Social Media Marketing Strategy

Teamwork Social Media OfficeSocial Media sounds like an easy marketing strategy for a small business, right? Sign up for a Facebook account, Twitter account, maybe even an Instagram account. Once you have your accounts setup, then you start posting. That’s all there is to it, right?

There’s more to it for an effective social media marketing strategy. We are going to look at some of the elements of a successful social media marketing campaign.

Where Are Your Customers?

Different social media platforms have different audience demographics. Depending on who your target customer is can influence which social media networks you want to spend the most time on. It can be hard to keep up on all the social networks. But if you can focus your attention on the top 2 or 3 social network that contain your target audience, you can make the most of your time.

Digital marketing changes at a blinding pace. The demographics shift over time as users move from one up and coming platform to another. The following article from HootSuite (who consolidated some metrics from Pew Research Center) helps get you started.

The Top Social Media Sites That Matter to Marketers

Remember though, you have to keep up with social media trends on a regular basis as various networks rise and fall in popularity.

Social Media Profiles

Is the social media profile you have setup for your business effective? Are you using it as a tool to improve your success?

You need to take the time to review your social media profile pages for each network. Are you using high quality pictures? Are you taking advantage of all the information the social media network will allow in your profile? Are elements consistent across networks?

Evaluating your social media profiles and making sure they are complete and accurate can give your customers a higher level of trust in you. In addition ensuring the information in your profile is accurate will make instill confidence in your customer and make sure they can find you.

What Are Your Objectives?

You’ve identified your customers and where they are spending their time. What’s your objective? Are you trying to raise brand awareness? Are you trying to push sales? Are you trying to bring people to your website?

A small business needs to start answering these questions to more effectively utilize social media. Regardless, your social media objectives need to tie into your business goals as a whole. Social media marketing is best used to to help advance your progress towards your business goals.

Social Media BoardContent Calendar

Posting on an ad hoc basis can be limiting and distracting. It is wiser to approach social media with a plan as a business. This includes having a content calendar.

In its simplest form a content calendar can be how many a times a day do you plan on posting to each network. Some social media networks are more effective when posted to several times per day. Some networks are more effective when used once a day. And some are more effective when used only on weekdays.

In its more complex form a well planned content calendar can indicate what you are posting days, weeks, or even months ahead. Future product promotions or specials can influence your content calendar. You might start with a lead up to a special event or promotion culminating in a flurry of posts around the event or promotion.

Curating your content and posting schedule ahead can lead to more successful promotions and events at your business.

Social Media Analytics

You have your customers identified. You’ve done the homework to determine which social media platforms they are on. And you’ve tied your social media use to you business goals. It’s time to measure your progress.

There are many tools available to measure your social media activity. You can measure likes, retweets, shares, and more. Of course if you are trying to drive traffic to your website you can structure your campaigns in such a way that you can measure the success of these campaigns by watching Google Analytics.

Measuring the success of your social media activity is key to driving the results. If a social media campaign isn’t working, you need to know so you can adjust your tactics. Or maybe your audience is most active at times outside the norm – your own analysis can reveal these patterns to you allowing you to more effectively target your social media presence.

Social Media Engagement

And don’t forget to engage people on social media! All of your work is for naught if you don’t do this. If you get comments on your posts, tweets, shares, etc – be sure to respond back! This is where real opportunity exists to build relationships with your customers. These relationships are what really builds value for your business. Either through loyal customers or through referrals that drive business, engagement on social media is required for success.

Wrap Up

There is a lot more to successful social media marketing than just making some posts to your favorite platform.

You need to monitor your platforms for replies and comments and respond to them in a timely manner. You need to know who your audience is. You need to make sure your social media profiles are polished. You need to know the right times to post to drive maximum exposure. You need to know what objectives you want to reach with your time on social media. And you need to monitor your statistics to know if you are reaching your objectives or not.

Are you using social media effectively?