Social Media Marketing Resources for Beginners

Haley Durkee

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March 20, 2020

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Last Updated On

December 8, 2022

@girlsnightinclub

You might be asking yourself, where do I find the best social media resources for helping develop your marketing strategy? And while there isn't a simple resource that will answer all your questions or that fit all situations, you still need to figure out what works best for your brand.

Wouldn’t it be nice to glide through each workweek like Elle Woods, singing along to Hoku’s “Perfect Day” while everything goes according to plan? When life gets in the way—as it often does—it can take a few adjustments to keep plans on track. For marketers, taking advantage of social media marketing resources is a great place to start in figuring out what works best for your brand. We scoured our library to bring you everything from e-books to online events in one convenient place.

How to Start Social Media Marketing

When it comes to social media marketing, having a plan on how you are going to achieve your brands end goal is crucial. To help elevate your brands social presence we’ve gathered five steps to start social media marketing that will get you closer to success.

1. Determine Your Goals

The first step to starting social media marketing is determining what your brand's goals are. Think about what you want to get out of your social media marketing campaigns. This could be to increase brand awareness, drive sales, build relationships with your audience, or increase social media engagements. You should revolve your entire social media marketing campaign around your goals.

2. Know Your Audience

Once you've determined what your goals are, figure out who your target audience is. You can do this through competitive benchmarking to see who your competitors are targeting. You should focus on the specifics of your audience such as what time of day they are active on social media, how they interact with content, what kind of content they interact with the most, what they dislike, what information they need from you, and more. The more you dive into your target audience's preferences and social media habits, the better your marketing campaign will perform.

3. Create Content

Creating high-quality content is crucial to a marketing campaign. Make sure your visual content shows your audience who your brand is through special graphics, logos, trademarks, and more. Your ad content should be visually appealing to anybody who comes across it. Consider hiring a content creator who has expertise in creating high-quality content for brands.

4. Build a Schedule

Once you've determined your target audience's typical active hours on social media, consider creating a social media schedule to have all your ad content planned out and to save time. Being able to visualize when your content is dropping on all your social channels will ensure that you stay organized and are always one step ahead.

5. Engage With Your Audience

As your content goes out to your audience and starts gaining traction, be sure to engage with your audience. Respond to their comments, do Q&A’s on your stories, host live streams, and more to let your audience know you value them. Building a social media community for your brand through engagement will build trust and loyalty between your brand and its customers.

Best Resources For Social Media Marketing

So, you’ve carved out space in your schedule to learn a new skill or perfect one you already have. Whatever your reason for hunting for resources for social media marketing, deciding where to start can still be a challenge. Some of us like to open 20 tabs at a time and flip back and forth between them, but that can become overwhelming. The best way to learn social media marketing is to select a topic or theme that sparks your interest and take it slow. Open one resource at a time and really dig into it.

What resources are best for learning? We suggest blogs as the best social media marketing resource out there. They're plentiful, easy to access and you can learn at your own pace, not to mention, easy to refer back to. Everyone has a favorite social channel, but sometimes an attachment to one prevents you from getting to know another. Keep an open mind and explore what this uncharted terrain has to offer. You might find an exciting opportunity to boost ROI and reach new demographics. Below we've curated a list of our best blogs to help you learn social media marketing or skill to conquer a new social channel.

The Ultimate Guide to Pinterest Strategy and Marketing

How to Streamline Your Pinterest Posting Strategy

5 Tips for Using Idea Pints in Your Pinterest Marketing Strategy

The 5 Differences Between Instagram and Pinterest Strategy

Guide to Pinterest Business Account

Pinterest Advertising Guide

Pinterest Metrics: An Experts Guide

How to Post Videos on Pinterest

Pinterest Analytics: What You Need to Know

Expand Your Social Content Offering

There are so many aspects to social that businesses don’t consider. The below social media marketing resources will help you answer questions such as when should you focus on organic content and when should you push for paid. Are influencers really worth it? How do memes perform vs. regular posts? Consider incorporating alternative content styles and watch your engagement rate soar.

Influencers

Integrating Influencers Into Your TikTok Strategy

TikTok Influencer Marketing: How Brands Succeed with TikTok Creators

Top TikTok Influencers in Your Industry

Complete Guide to Managing Social Media Influencers

Organic Influencer Strategy: Finding Success With Influencers

Why Influencers Love Carousel Posts and You Should Too

Micro vs. Macro-Influencers: When to Tap and Why

A Guide To Influencer Advertising In The UK

Meme Performance

Do Memes Get Better Instagram Engagement than Other Photos?

Gucci Meme: Luxury House Throws Curveball

Paid and Organic Strategies

The Best Practices to Follow to Optimize Your Paid Social Performance

12 Tips to Increase Sales on Social Media (EBook)

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Social Media Resources to Listen and Learn From

We stated easier that blogs are the best way to learn social media marketing, but really the best way to learn is what works best for you, not all of us have the patience to sit and read at home—and that’s totally OK. If you’re more of an audio-visual learner, there are fantastic webinars, podcasts, and online conferences to tune into. It’s a simple but effective way to connect with like-minded marketers and gain wisdom from the top players across industries.

Webinars

On-demand Dash Hudson Webinars

Conferences

Adobe Summit

Podcasts

Do You Follow?

Second Life

Glossy
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Social Media Industry Insights

Different industries require different tactics to meet the needs of their unique social audiences. It’s crucial to guide your strategy with input from industry trends, standards, and achievements. Marketing resources in the form of benchmarks, case studies, and e-books are a great way to glean specific insights into your industry.

Social Media Benchmark Reports

Case Studies

GANNI: How Ganni Grew Its Organic Instagram Video Views By Over 60%

1stDibs: How 1stDibs Prioritized Social Engagement to Grow Website CTR by 80%

Cocokind: How Cocokind Wins on TikTok with Dash Hudson’s Relatable Content and Audience Insights

Rare Beauty: How Rare Beauty Uses Creators To Drive 98% of Total Campaign Conversions on TikTok Ads

MECCA: The Beauty and Power of a Balanced Organic and Paid TikTok Marketing Strategy

Balmain Paris: Reimagining Social Strategy

Girlfriend Collective: How Dash Hudson Helps Girlfriend Collective Accelerate Audience Growth

ba&sh: Social Commerce Redefined

Taylor & Pond: Metrics That Influence

Hulu: How Hulu Grows Its Social Media Engagement

Aloha: Recipe for Engagement and Growth on Instagram

Carbon38: Driving New E-Commerce Revenue With LikeShop

E-Books

The Definitive Guide to Social Media ROI for the Publishing Sector

The Definitive Guide to Social Media ROI for the Food Sector

The Definitive Guide to Social Media ROI for the CPG Sector

The Definitive Guide to Social Media ROI for the Beauty Sector

Keep it locked on the Dash Hudson blog for more free social media marketing resources, tips, guides and how-tos to expand your social expertise.

Social Media Marketing Resources With Dash Hudson

Dash Hudson has all the best social media marketing resources to help you connect with your audience and achieve your goals. Our countless tools will give you all the social media marketing resources you need to build brand awareness, drive sales, increase social engagements, and more. Leverage your brand's performance on all your social channels including Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.

FAQs

Why is social media marketing important?

Social media marketing allows brands to connect with their audience via social media channels. Having a solid social media marketing strategy is crucial to having an engaging audience and leveraging your brands overall performance.

What is social media marketing?

Social media marketing is a form of product/service promotion using social media channels. It allows brands to reach a larger audience and increase their social presence. Social media marketing is key to company success.

How to market on social media?

It takes 5 critical steps to market on social media in an effective and creative way:

Determine your brand end goals
Know your audience
Create high-quality content
Create scheduled ad campaigns
Engage with your audience

Be sure to use powerful social media marketing resources to leverage your performance.

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Social Media Marketing Resources for Beginners