Social media marketing is one of the most effective ways for businesses to reach their prospective and current customer base. The beauty of social media and how people interact with it is that the platform is a destination most people visit on average five times a day, actively seeking out content to entertain and inform them. If you’re not putting your message out there, you are missing a great opportunity. A strategic approach to marketing on social media can bring great results for your brand, grow your audience and generate leads and sales. In this blog, I will go through what is involved with social media marketing so you can better prepare yourself for success with these heavily populated platforms.
Start your social media plan by considering these questions:
What are you hoping to achieve through social media marketing?
Increase in website traffic
Customer engagement or lead nurturing
To raise brand awareness
Create a community and advocacy around your business
Improve communication with your existing customers
Sales, leads and conversions
Who is your target audience?
Where would your target audience spend their time online and how would they use social media?
What message or messages do you want to communicate to your target audience?
Which social media platform should I start with?
Your business type should help you decide and drive your social media strategy.
For example, an e-commerce or travel business, being highly visual, can get a lot of value from a strong presence on Instagram or Pinterest. A business-to-business or marketing company might find more leverage on Twitter or LinkedIn.
Once you have decided on your objectives, audience, message and social platforms it’s time to implement. Here are a few tips to help you kick off your campaign.
Social media content planning – Consider keyword research and competitive research to help brainstorm content ideas that will interest your target audience. What are other businesses in your industry doing to drive engagement on social media?
Great content – As with most online marketing activities, great content is the key to successful social media marketing. Make sure you post regularly and provide valuable information that your customers find helpful and interesting. The content that you share online must go beyond the written word; consider video, imagery and infographics as part of the mix.
Brand – As your social media is expressing your business message, make sure your branding stays consistent across all platforms and posting activity.
Social Media for sharing content – If you are creating content on your website make sure you utilise your social media platforms to share and amplify your content to a larger audience.
Sharing content from other sources – The purpose of this activity is to create trust and credibility around your business. This helps build your audience and community on the social platforms and introduces new audiences to your digital presence. It also opens you up for collaboration if applicable to your company.
Tracking competitors – Social media offers tools to monitor your competitors and their activity. You can find posts and content that resonate with their audiences and use this to adapt your strategy.
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