What Are The Stages Of The Social Media Marketing Funnel?

There are hundreds of thousands of strategies out there when it comes to marketing your brand by making use of social media. These strategies promote creating content, creating a social media marketing calendar and orchestrating creative campaigns in order to keep your audience engaged.

But when it comes to creating a customer journey which takes potential customers – who are hearing about your brand for the first time – to a point where they become brand advocates and recurring buyers, there tends to be a gap.

The Beauty Of Social Media Marketing

The beauty of the process of social media marketing is that you can win over customers of all shapes and sizes. People who’ve never heard from you before? Those folks who just need a little “push” in order to become long-term buyers? They’re both fair game.

That said, getting in customers through social media means you aren’t able to take a one-size-fits-all approach to advertising. Rather, you need to create content and ads which speak to individuals regardless of where they stand with your business.

Enter your social media marketing funnel.

What Is The Social Media Marketing Funnel?

A marketing funnel is a path which your customers travel. From the first stages when someone learns about your business, to the purchasing stage, marketing funnels map routes that customers take to conversion and beyond.

With careful analysis, a marketing funnel allows you to know what your company must do in order to influence consumers at a particular stage. It begins the moment that they become aware of your brand and continues until after they buy a product and/or service.

The social media marketing funnel ends up with a customer becoming a very real advocate of your brand.

The Social Media Marketing Funnel Isn’t Universal

Different industries and marketing experts could have varying opinions on the phases of a social media marketing funnel. Despite what you term the phases, there is a basic framework to a customer journey which ultimately results in a sale and long-term brand advocacy.

The most frequently used social media sales funnel framework, and also the one which applies to most companies, consists of five phases:

1. Awareness – Attracting new individuals who are presently unaware of your brand.
2. Consideration – Standing out among your competition so that new audience members have you at the top of their finds.
3. Action – Convincing your audience to take action and to also make a purchase.
4. Engagement – Using social media to stay top-of-mind and keep your audience engaged after they’ve made a purchase.
5. Advocacy – Building sufficient levels trust with your audience so that they want to recommend you to others.

Get in touch with the Digital School of Marketing

Do you want to learn more about the exciting world of social media marketing? If you do then you need to do our Social Media Marketing Course. Follow this link to find out more.