Social media marketing may be a problematic concept for many people out there to understand. Most of us know what advertisements are, offline or online. But with the advent of technology and social media platforms in the past two decades, brands and businesses have started, if it could be said, advertising on social media. You probably wouldn’t get a good definition of the concept of Wikipedia. So, here is another way to define social media marketing. Of course, it can’t only be described as advertising on social media. So, social media marketing implies the process of content creation that is exclusively tailored by a brand appertaining to each platform of social media.
It is a method to help them achieve more reach or user engagement, including likes, comments, and shares. It is common knowledge that creating good content would get more reach and engagement for your brand. But every social media site isn’t the same, and that’s why you need a separate social media strategy for each one. Know that your strategy is directly dependent on your content. Destructive content won’t fetch you more engagement even if your strategy is top-notch. A crisp and concise strategy for your brand’s marketing will help you achieve your goals regarding it.
Why you should have social media for your business
Everything is alright about social media marketing, strategies, goals, etc. The main question that most people would ask is why your brand needs a social media presence anyway? Whether you are active on the internet or not familiar with it, it is essential to know the WHY aspect. The central importance of a social media presence is more audience which equals more customers. It would consequently result in the growth of your business. Now, let’s say you are familiar with social media marketing and have set some goals too about your brand. But how to achieve those? That’s when you need a strategy. Your objectives could include:
- Growing revenue.
- Wanting more people to be aware of your brand.
- Providing better customer service.
- Getting your brand a mention in the press.
- Boosting engagement.
Back in the day when there were no social media, the advertisements in newspapers, tv, the radio played a significant role. Still, they couldn’t and didn’t get as much reach. Since you have social media in this decade, you should make the best of it and strive to achieve your business goals.
Why should you have a marketing strategy?
You must have gotten the idea that having a strategy is crucial to marketing your brand on social media. Not having a proper strategy in place won’t yield you results even if you post regularly. Firstly, you must set some brand goals, know which type of audience you are targeting and what they expect. Whether you are trying to expand your business using social media or gaining traction being a social media marketer, having a strategy is crucial. You must be thinking that a plan of social media marketing and a strategy is similar. Though you are not very wrong, there is a definite difference. You have to contemplate it as- a strategy is a path, and a plan is like a vehicle to your destination or your goals.
How and where to share according to your brand’s niche?
Building a social media marketing strategy takes a bit of research and insight. After understanding why you need social media for your brand and why you need a strategy to market it, the next thing to do is know your audience. After you see the type of audience you are targeting, you would have more insight into where, when, and what to post. Now you have to consider your niche. If your brand is related to beauty and cosmetics, your audience would probably need more makeup, makeup tools, tips on beauty, etc. It would be best if you thus focused on creating such content for your account. An excellent exercise to try at this point would be to utilize specific marketing personas. There are many, actually, and one of the best is the 1H and 5WS. it means asking yourself-
- Who are the people that your target audience comprises of, that is, their age, salary, gender, location, and so on.
- What does your audience want from you? Do they want information on the newest products, tips on beauty (if you have a beauty brand), educational content, etc.?
- Which is their go-to social media platform– Instagram, Facebook, or others?
- When do they go through your content? Do they look up your brand on weekends, while commuting etc.?
- Why does the audience engage with your content? Is it to get healthier to pursue their passions/ interests or others?
- How does your audience like to consume your content- via posts, videos, etc.?
If your brand has just taken off, you could use such personas to build your marketing strategy. While your business has been around for a while, you probably know what your audience wants. You can already start building a strategy with your insight.
How to create and execute your social media strategy?
Having a proper social media strategy would help your brand run in a smooth systemic way and help it gain in the ever-rising competition. Starting to promote your brand without making preliminary plans could lead to dire consequences. While creating a strategy, you need to document it properly, and given below is the way to do it how.
- A marketing template: This is a Word or Excel sheet where you document your whole marketing strategy.
- A checklist: This is to help you keep track of how you are proceeding with your plan.
- Content Calendar- Maintain regularity in uploading content and keep them ready beforehand.
- Using custom reports by Google Analytics- Just a few clicks, and you get reports on the incoming traffic for your brand on social media.
After these, you will need to follow the marketing persona listed above and think about executing the real-life strategy. The Google Analytics reports are great if you want to monitor your incoming traffic. While trying out posting in different ways, you would see what works best for you. You will also be able to see posting on which site or network yields you the best results.
Know what your competitors’ follower counts:
Since you and other brands in the same niche would have the same kind of audience, you will need to see which of their social networks has the most followers. It would help you get an insight into what might work for you too.
Conclusion
Another thing that you can do to get to know your target audience is trying out paid promotions. Almost every social media site offers a feature of paid advertisements so that you can reach or target a larger audience. It helps you to help your brand grow systematically in exchange for a stipulated payment. You could experiment with the different social media sites and use their paid promotion features to see how they work. You could compare each site’s results by your Google Analytics tools and then continue using the network, which yields the best results. You have to be careful of a few things.
If you have an account for your brand on several social media sites, make sure you can adequately handle each one. It would be best if you also were sure that you don’t break any terms of service that any particular network may have. For example, on Facebook, you can have only a single personal account. Yet you can maintain multiple pages, and on Twitter, you may have more than one account.
But on Twitter, you can’t keep sharing any particular post various times on different accounts. The social media marketing strategy would be somewhat different for every other brand. It’s a bit of a trial and error process before understanding what would be best for your business.
