A Guide on Social Media Marketing in the Philippines

According to a recent report, the Philippines ranks number one among other countries when it comes to internet usage. Millions of Filipinos spend nearly 10 hours online, with almost four hours explicitly spent on social media websites.  

Amazingly, there are 73 million active social media users in the Philippines out of a population of 108.8 million. And that number is poised to grow—in the current pandemic situation, Filipinos are spending even more time online. In response, local businesses are upping their digital marketing strategy game and focusing specifically on social media.

What Is Social Media Marketing?

Social media marketing is the process of creating content that promotes a brand’s services or products. It involves aligning content with the specific platform on which it will be shared.  

Benefits of Social Media Marketing

It Boosts Brand Awareness

Due to its wide reach, social media marketing provides businesses with ample opportunity to become a familiar face to billions of people.   

It Allows Your Brand to Engage With Your Audience

Customer engagement is key to forming long-lasting relationships with customers. It helps create an emotional connection between customers and businesses and helps encourage brand loyalty. You can achieve this by responding to comments, answering questions, and holding contests.

It Helps Businesses Generate Leads

Social media marketing helps generate leads and conversions because it involves advertising to people who have already expressed interest in a brand by following its account.

Organic vs. Paid Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing can be categorized into two types: organic and paid.

Organic social involves using free tools and services provided by a social media site to create, grow, and engage with a brand’s online following. When you post content on your pages without paying to “boost it,” it’s referred to as “organic content.”

With organic social, those who follow your business can see your posts. More people will see them if your followers share your posts with others within their social media networks. Because it costs nothing to implement, new and independent businesses with a limited marketing budget often rely on organic social.

On the other hand, paid social involves spending money on sponsored content or other forms of marketing messaging on social media platforms. It allows brands to focus their advertising to specific demographics, putting content in front of their target market instead of waiting for it to be shared by followers.

Organic is best for nurturing existing customers, while paid social increases a brand’s reach to potential leads. For best results, brands should strike a balance between organic and paid social. Using both strategically allows businesses to reach and engage new customers as well as nurture relationships with existing customers.

Types of Social Media Campaigns

Prospecting

With a prospecting campaign, brands attract new audiences through outreach on the social media platforms they use the most. It involves connecting with people who have not previously interacted with your brand or purchased your product or service. The goal is to have them want to learn more about your business and become part of your social media community.

Retargeting

Sometimes, social media users engage with your content, like your page, or otherwise express an interest in what you’re offering but don’t take further action. A retargeting campaign allows you to retarget these users and remind them of your products and services. It also allows you to identify ways to better engage with them in the future.

Conversion

A conversion campaign intends to turn community members into paying customers or get them to respond to your calls-to-action by signing up for your newsletter, downloading your menu, and completing your survey.  

Social Media Platforms: Which One to Use?

Consider your target audience before you choose a platform to utilize for your social media campaign. To be effective, you need to use the same ones as they are. Identify each platform’s user base and environment and determine whether it aligns with the types of users you’re targeting.  

The following are some of the top social media sites in the Philippines:

Facebook

In the Philippines, Facebook holds the largest market share among all social media platforms. Marketing on this channel allows businesses to reach 73 million Filipinos as well as billions of active users worldwide.

Facebook marketing allows Philippine businesses to reach more potential customers, establish their presence, and build relationships with their audience through meaningful engagement. Facebook offers several tools to help companies with their organic and paid marketing efforts. These include:

• Facebook Ads
• Facebook Video
• Facebook Analytics
• Facebook Insights

YouTube

A staggering 98% of Filipino internet users go online to watch videos and vlogs, and YouTube is one of the most visited websites in the Philippines. It’s also responsible for about 11% of worldwide video traffic.

On YouTube, businesses can start their channels to post interactive videos to help establish their brands and increase visibility. Also, YouTube allows companies to advertise on videos by other channels.

To measure how well your videos are performing, you can utilize Google Analytics as well as YouTube Studio. The latter offers insights, analytics tools that measure a variety of real-time metrics.

You can also use YouTube to capture leads and generate conversions. One tactic is by using YouTube cards, an interactive CTA you can add to videos. Another is end screens, which you can use to promote your landing page or encourage viewers to watch other videos on your channel.

Instagram

Instagram is ideal for building your brand, and the use of hashtags on the platform is an excellent way of extending your reach. You can also engage your customers by sharing user-generated content on your Instagram feed or Stories.

Instagram offers Instagram Insights, a tool that provides data on the demographics of a business profile’s followers. For example, Instagram shows insights on age, location, and gender. It shows which posts, stories, and promotions are viewed the most and getting the most engagement.

Tips on Creating a Social Media Marketing Strategy

It’s not enough to simply post creative, engaging content, and hope it clicks with your audience. Follow these steps to make social media marketing work for your business:

Set Specific and Measurable Goals

Setting clear goals is essential because, without them, you’d have nothing to measure your performance by, and you won’t know if you’re getting a return on your investment. Possible goals include increasing brand awareness, growing revenue, and boosting brand engagement.

When setting your social media marketing goal, make sure it aligns with your business’s overall goal.

Identify Your Target Audience

When you know who your audience is, you can create content that they are likely to engage with and be influenced by. Things you need to know about your target customer include age, location, average income, and interests. Once you have researched and created your buyer personas, you’d be able to target your audience’s needs more accurately and effectively.

Choose a Social Media Channel to Market On

Your understanding of your audience will help you identify which platforms to use. You should post on the channel your target customers are likely to use. For instance, a cosmetics company whose target audience includes millennials would do well to have a social media presence on Instagram, as this platform is most popular among younger users.

Social Media Strategies for Businesses

Learn From the Competition

Your competitors likely also run a social media strategy. By researching and analyzing your competitors’ performance in terms of social media marketing, you can get valuable insights on how their customer base responds to their posts and which ones are the most successful. You can also identify their weak spots. For example, they may have a large following on Instagram but not on YouTube. In this type of situation, it may be worth it to focus more on marketing on YouTube instead of competing with them on Facebook.

Plan and Post Quality Content

Focus on creating content that is engaging, insightful, and impactful to your target audience. Your posts should be relevant to your audience and authentic. Posts that resonate with your followers are more likely to be “liked,” shared, and talked about.

Additionally, make sure to tailor your content to the social media channel. For instance, short videos work well on Facebook, and user-generated content could attract viewers on Instagram.

Find out when your users are most active and post during those times to ensure they see your content. To make posting more efficient, you can use a scheduling tool.  

Consider Paid Promotions

Boosted ads, sponsored posts, and other forms of paid social allow your business to target specific audiences quickly. You can utilize paid social to accomplish a variety of goals, from building brand awareness, sending traffic to your website, generating leads, and creating conversions.

Track Your Performance

It’s essential to pay attention to metrics as it clues you as to how well your social marketing strategy is working, how successful your campaigns are, and the impact it has made on your business. Tracking your metrics also allows you to compare your performance with that of your competitors.

Some metrics you should keep an eye on include engagement, awareness (impressions and reach), share of voice, and ROI.

Final words

When executed correctly, social media marketing can benefit Philippine businesses in tangible and measurable ways. Does your business plan on incorporating social media into your marketing strategy? Let us know in the comments below.