Social Media Marketing has evolved tremendously over the past 11 years. However, it isn’t as simple as posting a coupon or an update and sitting back to wait for customers to flock to your business.
Social Media Marketing needs a defined strategy to be successful. It can be confusing to determine how to go about marketing your business on the social platforms. Here are 9 steps to define your strategy and achieve social success.
Step 1 –Outline Objectives
Aside from having a presence and being visible on the Social Sites, it is important that you understand what you want to achieve with your Social Media Marketing efforts. Obviously, the goal of any business is to make money, but there are important steps in the sales funnel that you need to follow. Brand awareness, website traffic, engagement, conversions are all measurable objectives. From here determine measurable results, set goals for engagement levels, website clicks, etc.
Step 2 – Identify Your Audience
Determining the demographics of your target audience will help decide the type of campaign to run as well as where to run it. Additionally, once you determine the platforms your key audience are using you must then figure out how to target these individuals using location, interests, behaviors, life events, etc. This information will help with Steps 3, 4 and 5.
Step 3 – Define Your Message
What is the main message you want to convey to your audience? Defining who you are and what you do should be communicated clearly and quickly. These messages will assist with your content creation and should be used in all your communications with your audience.
Step 4 – Determine the Best Platforms
Each Social Media platform has differing definitions of what they are used for and what demographic is using each site. While focusing on the platform where most of your customers are using, it is important to have a presence across multiple platforms. This will help with search rank as well as reaching a new audience. Each platform has its own style and purpose, making sure your business fits this mold is important in determine the best use of your budget and time.
Step 5 – Create Content
Content includes blogs, images, videos, graphics, etc. Content should be valuable, informative, high-quality, and customized for each platform. It is important to create content that will work for each platform regarding tone, messaging and even image/video sizing.
Step 6 – Set Up a Schedule
Scheduling certain messages at designated times will ensure it reaches people that are interested as well as at key times. Outlining campaigns specific to holidays, events, seasonal updates, etc. will help determine the content strategy of your campaign and then allow the rest of our messages to be fit in around these key times.
Step 7 – Monitor & Measure
To make sure your efforts are working and not wasting time or budget it is important to monitor and measure the results. Reviewing the analytics and insights for specific updates, engagement levels overall, cost per views or clicks are all important to the marketing success of your business on the specific platform.
Step 8 –Update as Needed or Rinse & Repeat
Reviewing analytics and insights into your campaigns is essential to determine what works and what doesn’t. Once you know this information you can see what to do moving forward to get good results and stop what isn’t working. Again, using your time and budget effectively in addition to generating interest and potential sales.
Need Help?
Our team has been helping businesses in a variety of industries across the country define their Digital Media Marketing and Advertising strategies. We can help your business too! Contact us for a free consultation and get started toward achieving Social Marketing Success in 2021.