In its simplest terms, social media marketing is the use of social media platforms – such as Facebook, LinkedIn, X, Instagram, YouTube and TikTok – to build a company’s brand awareness, increase sales and drive traffic to the website.
Mostly, it involves publishing appealing, informative content, engaging with followers, tracking campaign results and, in some cases, managing paid social media campaigns (also known as pay-per-click).
As of 2025, the UK was home to roughly 55.5 million active social media users, representing close to 80% of the population. As of the second quarter of 2025, WhatsApp was the most used platform in the UK, followed by Facebook and Instagram.
This is why, if done correctly, social media marketing can be an extremely powerful tool for companies of all sizes, across a whole range of diverse sectors.
Why should I use social media marketing?
There are three main reasons why social media marketing is such a powerful tool and these are; connection, interaction and data.
Social media allows businesses to connect with their customers and target audiences on a more personal level, showcasing the personality of their brand. Some big brands like Ben & Jerry’s excel in using social media to present characterful content, and smaller organisations can also use social media to build an engaged audience. Take a look at how well this video we made for the Lincolnshire Show has done – as of writing it’s had 222.9k views among a key audience they were targeting:
The nature of interaction on social media can really help set your brand apart from your competitors, building relationships and communicating key messages to both existing and potential customers. Whether you use direct communication or a more passive approach, or a combination of the two, social media enables firms to leverage valuable recommendations through electronic word of mouth.
Another huge advantage of social media is that it enables you to have access to lots of useful data. You can extract this data directly from the platform, or from a third party source such as a scheduling tool, and use market analysis to turn it into a rock solid marketing campaign. This data means you can see exactly how many people have seen or engaged with your content, you can see your profile growing in real time and you can optimise your campaigns based on what does and doesn’t work well.
There are five core pillars to social media marketing
To help develop an effective social media strategy, there are five ‘core’ pillars to consider when planning; strategy, planning & publishing, listening & engagement, analytics & reporting, and advertising.
Strategy
Before you start publishing, you need to take a look at the bigger picture and decide on the best strategy for your company. You’ll need to identify your goals – for example, brand awareness, sales, building relationships, driving web traffic, etc.
Then, you’ll need to determine which social media platforms you’d like to focus on, which depends on your target audience. Finally, you’ll need to plan the sort of messages and content that you’d like to share, ensuring that it aligns with your company values and represents your identity.
Planning & publishing
By being present on social media, you’re opening your brand up to a huge platform of potential customers. The best social media strategies involve planning your content ahead of time, so that you’re not publishing spontaneously (unless it’s a very time sensitive post).
There are many social media scheduling tools available if you’d like to go down this route; we’ll take a look at those later.
Listening & engagement
As your social media following grows, you’ll need to be seen to be engaging with your audience – as this will then encourage more engagement and more growth. You’ll want to monitor your profiles daily if you can, so if there are any negative comments, you can provide support and guidance to resolve any issues.
You should also use social media to identify emerging trends which you can emulate to create engaging, creative content and also to make the most of the algorithms which promote trending content.
Analytics & reporting
Once you start posting, you’ll need to be able to monitor how well it’s doing, and what is successful and what isn’t. All of this data is extremely useful to your business, as you’ll be able to identify what’s driving web traffic and engagement.
Advertising
As well as having a huge focus on entertainment and engagement, social media is all about advertising, so the platforms offer a huge variety of tools for paid promotion.
If you are able to increase your social media marketing budget, you may consider paid social advertising to improve your reach and exposure, and cut through to a larger audience.
Paid social media advertising enables you to select your target audience and tailor your campaigns accordingly, providing lots of data to analyse and develop your strategy with. To find out more about paid advertising, check out our blog.
Do I need to use a scheduling tool?
You don’t have to use any type of scheduling tool to run your company’s social media, indeed some platforms have more detailed controls in-app (particularly on mobile) which aren’t available through schedulers.
But while they lack these finer options, schedulers can be very useful and more efficient, especially if you’re planning on posting regularly or across multiple platforms.
Here are some of the benefits of a social media scheduling tool:
- Run your accounts more efficiently
- Ensure a consistent posting schedule
- Publish at the most effective times
- Simplify posting
- No need to log-in every time you’d like to post
- Re-use content easily and quickly
- Increased flexibility
- Encourages a strategic, regular approach to your marketing
Some popular scheduling tools include Sprout Social, Buffer, Zoho Social, Hootsuite, Hubspot and Sked Social.
Who can help with my social media marketing?
If you don’t already have a social media marketing manager, then finding someone who can fill this role will be a great start in your social media marketing journey.
And if you’re thinking ‘what is a social media marketing manager and what skills should they have?’ then it’s someone who can build, run and manage all your social media content across various platforms. Their skills will include strategy creation, content planning, content creation and data analysis, just to name a few, and they will play a vital role in achieving your wider business objectives.
Alternatively, if you’d rather outsource your social media, then you could use a social media marketing agency…
What is a social media marketing agency?
A social media marketing agency is a company that handles all your business’ social media requirements in one place – whether it’s organic or paid.
Agencies will work directly with you to create a social media strategy that is tailored to your brand, understanding your tone of voice and target audience to ensure your social media content aligns with this. Through engaging content and community management, agencies can help you increase your reach, drive traffic to your website and generate leads – all helping to support your wider business objectives.
Some agencies offer an integrated approach, with other services like PR aligning with your social media strategy. There is actually an important PR meaning in social media, because repeating your PR messages on your social media channels will reinforce those messages, helping them to stick in people’s heads and grow in familiarity with them.
Are you interested in upscaling your social media marketing with the help of a team of experts? Get in touch with our team today to find out more!
