Marketing using social media is no longer rocket science. It’s unquestionably a “marketing” tool that is giving brands real-world outcomes, which keeps on growing with time.
Social Media is big and just getting BIGGER. If you are not marketing your brand on it, you are likely missing a big chunk of your target customers. Social media has the power to fabricate a relationship that you can use to grow your brand, comprehend your customer’s needs, and eventually get more business.
Here are the eight steps to create a winning social media marketing strategy:
1. Set S.M.A.R.T. Goals
Every bit of your social media strategy should serve the goals you set. Without goals, you have no real way to measure the success of your social media return on investment (ROI). Document your social media goals and align them with your overall marketing goals.
Each of your goals ought to be:
Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Relevant
Time-bound
This is the SMART structure, and it's an important method for ensuring your goals really lead to genuine business results.
2. Reach Your Social Media Audience
“The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself.” – Peter Drucker
If a business is experiencing low engagement on their social profiles, it's generally because they don’t have a precise enough audience profile. Buyer personas enable you to characterize and focus on the right people, in the right places, at the right times with the right messages.
When you know your target audience’s age, interests, likes, dislikes, objectives, most used social networks, etc., it becomes simple and economical to target them on various platforms. This also helps to transition your social media audience into customers for your business.
3. Survey Your Current Customers
You can use your current customers to learn more about their preferences, which you can then use to enhance your social media marketing strategy.
This can be done by conducting surveys from your customers to learn more about the type of content they consume, why they use your services/product, etc. Any feedback from your current customer base is valuable and can help you gain clarity. This will help you improve your current social media marketing strategies and help come up with ways to improve them.
4. Identify Key Success Metrics
“If you cannot measure it you cannot improve it.” – Lord Kelvin
Targeted social media metrics might be the most essential step of a strategy. It is difficult to justify investing energy and money on something that isn’t enhancing your bottom line.
A couple of metrics to consider measuring are:
Reach: The count of unique users who saw your post and how far your content is spread and shared across the social media platform.
Clicks: The number of clicks on your content, company name, or logo. Link clicks are used to see how users travel through your marketing channel. Clicks per campaign can give an understanding as to what drives interest or urges people to buy.
Engagement: It’s about seeing who interacted with your brand and if it was a good ratio of your reach. This reveals insight into how well your audience perceives you and their ability to interact.
Hashtag Performance: Hashtags can be used to connect more people to your brand and increase your brand's visibility. Relevant hashtags will expand your audience and increase engagement.
Sentiment: The measure of how users reposed to your content, brand, or hashtag.
5. Research Your Competition
Odds are, your competitors are already using social media, which means that you can learn and grow from their successes and failures.
Begin by gathering a list of at least 3-5 principle competitors. Search which social networks they’re using and analyze their content strategy, followers, engagement, posting frequency, schedule, type of content, and their follower's responses. Also, track your competitor's accounts and relevant industry keywords to keep track of your own goals.
6. Create And Curate Engaging Content
Quality content is the foundation of a strong social media marketing strategy. Without the correct content, all other steps would neglect to enable you to achieve your marketing goals.
There are two principal components to any successful social media content strategy:
Type Of Content
The type of content you should post on social media relies on form and context which includes images, videos, blog posts, company news, infographics, eBooks, and interviews. Your content should reflect your business goals and brand identity.
Posting Frequency
Posting frequency is as vital as the content you share. The social media content calendar records the dates and times at which you will publish content on each channel. It incorporates both your everyday posting and content for your social media campaign. Your calendar guarantees your posts are divided out appropriately and published at the ideal times.
7. Invest In A Social Media Management Tool
Most marketers have a secret, they leverage tools to boost their productivity. When it comes to social media, having a social media management tool allows you to scale your efforts with ease.
One of the principle benefits of a social media management tool is the ability to schedule posts ahead of time. Ensure your scheduled posts in your social media management tool align with your content calendar.
8. Analyze, Test and Iterate
This is the most vital step in regard to succeeding on social media. Even the best social media marketers depend on experimentation. It might seem basic, but tracking your results, analyzing the data, and then making tweaks to optimize them is crucial.
Each previous step should be re-evaluated after you have had time to analyze the results of your marketing efforts. When you update your social strategy, make sure to let everyone on your social team know, so they can all work together to enable your business to take advantage of your social media accounts.
An extraordinary social media strategy is never set in stone. It is a consistent work in progress that changes when necessary.
If you need assistance creating a strategic social media strategy, look no further! We would love to work with you, so please take advantage of our FREE CONSULTATION.