Social media is one of the best ways to connect with people who are already familiar with your brand. It is also very useful for reaching those who have not yet heard of you.

Using social media to establish your brand awareness, reputation and public/global interaction will be one of the best initial marketing decisions that you can make. 

To properly begin your journey to brand discovery through social media, you must have a plan. 

Centre your social media plan around your research. Your research will provide insight into what your competition and your niche market do and what works. Paying attention to what has already been done shortens your learning curve because you will know what not to do. Use your competition as inspiration and use them to set your social media marketing goals along with your research findings.

At this point, you should have an outline of relevant, timely, attainable and measurable social media goals.

One possible realization to anticipate is that Facebook might not be the best platform for you to start with. But each social media platform provides different experiences and results. 

By creating a business page, you can post videos and pictures of all types to fulfil your digital marketing efforts to every social media channel. Plan to create content that works on all channels or the majority of them. 

First, conduct your own research to understand how your target market/audience spends their time online. This is the best way to decide what social media channel(s) you should use and know who your audience is.

Interesting Note: According to eMarketer, more brands use Facebook for customer acquisition and Instagram for commerce.

The set up of your social media presence will require that you build relationships that will aid your brand awareness and interaction. Over 40% of digital consumers use social media to research brands and products. 

So use social media as your big opportunity to introduce your brand and generate digital relationships, awareness and engagement. Don't shy away from interacting with followers and potential customers through social media. 

Engaging with customers on social media is your first step to building their initial trust in you and your brand. With this creation of trust and new relationships with customers, suppliers and a general audience; begin to encourage them to sign up to receive your email marketing campaigns, as well as visit your website and store.

It is also important to remember that your social media content requires just as much effort and energy as your email marketing content. Producing quality content that drives customer engagement is more significant than quantity.

This is not to say that you should make few or little posts, but your plan should have included the kind and ways you will create and publish relevant content. 

Impressive social media postings are often those created as Calls To Action. They use prompt statements such as: follow, sign-up, register, submit an entry (for competitions and prize giveaways), buy, like, repost and visit as well as other actions required of followers/subscribers/audiences.