Social media marketing (or social network marketing) is an integral part of any business strategy today. But between different platforms, updates to many of their features, change of algorithms, or even new trends, it can be difficult to keep up with all these constantly evolving changes. Follow these 10 steps to avoid getting overwhelmed!
1. Define Your Mission
Define what you want to achieve from your social media strategy. Answer this simple question: Why do you want to use social media for your business? Any good strategy starts with a good plan. Without a plan, there is no clear goal of what you are trying to achieve. So to create an editorial calendar for your social network from scratch, take the time to define your mission.
2. Define Your Goals
Having a solid plan, objectives and goals is essential if you want to launch your social media strategy. Really, if you don’t know what you want, and where you’re going, how can you get it? Also remember that you can’t measure up or develop your strategies over time if you don’t have concrete goals to begin with. In this case, set SMART goals.
3. Consider Your Target Audience
The third step to building a successful social media marketing strategy is: Know who your target audience is or determine what your product is intended for,
- Before knowing what kind of people you’re targeting, you need to have a clear understanding of why your product or service exists and who it exists for. What problems does it solve?
- Next, define your audience demographics (age, gender, location, etc.), as your product will certainly appeal to certain segments of the population and may not be very relevant to others.
- Finally, the last point: determining the type of audience. Once you know what your industry works for, this step should be relatively easy. Determine what type of audience will benefit most from your product (bloggers, working professionals, individual consumers…), or if you are considering SMEs, enterprises and brands at large…
Once this is defined, the next step is to identify your competitors.
4. Identify Your Competitors
Consider that all other brands have similar offers and make sure you stand out. Start by looking at what your top competitors are doing on social media. See what platform they are using and what they are trying to achieve. With this information, you can work to set your brand apart from the rest. If a competitor has more followers and more engagement, it would be nice to see how their strategy differentiates them. Always do a competitive analysis to identify what works and what doesn’t.
5. Choose your social network
Not all social networks serve the same purpose and not all are a good fit for your brand. So think about the platform your target audience uses. List the people you want to use for your social media strategy, then consider who your target market likes. It doesn’t have to be present on all platforms anyway. What matters is that you make an impact on the people you are in. It’s not the quantity that matters, but the quality! Therefore, focus on the social network most used by your target.
6. Think About Your Content
Once you have identified the social networks you want to use, make sure you create content that is appropriate for the platform. Keep in mind that different types of content appeal to different audiences, as there is nothing worse than creating content for the sake of content. When creating social media posts or thinking about campaigns, ask yourself, “How will this help the business?” and “How will this help my goal?” If you can’t answer any of these questions, you may need to rethink your social media strategy!
To give you some ideas, here are examples of goals that can be achieved through social media content:
- more visits to your website;
- brand awareness ;
- Increased engagement (Share/Like/Click/Reply);
- Better customer satisfaction/service;
- Buying more of your product or service.
7. Measure Your Performance
As you implement your strategy, always keep an eye on what works and what doesn’t. You can then refine your efforts and improve the results. There are many analysis tools out there to help you track the metrics that are most important to you. Then, once you get a feel for how your strategy works, try to continuously improve. by usingA/B Testing In particular, you can gradually make small changes to your strategy.
8. Use Scheduling and Automation Tools
Between providing feedback to the community, creating new content, creating visuals, monitoring competitors…, you are often under water! However, there are ways to save time, including using tools to manage your social media presence. Several tools allow you to plan and monitor your performance across different platforms. There are also automation tools like chatbots to send automated messages when someone contacts a brand. These messages may direct users to frequently asked questions or to other support services while awaiting a response from the company.
9. Consider the Latest Trends
Staying ahead of the competition is essential in social media marketing as trends and algorithms are constantly changing. We all know that what was trending a year ago might not be trending now! So make it your job: This includes reading statistics on the social platforms you use and social networks in general. For example, these trends are all the rage right now:
- influencer marketing;
- live video content;
- Instagram stories;
- virtual reality;
- messaging apps.
10. Evaluate Your Strategy
The final step is to make sure that your strategy is working as intended. Check your goals against your mission – did you achieve what you wanted? Adjust the content you create, the social platforms you use, or your goals if necessary. Remember that your strategy should evolve as you learn. Top most, Don’t be afraid to try new ideas!
Having a social media strategy can help you improve your brand’s exposure to social media. It may seem daunting at first glance, but implementing a social media strategy is actually quite simple when you do it the right way.
Would you like to delve deeper into this topic? Take a look at our webmarketing training with social media strategy component.