Have you thought about your social media marketing strategy? For some it may seem unusual to incorporate this into your marketing plans but it is pretty much the norm for many businesses and brands these days and you can’t ignore it.
Social media marketing should be merged with your traditional marketing efforts. Here’s 5 tips to help you create an effective social media marketing strategy for your business.
1. Who’s in the know? – It’s important that everyone from the CEO, marketing team and management should be included in the decision process of the strategy. Once the social media strategy is in place and developed, company employees should be made aware of all social media presences, campaigns and encouraged to participate with content.
2. Pick your platforms – You may be overwhelmed by the number of social networks out there but your business does not have to take on them all. It is important you pick the platforms that suit your marketing goals and objectives. Content should then be created based on the type of social network you choose. Remember each platform is different so make your content suit its audience and users.
You’ll then find the reality is your customers (and competitors) will give you a good guide to where and how you should be active on social media.
3. Your goals – Never dive into social media just because everyone else is doing it. Make sure there is reasoning behind it and you have specific business goals in place. You may want to increase website traffic, boost SEO, advertise events or even build online relationships with other networks and stakeholders. You always want to ask yourself, ‘What does your business want to get out of social media?’
4. Is your content influential? – If you’re going to start using these platforms then make sure you’re getting the best out of them. Just updating statuses and adding images on occasions is pointless. You want to be creating content that influences online users and keeps them engaged.
Your social media networks should do more than just advertise your business and sell your products. Remember the 70/30 rule, 70% of your posts should be information that users will find useful, for example, how-to-do-it yourself tips, and/or free samples or workshops as well as sharing photos, videos and/or links. Then 30% of your posts should be dedicated to advertising your website, business products and services.
5. Measuring social media – You will want to monitor and measure your content to make sure your communications are working. There are many free online tools that can help you do this, just to name a few, SocialBro, Follwerwonk, Tweetreach and Google Analytics being the most popular for social media and website traffic.
Take advantage of Facebook’s free insights page too, this can give you all your audience information, geographically and demographically. Learn what your most viewed posts are and what posts get the most interaction.
If you’re going to be on social media remember to stay in the know. Social media trends and networks change daily so it’s vital you know what’s best for your business online. And keep an eye on your competitors!