Businesses know they need active social media channels, but get disillusioned when they start them, throw up a few posts and see nothing happen. Unfortunately, social media, especially for business, doesn’t work that way. You need a strategy!
A social media marketing strategy is a plan of what you hope to achieve and how you are going to get there. It also works as a measurement tool to let you know if the things you are doing are succeeding.
The main thing to remember when forming your social media marketing strategy is to keep things concise and specific for effective execution. If things are too broad, they will be difficult to implement, let alone measure.
Let’s look at seven ways to create an effective social media marketing strategy for your business.
1. Set goals and metrics
The first step is understanding where you are heading by forming S.M.A.R.T. (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-bound) goals based on the objectives of your business. By having these in place early, you can use them as a benchmark to see how you are tracking.
Along with this, you’ll need to understand which metrics you will use to measure your success. This is made very easy on social media thanks to the reporting available, as well as the features of the platforms themselves such as like, comments and retweets.
Keep in mind, however, that while it’s nice to get those kinds of interactions, you’ll want some more important metrics in place, like leads and conversion rates.
2. Understand your audience
This is crucial for any business strategy, let alone a social media marketing, but knowing your audience is the key to giving them content they will want to see and engage with and positions you in the best spot to create new customers.
Create some buyer personas to understand the wants and needs of the people who would be interested in your products and services and use real-world data to know how to target them via specific channels. The platform you are using will say a lot about your audience. Facebook, for example, may have an older crowd than snapchat, so you’ll need to market differently on each.
You will also be able to learn more about your audience based on the analytics you receive about your followers and how they interact with you.
3. Review your current situation
If you already have established social media channels, it is important to review your current situation to understand what’s working, and what isn’t.
Who are you connecting with and how, and is it where you want to be? Gauge your performance (and offerings) against your competitors and see if there is any way you may be able to improve your results.
This is a great time to make the decision on whether or not you should be keeping certain accounts. If your audience isn’t really connecting on Twitter, for example, then is it worth the time required to run that platform? If not, put that energy somewhere that is more beneficial.
4. Optimize your channels
Once you have narrowed down the networks that work best for you, you’ll need to optimize the content per platform. This is basically like making a social media strategy for each network.
For example, you will want to focus on video content for Snapchat and Instagram Stories, great copy for Twitter, etc.
Focus on a specific goal for each social network, likely linked to the audience. Facebook may be for sales, Snapchat may be for brand awareness, and so on. Ensure that all profile fields are filled out, use relevant keywords, and high-quality images.
5. Use a social media content calendar
Your high-quality content is no good if you don’t plan when it goes out for maximum impact. There is a gentle balance between oversharing and underscoring as well as finding the right times of day for your audience. A social media content calendar is a great way to map and plan when best to put your information out.
To do this, simply list the dates and time you will post each piece of content. This will help you space everything out and ensure that you have a good mix of content. You’ll be able to easily identify if you are putting out too many videos in a row or not enough diverse information if you can see it all in an overarching view.
Include a breakdown that links with your goals, you may want half of your content for the month to focus on sending people to your website, a quarter of it may focus on a particular special offer and the rest may be brand awareness. Tailor this to the happenings in your business and goals.
6. Test
Your social media strategy is never set in stone, if anything, it’s the opposite. Implement your plan and then track your results to ensure your strategy is working. The world of social media is continually evolving, as is the content people connect with, so you need to adapt as you go.
You can use analytics and reporting to track your progress, and even straight out, ask your followers for feedback. Run a survey with a small prize and understand straight from the source what you should be posting.
7. Think outside of the box
With all of the valuable insights you obtained above, think of ways to create unique content. Think about how much information is fed through various social media channels daily. It’s a lot. The hardest thing for you to do is stand out.
To have your best shot at doing this, don’t be afraid to be a little unique and have some fun. For the most part, people are coming to these channels for some form of entertainment, so don’t be afraid to give it to them from time to time.
Stay on brand, speak to your audience, and over time, your social media channels will become a significant asset to your business!
