they grow and evolve in the coming year.
Download Image as File
The Most Used Social Media Marketing Platforms
1. Facebook
Facebook is used the most, has the highest ROI and engagement of any social platform, as well as the highest quality leads.
One in four social media marketers plan to invest more in Facebook than any other platform in 2022, and it is the platform marketers buy paid ads on the most.
2. YouTube
YouTube comes in second for usage, engagement, and ROI, but it’s the number one platform marketers plan to invest in for the first time this year.
On top of the fact that one in five social media marketers plan to invest the most in YouTube this year, the platform will continue to grow along with the use of video content.
3. TikTok
TikTok is only used by one-third of social media marketers. Although these marketers report low ROI and engagement levels compared to other platforms, 52% of those who use TikTok plan to increase their investment this year, tied with Twitter for the highest increase of any platform.
4. Twitter
Twitter is used by about half of social media marketers and comes in third for engagement and ROI.
52% of those who use it plan to increase their investment this year, and 16% of all social media marketers plan to invest more in Twitter than any other platform in 2022.
5. Instagram
Instagram is leveraged by 45% of social media marketers, coming in 4th for usage, ROI, and engagement.
However, Instagram comes in second place for generating the highest quality leads. And,
the platform is set to grow in 2022, with 40% of marketers planning to use it for the first time and 15% planning to invest more in Instagram than any other platform.
6. LinkedIn
LinkedIn has become host to lots of B2B marketing and expert thought leadership over the past few year. It’s unique professional social media experience is likely why it’s leveraged by more than one-third of social media marketers. In 2022, LinkedIn marketing will only grow with 38% planning to use it for the first time.
Which platforms will see less investment in 2022?
You may also be wondering which social platforms marketers plan to reduce their investment in this year.
Clubhouse, Snapchat, and Reddit are the top platforms marketers plan to decrease their investment in for 2022.
Although Clubhouse was a viral app in 2021 — and offered marketers a new way to connect with consumers — this expected dip in investment could be due to the platform’s brand challenges. For example, Clubhouse offers minimal advertising opportunities or ways to share outside content or URLs, because of this, it will yield less ROI to brands than platforms like Facebook where advertising and link-sharing opportunities are always growing.
Not to mention, like many viral social media apps, Clubhouse has gotten some tough competition from social media channels owned by larger corporations like Twitter, Meta (formerly Facebook), and LinkedIn which could have social media marketing managers considering these options as those platforms are much more familiar to them. 

While Snapchat and Reddit have also hosted viral content in the past, they too cater to more niche audiences and consumers looking to avoid ads and branded content, which could cause more ROI-generation challenges than the most-used social media platforms. Like Clubhouse, they have also had a more difficult time competing with larger social media channels to win over brands.
Think one of the three platforms we just mentioned should still be part of your strategy? Don’t panic!
It’s important to remember that what works for your brand might not be what works for everyone else. And, while many marketers might not see their bottom line impacted by evolving platforms like Clubhouse, Reddit, and Snapchat just yet, that doesn’t mean no marketer ever has or will benefit from using them.
Ultimately, you’ll need to build your strategy around your audience and brand and take steps to determine which channels are best for you. 

4 Content Types Social Media Marketers Will Lean Into in 2022
1. Value-based Content
Content that reflects your brand’s values is the most popular type of content among social media marketers right now and has the 3rd highest ROI of any content type.
This type of content will see more investment from users in 2022, with 95% of those who leverage it planning on increasing or maintaining their investment, and 21% planning to use this type of content for the first time.
Additionally, we found that social media marketers who say their social media strategy has been effective in 2021 are 21% more likely to leverage content that reflects their brand’s values than those who reported an ineffective social media strategy last year

2. Funny Content
Funny content is tied with interactive content at #2 in terms of usage by social media marketers.
However, funny content has the highest ROI and is the most effective content type. The use of funny content will continue to grow in 2022, with 33% of all social media marketers planning to invest more in funny content than any other format.
Additionally, 95% of those who use funny content will increase or maintain their investment, while 56% of those who don’t leverage it plan to use it for the first time in 2022.
3. Interactive Content
Interactive content is #2 when it comes to usage, ROI, and effectiveness and will grow significantly in 2022.
97% of those who leverage it plan to invest more or maintain their investment this year, while 49% of those who don’t plan to use it for the first time in 2022.
On top of all that, we found that social media marketers who say their social media strategy has been effective in 2021 are 25% more likely to leverage interactive content than those who reported an ineffective social media strategy last year.

4. Relatable Content
Relatable content is currently leveraged by 39% of social media marketers and will see increased investment among current users as well as first-time users.
93% of marketers who leverage relatable content plan to increase their investment or continue investing the same amount in 2022 and 54% of social media marketers who don’t leverage it are planning to for the first time this year.

The Top Content Formats for Social Media Marketing
1. Short-Form Video
Short-form video is the most popular and effective social media format and will see significant growth in 2022.
50% of social media marketers plan to leverage short-form video for the first time this year, and 95% of those who already use it will increase or maintain their investment.
On top of that, 26% of all social media marketers plan to invest more in short-form videos than any other format this year.
Building a video strategy for 2022 and not sure which platforms to share it on? Check out this data on the best social platforms for video or watch the video below to learn more about short, or snackable, content.

2. Live Video
Live video is No. 2 when it comes to usage and effectiveness, and will continue to grow in 2022.
43% of social media marketers plan to leverage it for the first time this year, and 66% of those who already use it plan to increase their investment next year, the highest increase of any format.
3. Audio Chat Rooms
While marketers are still easing on to platforms like Clubhouse and Twitter Spaces, this doesn’t mean they have no interest in the audio experience. Audio chat rooms rank third in usage and effectiveness, though social media marketers report low ROI.
However, 44% plan to invest in live audio for the first time in 2022, and 17% of marketers plan on investing more into live audio than any other content format.
Social Media Strategies
This section will go over a wide range of social media metrics, from the best time and day to post on social media, to which metrics marketers use to measure the ROI of their campaigns, and much more.

The Best Times to Post on Social Media
73% of marketers say their company has a posting schedule or calendar for social media marketing. While tools like TK, TK, and TK can help the social media marketers we surveyed in building out an effective scheduling strategy, it’s also helpful to know the best times to post social media content to optimize likes, clicks, and other engagements.
Overall, social media marketers located in Eastern Standard Time say the best time to post is 6-9PM, while marketers in Pacific Standard Time consider the 3-6PM window to be best. 9-12PM and 12-3PM are also popular times to post.
Keep in mind that while all of these times can work, the best time will ultimately depend on when your audience is most active on the platform, so make sure to look at your insights when deciding when to post. You can also run your own tests to see which posting time results in the most engagement.
Speaking of platforms, the best time to post can vary based on which one you are using. Here’s a breakdown of the top three times to post for each platform:

Facebook: 6-9PM,  3-6PM, and  9-12PM
YouTube: 6-9PM, 3-6PM, and 12-3PM
Twitter: 6-9PM, 3-6PM, and 12-3PM
Instagram: 6-9PM, 3-6PM, and 9-12PM
LinkedIn: 6-9PM, 3-6PM, and 12-3PM
TikTok: 6-9PM, 3-6PM, and 12-3PM

When it comes to the most engaging days of the week, social media marketers say Friday, Saturday, and Sunday are the best days to post across social media platforms.
Documenting and Templating Social Media Strategies
Much like posting schedules, more than two-thirds of marketers say their company has a documented social media strategy. If you need help getting started, check out these templates.
Below are some of the top questions social media marketers ask themselves when building out a social media strategy and our data-backed guidance around them:

1. Which metrics should I use to measure the ROI of my social media marketing campaigns?
Measuring ROI is one of the biggest challenges marketers anticipate in 2022. With more data available to us than ever before, it can be hard to zero in on the metrics that are most important.
According to social media marketers, website traffic is the most important metric when measuring ROI of social media campaigns, followed by

impressions/views
clicks
sales/conversions
likes/comments

2. How do I know if I should keep using a platform for social media marketing?
Believe it or not, the biggest challenge marketers anticipate struggling with in 2022 is determining which platform to market their brand on.
If you are one of those marketers, you may be wondering what metrics you should be looking at when deciding whether to continue leveraging a social channel.
Coming in at number one is impressions/views, followed by sales, then subscriber/follower count, website traffic, and clicks.

3. Which new or emerging platforms or features are marketers investing in for 2022?
With new social media platforms popping up every few months, it can be overwhelming to keep up with all of them while also managing your active campaigns.
Nevertheless, you might be wondering which new platforms marketers plan to invest in this year, how often you should be searching for new platforms to leverage, and when you do find a promising opportunity, how do you determine whether it is worth your time and investment? Let’s break it down.

Twitter Spaces is a new live audio feature on the already popular Twitter platform, so it’s no surprise that 39% of marketers invested in it in 2021, the highest of any platform. Twitter Spaces is also the #1 new feature marketers plan to invest in more than any other in 2022.

YouTube Shorts is widely considered YouTube’s response to TikTok and 31% of marketers invested in it in 2021, with 15% of marketers planning to invest more in Shorts than any other new feature next year.

Instagram Shops is the 3rd most popular new feature marketers invested in last year, with 30% of social media marketers giving it a try in 2021.

Emerging Social Channels and Features That are Losing Steam
When it comes to reducing their investment, social media marketers are pulling back on lesser-known live audio platforms as more established ones like Twitter begin to incorporate live audio features.
In 2022, marketers plan to stop their investment in live audio platforms like Spoon, Discord, Spotify Greenroom, and Riffr.  These platforms all involve live streaming and audio discussions, adding to the over-crowded audio social market. While the saturation of this social media category could be one issue causing stagnant marketing growth, these platforms could also host similar niche audiences or low-ROI challenges like Clubhouse. 
How often do marketers search for new platforms to leverage?
Marketers search for new platforms often, with 29% searching once a month, followed by 22% searching once a week and 20% searching multiple times a week. 14% search once a quarter, 4% search once per year, and only 1% never search for new platforms.
So if you aren’t currently setting aside a small chunk of time to search for new platforms, you run the risk of missing out on a new and exciting opportunity. But once you find something, how do you determine if it’s worth the investment?
How do marketers determine if a new platform is worth investing in?
Marketers determine which social media platforms are worth investing in based on the potential for driving traffic to their website, then the potential for lead generation, followed by the potential audience reach, the cost of paid ads, the cost of influencer partnerships, and the demographic makeup of the platform’s users.
Social Media Demographics
When we asked social media marketers about the age groups they target, we discovered:

Millennials (ages 25-40) are the #1 group being targeted by social media marketers by far, with 84% of those surveyed saying they target them.

Gen X (ages 41-56) are targeted by 52% of social media marketers

Gen Z (ages 6-24) are targeted by 22% of social media marketers

Baby Boomers (ages 57-75) are the least targeted demographic among social media marketers, with just 14% saying they target them.

And, when it comes to targeting each age group, the strategies can be slightly different. Below are some additional learnings we gained from our survey:
What type of content do Millennials and Gen Z prefer?
According to marketers, younger audiences like Millennials and Gen Z prefer shorter video content that is funny, trendy, and reflects a brand’s values.
If you’re targeting this audience, you’ll want to leverage short-form video platforms such as TikTok, as well as YouTube and Instagram now that they’ve implemented similar short-form features.
What type of content do Baby Boomers prefer?
On the other hand, Baby Boomers prefer interactive/educational content, such as interviews/podcasts/expert discussions and live videos.
If you’re targeting this audience, you’ll want to leverage those formats on Facebook, which marketers say is the most popular among baby boomers.
To learn even more about social media demographics, check out and bookmark this post.
The State of Social Media Communities
In an increasingly online world, you may be wondering if you should be investing in building social media communities.
Let’s go over what they are, which platforms are most effective for building social media communities, and some of the top challenges marketers face when leveraging them.
Currently, around 64% of marketers are leveraging social media communities (or online groups where members interact over shared interests).
This number will only keep growing, as 30% of those who don’t use social media communities plan to start in 2022. Additionally, 51% of those who already leverage social media communities plan to invest more this year, while 45% will continue investing the same amount.
Which platforms are marketers building social media communities on in 2022?
Facebook is the top platform marketers build social media communities on, followed by YouTube and TikTok tied for #2, with Instagram and Tumblr close behind.

What are the biggest challenges marketers face with building social media communities?
Despite the growth in online community building, social media marketers are still learning how to build the perfect strategy and navigate regular challenges associated with community management.
According to social media marketers we surveyed, the biggest challenges marketers face with building communities are:

actively managing their community
measuring the ROI of their community-building efforts
growing their community,
fostering an engaged community.

What sets effective social media marketers apart from others?
In our survey, we asked marketers how effective or ineffective their social media strategy has been this year. I then examined our data through these two separate groups, the first being those who said their social media strategy was effective, compared to the second which rated their social media strategy as ineffective.
Here are a few key differences between those who say their social media strategy was effective (77% of respondents) vs. ineffective (7% of respondents):
The effective group is 25% more likely to leverage interactive content (polls, games, etc.) and 21% more likely to leverage content that reflects their brand’s values.
When determining which influencers to partner with on social media, the effective group is 26% more likely to consider the quality of influencers’ content and 18% more likely to consider whether influencers align with their company’s values.
When trying to find their audience on social media, the effective group is:

21% more likely to use social listening
17% more likely to research the demographics of social media platforms
17% more likely to research relevant online communities
14% more likely to analyze demographic data their company already has

In terms of the age demographics they target with their social media marketing efforts, the effective group is:

5% more likely to target Millennials
14% less likely to target Gen X
7% less likely to target baby boomers
6% less likely to target Gen Z

Oh, and one more thing. Those who use HubSpot to track social media analytics were 16% more likely to say their social media strategy was “very effective” in 2021, compared to those who use another analytics tool.
Want to learn more about our social media findings? Check out our most recent follow-up posts below, and stay tuned for even more research-driven content:

10 Social Media Trends Marketers Should Watch in 2022
5 Social Media Challenges Brands are Facing in 2022, According to 500+ Marketers
7 New Social Media Platforms Marketers Should Watch in 2022

For even more data and exclusive tips from social media thought leaders, you can also download our free Social Media Trends Report.

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Reaching the right customers with your Google Ads campaigns is critical to increase conversions. While it’s possible that scattershot advertisements could catch the interest of Internet users, it’s far more likely that this general ad approach will result in a disconnect between dollars spent and sales made.

To help ensure your ads are reaching the people in the right place, it’s worth leveraging a function in the Google Display Network (GDN) known as affinity audiences. Using these audiences helps pinpoint customer segments that may be more likely to purchase your products, in turn driving more effective and efficient ad spend.
But what exactly is an affinity audience? How do they work, how can you create your own — and what can you expect once you dial in the ideal customer segment? Let’s find out.

What are Affinity Audiences?
Affinity audiences are used by the Google Display Network to deliver your ads to relevant locations online. Given that Google’s network reaches more than 90 percent of Internet users worldwide, it’s well worth the time and effort to understand and apply these audiences at scale.

But what is an affinity audience?
Let’s break the term down into its component parts. Audience is easy — it’s the group of people that will see your ad. Affinity, meanwhile, is defined as “a feeling of closeness and understanding that someone has for another person because of their similar qualities, ideas, or interests.” The result? An affinity audience is a group of potential customers that share similar interests or qualities (similar to a buyer persona).
Using affinity audiences allows your brand to better align ad campaigns to buyers who are interested in what you have to sell. For example, if you’re in the coffee-making business but also have a focus on reducing plastic waste, your affinity audience might contain both people who love coffee and those who love the environment. Groups with both of these qualities are far more likely to buy your product than either group individually.
Affinity Targeting
Affinity targeting, meanwhile, is the process of identifying the ideal affinities that align with your product or service. Consider the coffee example above. While targeting buyers who love coffee helps improve your brand placement, it also puts you in direct competition with a host of other brands all producing similar products. Additional affinity modifiers that narrow your focus — such as sustainable growth processes, fair labor practices, or environmental priorities — can help set your brand apart.
Do note that it is possible to get too specific with your audience targeting. For example, if your coffee brand targets audiences that prefer beans from a specific region that are collected, packed, and shipped in a specific way, you may end up with a handful of very loyal customers but almost no broader appeal. As a result, targeting needs to narrow the focus without preventing you from reaching the greater public.
What are Custom Audiences?
GDN and the Google Ads platform contain a host of pre-built Google affinity audiences — also called segments — that you can use to focus your marketing and advertisements. These include everything from pet lovers to do-it-yourselfers, TV comedy fans and users with an interest in news and politics.

But they can’t cover everything. You may have a product or service that doesn’t dovetail with existing segments — here, custom affinity audiences can help.
Understanding Custom Affinity Audiences
Custom affinity audiences are those you create yourself in your Google Ads platform to align with the interests of your target customer base. While Google will suggest different potential segment tags depending on what you input, it’s worth taking the time to do some market research before diving into the custom affinity process. This lets you pinpoint the audience preferences that align best with your brand.
You can create custom affinity audiences related to four criteria: Interests, URLs, places, or applications. In general, places and applications are the least useful of the bunch. Here’s why. In our coffee example above, there aren’t a lot of coffee-related applications that would set your audience apart. And while geography has some impact on buying behavior, it’s usually not enough to justify an entire segment.
Interests and URLs, meanwhile, can help you dig down and identify potential affinity options that may be shared by your target market at large.
How to Create Affinity Audiences
Ready to create your own affinity audience? Follow these steps:

Log into your Google Ads account.
Select “Tools and Settings”, then “Audience manager.”
Select “Custom Segments.”
Enter segment name and interests.
Save your new segment.

Let’s tackle each step in more detail.
1. Log Into Your Google Ads Account

First, log into your Google Ads account. Here, you can see any active campaigns along with the associated affinity audiences.
2. Select “Tools and Settings”, then “Audience Manager”

Next, head to “tools and settings” in the upper-right-hand corner and then find “Audience manager” in the drop-down menu.
3. Select “Custom Segments”

Now you’ll see a list of any data segments you’re currently using to target prospective buyers. To create an audience or segment, click on “Custom Segments” and then the blue “+” icon.
4. Enter Segment Name and Interests

Now, give your segment a name and add a few potential interests. For example, if you enter “coffee”, Google will return interests or purchase intention ideas such as “coffees to make with an espresso machine”, “how to make coffee with coffee beans” and “coffee makers that make different coffees.”
5. Save Your New Segment
Finally, save your new segment with use for ad campaigns. You can create as many segments as you like until you’ve covered all relevant market bases.
The Impact of Effective Affinity Audiences
Ideally, affinity audiences lead to a definitive result: Increased ROI.
Here’s why: When your ads are shown to audiences that are interested in what you’re selling, they’re more likely to click through and purchase your products. As a result, the money you spend on advertising is directly offset by the conversions driven by these ads, in turn creating positive ROI. More generic campaigns, meanwhile, may still increase overall sales but not enough to balance out the spend required to reach larger audiences.
The right audience makes all the difference. Targeted, customized affinity audiences help you reach the people that want to buy your products, in turn boosting conversions and making your overall ad spend more cost-effective. Custom affinity audiences further narrow your market targeting, increasing the likelihood of revenue and reducing the gap between what you spend on ads and what you get in return.

The world around us is constantly changing — it only makes sense that the marketing world does too.
Every year, marketers pull out the crystal ball to predict trends and shifts in the coming year. Sometimes we’re right on the tail — and other times the social media marketing landscape surprises us.

Here, we’ll cover 5 social media predictions marketers got wrong in 2021 and strategies for making better predictions in the future.
5 Bad Social Media Predictions of 2021
1. The TikTok craze will reach its peak.
Despite threats of being banned in the U.S. — and actually being banned in India — TikTok continues to defy the odds and grow at a steady rate. In fact, the app hit a remarkable milestone at the end of 2021 — one billion monthly active users.
Despite its popularity, some marketers may have dismissed TikTok entirely, reducing it to a platform for lighthearted dances and lip-synching. However, it’s become a viable option for brands willing to get creative with their digital marketing. So much so, it launched TikTok for Business in 2021, allowing marketers to create and manage ad campaigns on the platform.
Need more convincing? According to the HubSpot Blog’s survey of 1,000+ marketers, a whopping 85% cited short-form videos (like those on TikTok) as the most effective social media format in 2021. In fact, more than half of marketers (52%) plan to increase their investment in TikTok this year.

It’s not too late to leverage TikTok in 2022. Check out this helpful guide on how to get started.
2. Facebook will become obsolete.
We’ve all heard the jokes about Facebook’s aging audience — and there is some truth to it. A recent study found that Snapchat, Instagram, and TikTok were the platforms of choice for Gen Zer’s, with Facebook falling into 6th place.
But we can’t write off Facebook just yet. It still pulls over 1.5 billion daily active users, making it the most popular social media platform worldwide. It largely holds sway with millennials, the biggest demographic group on the platform.
When it comes to social media marketing, Facebook packs quite a punch. According to HubSpot Blog’s survey of 1,000+ marketers, Facebook led the pack as the platform with the highest ROI and engagement in 2021. It’s no surprise that 25% of social media marketers plan to invest more in it than any other platform in 2022.

From these stats alone, it’s clear Facebook is still a booming business for digital advertising. With its expansion into live video, along with Facebook Shops and Stories, marketers can also experiment with new ad formats in one central location.
3. TikTok will become the preferred platform for influencer marketing.
Despite its popularity, TikTok fell short when it came to influencer marketing in 2021.
Instead, the title belongs to Instagram, which was ranked the platform of choice for inking deals with influencers. So much so, a staggering 97% of marketers plan to increase their investment in influencer marketing on Instagram this year.
Our survey also revealed influencer marketing as the most popular trend with the biggest ROI in 2021. The most notable reason for this uptick is an increase in micro influencers. Micro influencers provide smaller, highly-engaged audiences without the hefty price tag of a mainstream celebrity — making this type of marketing more accessible to a variety of brands.
Want to try your hand at influencer marketing but don’t know where to start? Check out this handy checklist.
4. Audio chat rooms will yield huge ROI
2021 saw a wave of live audio apps — including Clubhouse and Twitter Spaces. We were all intrigued — was it a viable marketing channel? Could this content go viral?
It turns out, audio chat rooms were great for engagement but not so much for ROI. According to our survey, Clubhouse fell to the bottom of the list regarding ROI. Further, 15% of marketers plan to decrease their investment in audio chat rooms this year.
However, there’s a redemption arc — despite having low ROI, many marketers report high engagement rates. If your social media marketing goals are to boost engagement and brand awareness, these audio apps could be the secret ingredient. In fact, 44% of marketers plan to leverage podcasts and audio-based content for the first time this year.

5. Remote events will lose steam as we return to the workplace.
Most people — myself included — thought the workforce would finally return to the office in 2021. But this prediction was a little premature.
Instead, many workplaces have adopted a hybrid work model where employees can work in-office or remote. This could become a permanent arrangement — 51% of organizations are considering a move to hybrid work in a post-COVID world.
As a result, remote and hybrid events are here to stay, and marketers must adapt. 64% of marketers plan to increase their investment in live video and streaming — like Facebook Live, Instagram Live, and YouTube Live — in 2022.
How to Make Better Social Media Marketing Predictions
In the marketing sphere, trends move in light years. As marketers, it’s essential to make predictions to equip ourselves for the future. Here, let’s cover three ways to make better social media marketing predictions:

Keep up-to-date: A great forecaster keeps a pulse on new trends and technology. When making social media predictions, staying informed in small — but frequent — bouts is better than in an end-of-year rush.

Cast a wide net: Seek out a variety of sources for your news. In doing so, you’re more likely to get a holistic view of the current climate. Further, you may discover contradictory information — which may call for a second glance.

Know your biases: We all have biases — and recognizing them is half the battle. Confirmation bias, in particular, can heavily influence how we make predictions. This is the tendency to interpret new evidence as confirmation of an already existing belief. To prevent this, you’ll need to seek differing viewpoints that challenge your assumptions. It’s also important not to jump to conclusions, which creates a false picture of the marketing landscape.

The only constant in the marketing world is change. As a social media marketer, the best thing you can do is stay current on trends and tech, seek out new opinions and viewpoints, and identify trends in your own marketing.

Looking to learn the basics as a beginner.
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Data-driven marketing has grown in popularity due to the availability of large amounts of data.
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Marketing is a unique animal. With a combination of creativity, analytical thinking, taking data into consideration, and project management, a modern-day marketer must possess a great number of skills and have quite a few tools at their disposal.
Sure, you can delegate some of the work, but it also means you’re responsible for getting multiple people on the same page…some of which work in different states.
Rather than allowing your frustration to build, you can utilize tools that will make your job easier. More specifically, marketing frameworks. In this piece, we’ll discuss what a marketing strategy framework is, the benefits of utilizing one, the best marketing models out there, and how to decide which is best for you.

You can think of it like this: you wouldn’t dream of approaching your marketing with a “throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks” attitude because it would be a disaster for your organization.
Instead, you’ll likely spend days, weeks, and maybe even months identifying your target audience, where they spend time and determining the perfect way to reach them and communicate the benefits of your product or service in a marketing plan.
Your marketing strategy framework takes this all a step further and, as mentioned above, ensures your marketing plan is successful because you’ll share content with your audiences at the right time in the most relevant channels that are more likely to drive results.
The Benefits of a Marketing Framework
A Marketing Framework does more than just keep you focused on the task at hand. As your company grows and your team grows along with it, you must find a way to communicate with every member of the marketing department, no matter where they work or what tasks they are responsible for.
Creating a marketing framework is the best way to ensure that everyone knows what they need to do and how they need to do it. Additional benefits of utilizing a marketing framework include:

Creating a home for templates, guides, tools, and assets that all marketers in your organization will need to access.
Establishing and communicating approved verbiage for the organization.
Improving marketing which then improves the growth and bottom line of the company.
Allows the team to compare different strategies and determine the best route.
Clearly communicate who is responsible for what and make it easier to transfer people from one role to another.
Save time by limiting “redos” – areas that are often susceptible to errors and therefore must be reworked.

In addition, your framework will help you predict your customer’s behavior and the revenue you can expect to see. As a result, it will help your team function more efficiently and produce more effectively.
The Best Marketing Frameworks
Marketing has probably been around since prehistoric days when entrepreneurial cavemen designed state-of-the-art spears and tried to sell them to their less “handy” counterparts.
Okay, that might not be true, but marketing has been a necessary aspect of business for a long time, and, over that time, savvy marketers have designed models and frameworks to make their (and your) job easier. Let’s take a look at some traditional models as well as some newer frameworks.
Traditional Marketing Models
1. 7Ps Marketing Mix
This widely used model considers the stages of business strategy, beginning at conception and taking it to evaluation. The Ps stand for:

Product: What’s being sold?

Prince: How much does it cost?

Place: Where will the product be sold?

Promotion: How will you communicate with your audience?

People: Who is involved in the production, promotion, and distribution?

Process: How will you deliver it to the customer?

Physical Evidence: How will you prove to customers that your business exists?

When you utilize the 7P model, you’ll have the opportunity to analyze and optimize every aspect of your company and your strategy to improve your business.

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2. STP Marketing Model
The SPT model is a top-down approach that focuses on how a company addresses customers and helps deliver personalized (and relevant) messages to audiences.
STP stands for segmentation (dividing your audience into different sections), targeting (who will be the most receptive to your product), and positioning (how do you make your product the most appealing to that audience), and has helped many companies shift to utilizing social media to deliver content.

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3. Porter’s Five Forces
While most marketing frameworks focus on the product itself and the audience, Porter’s Five Forces looks at the outside influences that can affect profitability. These include:

Supplier Power, how many other suppliers exist, what makes them different, and how much their product costs.
Buyer Power, which is the customer’s ability to influence decisions made by the company.
Threat of Substitution, which is how your product compares to others on the market.
Threat of New Entry, which is any barriers you might experience when entering the market.
Competitive Rivalry, which is any other outside forces that affect how your product compares to the competition.

This model will help determine just how competitive your business environment is.

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Now, let’s look at some of the newer models to hit the marketing scene. While they may not have been around as long as the more traditional models, they take into account the current marketing climate and often focus on start-ups.
Modern Marketing Models
4. Pirate Metrics or “AARRR!”
No, you don’t have to don an eye patch or adopt a parrot to use this framework. Developed by serial Startup Founder Dave McClure, Pirate Metrics allows you to see how a customer may travel on their buying journey and what areas you need to improve. AARRR stands for:

Acquisition: Where are prospects finding you? Facebook ads, blog content, a paid search, etc.

Activation: What step did a prospect take once they arrived at your website? Depending on the business, this could include signing up for an account, downloading a free giveaway in exchange for their email, filling out a profile, etc.

Retention: Once they’ve left your site, do prospects or customers come back? How often?

Revenue: How do you earn money from your customers? Consider reviewing metrics such as conversion rates, shopping cart size, and the LTV or customer lifetime value.

Referral: When customers are happy, they tell other people, and you end up with more customers. This lowers your CAC or customer acquisition cost because your loyal customers will attract new prospects for you.

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5. Lean Analytics Stages
Developed by Alistair Croll and Ben Yoskovitz, the Lean Analytics Stage framework combines aspects of many different models and is ideal for improving startup growth. There are five pillars to this model:
1. Empathy
During the product development stage, you’ll spend most of your time listening to customers, empathizing with their challenges, and taking in as much feedback as they are willing to provide. Once you have identified a problem you can solve to create your minimum viable product (MVP), you can then move on to the next stage.
2. Stickiness
Focus on engagement and retention as you work to create something that yields return customers. When you’ve got an engaged base and a low attrition rate, you can continue to stage three.
3. Virality
Before you try to attract customers through heavy advertising spending, focus on your existing customers. As your organic growth rates improve, you can move to stage four.
4. Revenue
Without money, you’ll be out of business quickly. Pay attention to your customer acquisition cost metrics to make sure your customers spend more money than they cost to acquire. Once you’ve reached your revenue goals, you can move to the final stage.
5. Scale
You’ve got explicit knowledge of your product and your market. Now, it’s time to increase the revenue from your current market and potentially enter into new markets.
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6. The Hook Model
No, it has nothing to do with the Pirate Metrics we discussed earlier, but it does compliment the stickiness and virality we discussed during Lean Analytics.
The Hook Model was developed by Nir Eyal, author of Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products. He believes that our most purchased and utilized products achieve that status because they become a part of habitual behaviors. As marketers, we can tap into that by understanding the cycle:

Trigger: The beginning of the cycle is often an external trigger like a push notification. However, as the cycle continues, negative internal emotions become triggers as we attempt to lessen these negative emotions with an action.

Action: The easier you make things to do, the more likely a person will do it. Habit-forming products make taking action painless and straightforward.

Variable Reward: The anticipation of reward is a strong motivator. Variability increases anticipation, making prospects and customers more likely to take an action that warrants a reward.

Investment: Creating an investment or “buy-in” for your customers makes it more difficult for them to step away from your product or service.

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7. The ICE Score
Sean Ellis, the Father of Growth Marketing, teaches the ICE score, a simple and quick way to evaluate potential channels for growth.
Rather than implementing a complex system, Ellis suggests asking three questions: 1. What will the impact of this move be if it works?
2. How confident am I that this plan will work?
3. How much time, money, and effort will be necessary to put this into action?
Asking yourself and your team these questions is one of the fastest ways to evaluate an idea and determine if you should move forward.
8. STEPPS
Developed by Jonah Burger, the author of Contagious: Why Things Catch On, STEPPS is a formula to create contagious content that has people talking and sharing.

Social Currency: Invite your customers to feel more like insiders. Humans are programmed to care what others think of them. This taps into that need to be seen positively by others and encourages conversation around your product.

Triggers: Frequently remind people of your product utilizing triggers and they’ll talk about it more.

Emotion: Highly emotional content is more likely to go viral. Taking that one step further, high arousal emotions like anger will be shared more often than low arousal emotions like sadness.

Public: When you make something public, you encourage people to talk about it and share it.

Practical Value: Provide value in the form of useful content, and people will be more likely to share it.

Stories: We are biologically wired to see the world through narrative. Creative stories that are easy to relate to and easy to remember, and they’ll also be easy to share.

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Selecting the Best Marketing Framework for Your Business
While there are a variety of models available to you, they are not all created equal. There are a number of factors that will influence which framework is best for you and your organization.
In order to determine which framework to choose, you’ll want to examine the following aspects of your business:

What are the top priorities of the business?
What is the role of marketing within the organization?
How is success defined and measured within the marketing?
What is the marketing department capable of, and what improvements would you like to make?
Where would you like to see the most impact due to marketing efforts and what’s the easiest way to ensure that impact?

Over To You
Marketing is a difficult role no matter your product or service. You are in essence responsible for telling the world that your company has the cure to what ails them. Without you, the most amazing product or service ever created will never reach the hands of the people who need it.
As challenging as it is, there are tools you can utilize to take some of the difficulty out of your responsibilities. A marketing framework will help you stay the course, keep your team in the know and on the right path, and will ultimately help you better achieve your desired goals. Create a marketing framework today and make tomorrow easier.

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When it comes to social media, marketers’ top goals are advertising their products/services and increasing their brand awareness, according to 2021 HubSpot Blog Research.
However, many brands struggle with creating engaging content and reaching their target audience. With social media playing such an important role at the top of the funnel, let’s dive into all things social media marketing – what it is, its benefits, and how to actually build a social media marketing strategy that’ll work for your specific business.

Social media marketing is all about meeting your target audience and customers where they are and as they socially interact with each other and your brand.
While social media marketing as a whole is incredibly valuable and beneficial to your business growth (as you’ll see in the following section), your strategy will differ based on which social networks your audience spends their time on.
Before we dig deeper into social media marketing, let’s segment the strategy by platform.
Social Media Marketing Platforms
Facebook

Users: 1.9 billion daily active users worldwide

Audience: An even spread of Generation X and Millennials

Industry impact: B2C

Best for: Brand awareness; advertising

Facebook is the largest social media platform and the most established. Since its launch in 2004, it has become an invaluable tool for B2C businesses, offering advanced advertising tools as well as organic opportunities.
TikTok

Users: 1 billion active monthly global users

Audience: Primarily Gen Z followed by Millennials

Industry impact: B2B and B2C

Best for: Short-form, creative video content; user-generated content; brand awareness

When you think of short-form video, you probably think of TikTok. The platform rose in popularity in 2020 and shows no signs of slowing down. It’s one of the best platforms for community building, with marketers ranking it in second place behind YouTube.
Instagram

Users: 1 billion monthly active users

Audience: Primarily Millennials

Industry impact: B2C

Best for: High-quality images and videos; user-generated content; advertising

Although Instagram launched only 12 years ago, the platform has taken the world by storm. When it comes to sharing visually compelling content, Instagram is where brands go. Another thing that sets the platform apart is its advanced ecommerce tools.
Today, users can discover brands, browse their products and/or service, and complete a purchase without ever leaving the app – making Instagram a hard platform to beat.
Twitter

Users: 211 million daily active users worldwide

Audience: Primarily Millennials

Industry impact: B2B and B2C

Best for: Public relations; customer service; community building

While Instagram focuses on visuals, Twitter focuses on words. Since the early days of 140-character Tweets, the platform has now expanded to include an audio tool called Twitter Spaces, a community-building tool called Twitter Communities, and Twitter Moments to share interesting content with your followers.
LinkedIn

Users: 774 million active users worldwide

Audience: Baby boomers, Generation X, and Millennials

Industry impact: B2B

Best for: B2B relationships, business development, and social selling

LinkedIn is Facebook’s professional cousin. It’s perhaps the only platform where its audience is clearly defined: Working professionals looking to network and seek out new opportunities.
That makes it the ideal platform for B2B companies looking to identify key decision-makers and build an industry-specific community.
YouTube

Users: Over 315 million daily active users worldwide

Audience: Primarily Millennials but has a strong audience across gender and age demographics

Industry impact: B2C and B2B

Best for: Brand awareness; long-form entertainment, and how-to videos

According to HootSuite, YouTube is the second most visited website in the world. In addition, marketers name it the best platform to build community.
In addition to being an incredibly popular platform, its users also tend to stay longer on it because it features mostly long-form content – making it an ideal platform to share educational content.
Snapchat

Users: 306 million daily active users worldwide

Audience: Primarily Generation Z

Industry impact: B2C

Best for: Brand awareness; advertising

When Snapchat came out in 2011, leading the charge in ephemeral content. It introduced content that you could share with your friends and that would expire after 24 hours.
The platform peaked in 2015 and has held strong since then. Many thought the brand would disappear once Instagram introduced Stories, the same feature with a different name. However, Snapchat continues to be popular among young adults.
Pinterest

Users: 444 million monthly active users worldwide

Audience: Primarily Millennials with a solid audience in Gen Z, Gen X and Baby Boomers

Industry impact: B2C

Best for: Visual advertising; inspiration

Think of Pinterest like a visual storyboard that allows users to get inspiration for everything from fashion to home decor.
85% of Pinners say Pinterest is where they go to start a new project. In addition, 80%
of weekly Pinners say they’ve discovered a new brand or product on the platform. So, not only is it a great discovery tool but it’s also a way for brands to build their narrative through visual stories.
Clubhouse

Users: 10 million weekly active users worldwide

Audience: Primarily Millennials

Industry impact: B2B and B2C

Best for: Visual advertising; inspiration

Clubhouse made a strong impression as soon as it entered the social media world in 2020. The audio-only platform allows people to start interesting conversations with followers as well as strangers and build community.
The platform also gained some buzz for its invitation-only set up when it was in beta testing. Today, the platform is open to everyone globally and on both IOS and Android devices. Another big selling point to this platform is that it works well for both B2B and B2C businesses and leverages audio, which has made a huge comeback in recent years.
Now that we’ve detailed the fundamentals of each social media network, let’s discuss why social media marketing is beneficial for your business.

Benefits of Social Media Marketing
There are a variety of reasons why your company should use social media marketing. We’ve created a list of the four most beneficial reasons to consider.
Let’s dive in.
1. Increase your brand awareness.
Due to the sheer amount of people on social media, you’re missing out on the potential to reach thousands, and even millions, if you don’t have a presence.
In fact, social media has been proven to boost brand awareness by driving up engagement. Social engagement includes things like comments, likes, shares, and reposts, and saves.
It also helps you increase brand awareness by directing traffic straight to your site. You can do this by including direct links to your website in your profile, bio, and posts.
Featured Resource

How to Build a Brand for Your Company

2. Generate leads and boost conversions.
Promoting and sharing your products on social media is a simple way to improve lead generation, boost conversions, and increase sales because you’re advertising to people who have opted to engage with you by following your account.
Here are some examples of ways you can use social media to generate more leads.

Create contests for your visitors and followers to participate in on your social media profiles.

Include links to your website and offers in the bio sections of your profiles.

Host live videos to make announcements about products and provide updates or details about exciting news at your company.

Implement a social media marketing campaign on one of your channels.

Sell your products through your social profiles. For example, you can enable Facebook’s Shop Section or Instagram’s Shopping feature on your profiles. These features allow your visitors and followers to click on products you’ve shared in posts to view information such as price, material, and size. Then, visitors can easily proceed to checkout through the platform and buy the product directly from you.

3. Foster relationships with your customers.
By connecting and engaging with your social media followers, you’ll be able to build lasting relationships between them and your business. You can do this by interacting with them on your posts, responding to their questions and comments, and providing them with any help they may need.
You can also ask your followers questions about your products, their pain points, or create giveaways to help you build trust and show them how much you value their input and support.
4. Learn from your competitors.
Social media is a great way to keep tabs on your competitors — whether that’s in reference to their social media tactics, the products they’re promoting, the campaigns they’re implementing, or their level of interaction with followers.
Social media allows you to get a look at what is and isn’t working for your competition, and therefore helps you decide what should or shouldn’t change in terms of your company’s approach.
Lastly, reviewing the social accounts of your competitors can help you make sure your marketing stands out and is unique to your brand.
Learn how to conduct a competitive analysis to discover how you can beat the competition.
Now, let’s talk strategy — there are five steps to ensure your social media marketing plan is sustainable and positively impacts your business.

Although social media is constantly evolving, most of the foundational steps you need to succeed stay the same. Essentially, you’re following the same steps you would take to create a marketing strategy and narrow it to a specific channel.
Let’s cover these steps in more detail so you can begin applying them to your business.
Step 1: Research your buyer personas and audience.
The first step to creating a social media marketing strategy is to determine who your buyer personas and audience are so you can target their needs and interests appropriately.
To do this, think about the people you’re trying to reach and why, and how you would classify them as a group. For example, if your company sells trendy leggings and joggers, you might classify your target audience as millennials who like to wear stylish athletic apparel regularly — a style known as athleisure.
By considering your buyer personas and audience, you’ll then be able to determine what content will attract the type of followers and customers you hope to gain. Plus, learn how to create engaging content to keep your followers interested.
Recommended Tools

Buyer Persona Templates
Make My Persona Tool

Step 2: Determine which social platforms you’ll market on.
As a social media marketer, it’s crucial you determine which platforms you’re going to share your content on.
There’s not necessarily a right or wrong answer when it comes to which social channels your business should use — it’s more about the needs of your target audience and where they tend to spend their time.
“It’s important to be where your audience of potential customers is today, and where they might be tomorrow,” said Andrew Delaney, former social media marketing manager at HubSpot. “It’s better to be ahead of the curve than behind.”
For example, if you are going for that target audience of athleisure-loving millennials, you may want to focus the majority of your social media efforts on Instagram — this is because millennials cover the largest portion of users on the platform.
Stephanie Morgan, founder and CEO of social media agency Social Lock, echoes this sentiment.
“Think about their behaviors and where they hang out online. If that’s Pinterest, use that platform for your brand. If that’s TikTok, use that platform for your brand,” Morgan adds. “Don’t waste time on a platform that your ideal client avatar is not very active on.”
Recommended Tools and Resources

A Marketer’s Guide to Snapchat for Business
50 Facebook Ad Examples We Actually Clicked
YouTube for Business: A 30-Day Roadmap for Growth
How to Use Twitter for Business (+ Follower Tracking Template)
12 Pinterest Templates for Business

Step 3: Create unique and engaging content.
With the billions of social media users around the globe, there’s no question that at least some of your followers — or the people browsing your profile — have also seen your competitor’s content or that of other businesses in your industry.
That’s why you must have engaging social media content that stands out and provides viewers with a reason to click that “Follow” button and interact with your brand.
Not sure what’s considered engaging? Morgan has a recommendation.
“My number one tip to brands for creating engaging content on social media is to do market research first because what will be engaging depends on the audience,” Morgan said. “When you know what your audience likes and needs to know, you can create content that engages those interests.”
To help you get creative, consider the content your competitors are sharing and how you can uniquely promote your products. Also, take advantage of the features offered by the platform you’re using.
For example, you can create live videos on Facebook to share the latest details about a product launch or conduct a giveaway.
You can also use your current customers and promoters to help you generate content. You can do this by re-posting their content or encouraging them to use a hashtag to share their own experiences and pictures with your products.
Lastly, leverage trends. Social media trends are always coming up, especially on short-form video platforms like TikTok. Don’t be afraid to join in but you still have to be intentional about how you do it.
“If the trend started happening three weeks ago, you’ve probably missed the boat,” Morgan said. “Catching the trends early is the best way to capitalize on it without coming across as inauthentic or like you’re trying too hard, or worse [as] ‘chuegy’ – see Gen Z for that one.”
Recommended Tools and Resources

The Social Media Trends Report

Step 4: Organize a schedule for your posts.
One of the easiest ways to ensure your content is shared as planned is to use a social media management solution. These tools allow you to write captions, prepare pictures and videos, and schedule posts in advance.
They also automatically share your content on schedule and monitor all post interactions and engagement for you. Social media management solutions save you time and allow you to focus on your other tasks.
There are a number of solution options available — here are a few examples.
Recommended Tools and Resources

Social Media Content Calendar Template
Social Media Content Calendar Template for Startups

You can also leverage social media software to meet your goals.
HubSpot offers a social media tool — as part of the marketing software — to help you publish and monitor your content and create real connections with your followers.
You can schedule and publish your content in advance and compare in-depth reports on your posts’ engagement to understand the performance of various platforms, types of content, and posting times.
Sprout Social is another social media marketing and management solution designed to help your team organize and plan content creation, manage campaigns, understand engagement, and review content reports and analysis.
With Hootsuite, you can schedule posts in advance on all of your channels at once and measure your ROI with comprehensive content analysis.
How often should you post on social media?
Now, you might be wondering how often you should post content on your social media channels.
As a rule of thumb, you should only post on social when you have quality content to share. Meaning, there’s a reason you’re posting the content. This is how you’ll strike the right balance when it comes to your posting frequency.
Morgan says the top mistake she sees brands make in regards to social media marketing is focusing on quantity of content instead of the quality of content.
“They think they need to post every day, so they force themselves to create posts to fill up the calendar,” she said. “Odds are, every single one of those posts isn’t going to be very valuable to the ideal customer, I’ve coined this ‘clutter content.’”
Instead, she recommends downsizing in quantity and upping the quality.
“It’s better to post two or three times a week with super valuable content, versus posting seven times a week with only one or two valuable posts,” said Morgan.
There are plenty of studies and resources available explaining social media post frequency standards by industry and platform for you to follow. Every business is different, so find what works for your audience.
Then, you can begin experimenting with more or fewer posts – as well as other factors such as the time of day you’re posting on social – to determine what provides the highest level of engagement.
How to Analyze Your Social Media Marketing Impact and Results
One of the most important aspects of social media marketing is ensuring your efforts are successful in helping you meet your goals. To determine this, you’ll need to keep track of all of your posts, on every channel. You can do this by reviewing and managing your social media metrics.
Social Media Metrics
Social media metrics are data related to the success of your posts and your impact on your audience and customers on various platforms. These metrics may include data about your level of engagement, likes, follows, shares, and all other interactions on each platform.
Here are 10 of the most important metrics for you to track:

Engagement: This includes clicks, comments, likes, and replies on your social media posts. There are also platform-specific types of engagement such as “Saved” posts on Instagram and “Pinned” posts on Pinterest.

Reach: The number of people who have seen any content associated with your page or profile is your reach.

Followers: This is the number of people you have on your profile who have clicked your “Follow” button and see your content in their feeds regularly.

Impressions: This is the number of times a post from your profile or page is seen, whether or not your audience members click on it. This is often what happens when someone is scrolling through their newsfeed, but not clicking on anything.

Video views: On Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, or any other social channel with video capabilities, this is the number of views each gets.

Profile visits: The number of people who have opened your social media page is your number of profile visits.

Mentions: This is the number of times your profile has been mentioned by audience members in their posts.

Tags: This is when your audience adds the name of your company’s profile or your hashtag to another post.

Reposts: This is when a member of your audience posts a piece of your content on their profile.

Shares: These are the posts your followers and audience take from your profile and share with their network.

You can influence all of these metrics, increase your social following, and improve overall engagement on your profile by using the same tactics you would to generate leads and boost conversions.
Morgan adds that the metrics you focus on will depend on which season you’re in. Here’s her formula:

If you’re new, focus on building an audience and awareness. Key metrics: reach, impressions, audience growth.
If you’re growing, focus on building trust. Key metrics: Likes, saves, comments, DMs.
If you’re established, focus on retaining and nurturing. Key metrics: Likes, saves, comments, DMs.
If you’re launching something, focus on selling. Key metrics: DMs and clickthrough rate

How to Measure Social Media Metrics
You can review social media metrics in a variety of ways, For example, you can use the analytics tools built into the various platforms you use. Here are a few examples:

Twitter Analytics
Facebook Analytics
Instagram Insights

You might also choose to use an analytics and tracking tool such as Google Analytics. This is a great option if you want to track your social media and website metrics. Lastly, many social media scheduling solutions — as we reviewed earlier — have monitoring and tracking features automatically built-in.
All of these metrics tracking tools will give you a better understanding of what your followers and audience respond well to and what you should consider modifying to improve engagement.
Now that we’ve reviewed the benefits of social media marketing and how to build your strategy, let’s talk about the various resources available to help you along the way.
Social Media Marketing Resources
There are a plethora of social media marketing resources you can use to build a social strategy for your company. You’re bound to feel more confident about working on your company’s social media marketing initiative with the help of the following courses, training, and books.
Social Media Marketing Courses and Training
Here are three ways to earn an education in the field of social media marketing if you feel it’s necessary for your specific business situation.
1. Earn a certificate administered by a company.
A certificate is a quick and simple way to gain a deep understanding of social media marketing courses.
HubSpot offers a free social media certification course, which teaches you how to engage with your customers and improve conversions. You’ll also get a better understanding of how to develop your strategy, extend your reach, and measure your social media ROI.
LinkedIn Learning is another platform where you can earn a certification and share it on your profile.
2. Leverage YouTube university.
YouTube is a goldmine when it comes to educational content.
With a quick search, you’ll find hundreds of long-form videos that offer in-depth courses on social media marketing. Granted, you can’t connect with a live educator. However, it’s free and can be a great starting point before you dive into a paid course.
Social Media Marketing Books
Reading relevant content about social media marketing is another great way to learn more about the field. Here are a few examples of some highly-regarded books on the topic.
1. Likable Social Media: How to Delight Your Customers, Create an Irresistible Brand, and Be Generally Amazing on Facebook by Dave Kerpen
This New York Times Bestseller covers the reasons why being likable and engaging with followers on social media is one of the most powerful ways to grow your base of customers and promoters.
The book teaches you how to make impactful content for your followers to interact with and share with their networks. Author Dave Kerpen also describes why you need to ensure you’re consistently delighting your followers to avoid losing them at any point in time.
2. Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook: How to Tell Your Story in a Noisy Social World by Gary Vaynerchuk
According to author Gary Vaynerchuk, the key to social media marketing success isn’t about pushing out a lot of content — it’s about pushing out specific content tailored towards your target audience and using the right platform to do so.
In his book, Vaynerchuk covers how to do this as well as connect with your followers and customers on a deeper level through social media. You’ll learn how to create memorable and unique content that stands out in comparison to the competition’s content.
3. The B2B Social Media Book: Become a Marketing Superstar by Generating Leads with Blogging, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Email, and More by Kipp Bodnar
HubSpot’s CMO, Kipp Bodnar, writes about the ways B2B businesses can generate more leads and conversions through social media marketing.
There are actionable methods you can take to increase your base of followers and drive leads as well as understand the ROI of various B2B social media marketing strategies.
Emerging Social Media Platforms
Recent HubSpot Blog Research found that marketers are constantly on the lookout for new or emerging platforms, as often as even week.
Though it takes a while for platforms to take off, once they do, you want to have a plan in place for how you’re going to tackle it.
For instance, brands like Chipotle were one of the first to try short-form video content on TikTok. As a result, they have a strong presence on the platform while many others are still struggling to find their place.
Emerging platforms can offer a new avenue to reach your target audience in a way that may be more effective than what you’re doing now. Clubhouse and Discord are among some of the most popular emerging platforms.
However, others like Flyy and SpaceHey are looking to make their mark.
Want to learn more about what’s out there? Check out this article on new social media platforms you should keep your eye on in 2022.
Start Marketing on Social Media
Considering there are billions of people on social media today, it’s easy to see why so many businesses and marketers use the channel to promote their products and engage with customers.
Although determining your company’s social media course of action may seem daunting, you can avoid feeling overwhelmed by understanding social media marketing trends and using some of the many resources available about the topic. So, start working on your business’ social media marketing strategy today to increase your number of followers, improve engagement, and boost conversions.
Editor’s note: This post was originally published in March 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.