In the past, it was hard for small businesses to compete with big brands when it comes to marketing. Traditional marketing methods, like getting an ad on television or a billboard on a busy street—not to mention the research involved in targeting your audience—are expensive. That is why small and upstart companies turn to social media to market their products and services.
Using social media in your marketing strategy makes it easier for you to understand who your audience is, and it’s doable even with a small marketing budget. There are currently 4.65 billion social media users worldwide—clearly a massive potential target market—so it’s no surprise that even big-name businesses have jumped on board; with the right social media strategy, your business can have a piece of the action, too.
In this article, you’ll learn how to develop and execute social media strategies and maximize your investment.
Have a brand for your business
Before we delve into the strategies, you first need to understand your brand. This is one of the crucial processes that most small businesses miss; they charge ahead, marketing their product or service without first understanding what their brand is and how their brand will communicate with their customers. For your business to succeed, you first need to build your brand through social media.
Social media branding is how you present your business, products, services, or anything you offer across digital platforms. With strong, effective social media branding, you will attract relevant people into your sales funnel, providing you with leads and conversions.
4 basic social media strategies
1. Set goals for your business.
It’s easy to get lost in social media marketing. So before you get started, it’s wise to create goals and write them down. Keep your long-term goals broad and your short-term goals specific.
To increase brand awareness, generate leads and sales, grow your brand’s audience, boost community engagement, or drive traffic to your website are good examples of business goals. Whatever your goal may be, make it a SMART goal; it must be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Timebound.
2. Research your target audience.
Some rookie marketers tend to make assumptions about their target audience; that is bad practice. You can have a picture of your audience in your head, but if your ideas aren’t in line with their actual needs, then you’re going to be wasting effort, money, and time with a futile advertisement.
Different social media platforms attract different audiences. Instagram and YouTube’s top audiences are millennials and Gen-Z; Pinterest is dominated by women; LinkedIn’s users are well-educated, making it a hub for industry-specific and in-depth content; and Facebook’s high-earning user base makes it one of the prime places for ads.
Find out which social media network your target audience are mostly active on and identify what makes them tick. As soon as you do, you will be able to create and publish content that will appeal to them.
3. Establish your most important metrics and KPIs.
Another important part of a social media marketing strategy are key performance indicators (KPIs). KPIs can help you 1) see how successful your campaigns and content are, 2) discover problem areas so you can correct them before problems get out of hand, and 3) pinpoint what type of content is working best, so you can create more of the same content.
Here are examples of important metrics:
- Reach. This is the number of unique users who saw your content. How much of your content reached into users’ feeds?
- Clicks. This is the total number of times your content has been clicked. Understanding what piques people’s interest or pushes them to buy requires tracking clicks each campaign.
- The number of impressions is divided by the total number of social interactions. This reveals how well your audience views you and their readiness to communicate with you.
- Hashtag-related performance. What hashtags did you use the most? Which hashtags did your company associate with the most? Your answers here can help you define the direction of your content in the future.
- Organic and paid likes. These interactions are ascribed to paid or organic content beyond a conventional like count. Given how difficult organic interaction is to obtain, many firms resort to paid advertising. Knowing the differences might help you plan your ad budget as well as the time you spend on different formats.
- This is a metric for determining how people react to your content, brand, or hashtags. Did your recent campaign offend your customers? What emotions do people connect with your hashtag campaign? It’s always a good idea to explore a little further and see how people talk about or feel about your brand.
4. Create engaging content timely.
According to our research, consumers prefer using social media to provide feedback and contact companies about a service issue or concern. Businesses should not leave customers hanging, whether it’s to capitalize on a compliment or to answer an inquiry.
Getting a handle on timely content requires sending the appropriate message to the right audience at the right time. Organic posts have a harder time reaching the majority of their audience as social algorithms evolve, so the last thing you want to do is disregard those who do engage because it will prevent you from sending additional people through your marketing funnel.
Start building your social media strategy with Rohring Results
Building your social media strategy can benefit your business, whether it be immediately or in the long run. At Rohring Results, we can help you build your brand and social media presence from scratch on any social media platform. Book an appointment with us online, and let’s talk about your branding goals.
