We all know that social media is an important aspect of any digital marketing strategy – but what category does it fall under? Is it inbound marketing or outbound marketing?

The easiest answer to that is social media in inbound marketing.

To understand social media, it’s helpful to know the difference between inbound and outbound marketing. Inbound marketing is about creating content that draws people in, while outbound marketing is about actively reaching out to people.

In this article, we look at this difference, as well as the benefits inbound social media marketing brings to the table.

What’s the Difference Between Inbound and Outbound Marketing?

The whole idea behind inbound marketing is to create content that potential customers would want to see. It includes effective use of search engines, marketing automation, content marketing, and social media to pull in your target audience. With an inbound strategy for social media marketing, your customer comes to the forefront, and you use their preferences to power lead generation and expand your brand awareness.

Whether it is search engine optimization or email marketing, inbound methods are customer-centric in every way! In short, inbound social media marketing is a more innovative form of marketing that reflects the latest technological advancements in the business world.

On the other hand, outbound marketing is on more of the traditional marketing spectrum. Outbound marketing includes traditional marketing tactics such as direct mail, TV ads, trade shows, telecommerce, radio ads, and cold calling.

Outbound marketing is also known as “interruption marketing” because it interrupts customers to present products and services. While this may get you a return on investment, it will rarely result in your forming a connection with your audience.

So, these are the differences between inbound and outbound forms of marketing – but how does social media make itself a part of the inbound sales funnel?

Social Media as an Inbound Marketing Tool

Now that we know the difference between inbound and outbound marketing, it will be easier to understand the role of social media in this regard. Social media is one of the best marketing tools because it allows small businesses to create a connection with their audience. Social media is beneficial because it allows you to present yourself as a client-focused brand.

An investment in inbound social media marketing goes a long way towards building your brand, generating leads, establishing a relationship with your customers, and also getting feedback from them to improve your product or service.

When it comes to Inbound Marketing, social media is a great place to start. Establishing an inbound marketing approach for your social media strategy can help you get the most out of your efforts.

The right social media marketing strategy will always be considered inbound marketing because it is aimed toward leveraging the ability to reach your audience in a way that appeals to your customers.

Inbound Marketing Strategies for Social Media

Inbound social media marketing is a great way to drive brand awareness and even generate leads for your business. According to a recent report, a person spends around 2.5 hours every day on social media. In this digital era, it is a platform that cannot be ignored by any business that is looking to capture new customers.

Let’s take a look at some of the inbound marketing strategies you can use to make the most of social media for your US or Canadian business –

1. Use paid advertising to maximize the impact
   • Using paid advertising strategically on social media can generate highly qualified leads. Organic reach is limited to a certain extent, and if you want to turbocharge your reach you need to dig deeper into paid advertising.
   • Paid advertising also gives you the option to narrow down your target market by choosing a targeting criteria, ensuring that only the people who might benefit from your adverts are exposed to them. A good practice is to make a landing page for each campaign.
   • Make sure the platform you choose to run your ads is used often by your customers. Your ads should address a particular pain point, should be timely, relevant and lastly provide value. Social media is a passive medium, give your customers a good reason to stop scrolling and consume your content!
2. Use videos to grab attention on Social Media
   • A picture can say a thousand words, and videos even more so. Creating viral videos is a great way to capture attention. They can spread like wildfire, expand your reach immensely, and consequently give a big boost to sales.
   • While there’s no set formula for creating a viral video, consider the following pointers when making them –
     1. Ensure that your video uses a visual style that resonates with your brand, and speaks to the target audience
     2. It should be creative and speak to the emotions of the audience
     3. Make the most use of social media trends when deciding on your video content
     4. Make sure it is shareable and posted at a time on social media when most of your target audience is active
3. Set goals, track results, and optimize
   • Inbound marketing costs 62% less per lead than traditional marketing, and when combined with social media it can work wonders for your business. However, to make the most of it make sure you are tracking metrics such as cost per lead, impressions, engagement, etc. via social media.
   • You can improve your inbound social media marketing strategy and measure your ROI by having access to data.

Benefits of Inbound Marketing

In order to understand why social media and other forms of inbound marketing are so important, let’s look at some of the benefits they offer:

• • A considerably more sustainable option
  • More effective in terms of generating relevant leads.
  • Improves your brand position.
  • Results in an increased level of trust amongst your consumers.
  • Enables you to nurture a long-term relationship.
  • Considerably more cost-effective.
  • Help you improve your visibility online.
  • Resonates with existing as well as potential customers.
  • Efforts can more easily be centralized.
  • Easily employed alongside outbound marketing methods.

The Bottom Line

Social media is a part of inbound marketing, and an inbound social media strategy is your key to success. Book a free consultation with our Social Media expert to understand how it can benefit your business.