Save for the stubborn introverts, everyone spends at least an hour on a social media platform of their preference. They are motivated by boredom, the desire to stay up to date with events in their social circles and the need to stay connected with prospective clients, employers and business associates. For the individual, social media has brought the world to their laps. For businesses, social media has given them specialized access to future customers at even the remotest corners of the world! It's really right there in plain sight: that social media marketing will give you the kind of reach and visibility that no other advertising platform can provide for you.

Every brand starts at the same point: the need to create BRAND AWARENESS. No matter how great your product or service is, it's pointless if your audience does not know you exist. The great thing about social media marketing is that you can position your advertising such that it reaches people specific to the demography that you are looking at. Instead of bombarding a million viewers, amongst whom only a small percentage will benefit from your brand, it's better to reach a thousand viewers who are actual potential clients. You know your marketing strategy is on key, when there is a greater probability of making a sale.

In a recent advertising campaign conducted on a social media platform for a top multi-speciality hospital in Chennai(India), the response from the public proved how potent social media marketing is. As part of their marketing plan the hospital hosts regular camps at their premises at special rates, giving people the opportunity to see for themselves the international quality services they provide. While the field of medicine is definitely most revered, the need for promotion and marketing cannot be underestimated. Hence the hospital runs a camp every few weeks, in order to create awareness on a specific medical condition and on the hospital's ability to treat the same. The goals of their social media advertising plan is simple:

1. REACH MORE PEOPLE

2. CREATE BUZZ AROUND THEIR BRAND

The fact that the ads are for a service and not a product makes a big difference when making your marketing plan. When it comes to creating awareness around a service that is available, often your target audience lives within a certain radius around your premises. Hence while posting your ad on social media, it is important to define the geographical radius. This means that your ad will definitely reach people within a certain perimeter. Social Media platforms like Facebook allow marketers to choose the radius in kilometers and people within that distance will see the ad on their page. Once the ad is online, marketers can track the response. The analytics allow you to understand how well your campaign is working. At any given point you have the freedom to change the parameters and increase the radius or decrease it further, depending on the response.

Social media marketing allows you to interact with your target audience – all it takes is a very basic form that collects data such as: Name, Age, Gender, Location, Awareness of the brand, Interest in the campaign and Contact details. Leave the detailed forms for later. When you are merely aiming at popularizing your brand and thereby bringing in more clients, the focus of your interaction is getting them interested in your services. In this case it's a hospital. The idea was to encourage more people to use their services, starting with the camp at hand. Hence the advertisement detailed the camp and all the user had to do was register for the camp for free, via a simple form. For a generalized campaign aimed at boosting brand awareness the REACH over a period of two weeks was 48799 and the number of IMPRESSIONS was 74290. This means that their ad was posted on a definitive 48799 people's wall, but the ad as such appeared on Facebook (through shares, tagging, etc) 74290. Marketers can further dissect the ad's potency in terms of Likes, Comments and Unique Clicks on the suggested link.

While posting the ad, marketers have the power to target audiences based on gender and age groups. Once the campaign goes live, you can follow up on the impact of the ad specific to gender and age. This information will tell you whether your ad made the right impact or if you need to change the ad message depending on age and gender. Social Media marketing, can assure brands reach provided you define your target group effectively. Send the right message, to the right people and you will be heard. Sustaining the audience and promoting brand loyalty is a whole other exercise that depends entirely on customer interaction and experience with your brand. Make it count.