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10 top tips to help your social media strategy
Creating a social media strategy can be a daunting task and a minefield for those starting out in business. But a well-executed strategy is essential and the benefits are endless. It will help boost your brand awareness, encourage audience engagement, drive traffic to your website, and generate new sales.
If you’re ready to kick off your social media strategy, check out our 10 top tips.
1. Lay out your goals and objectives
Having a solid plan, objectives, and goals are imperative if you want to jumpstart your social media strategy.
If you don’t know what you want, how are you supposed to achieve it?
Not to mention, you can’t measure or evolve your strategies over time if you don’t have strong goals, to begin with. Your social media goals should align with your overall marketing efforts. Writing down your goals is paramount if you want to reach them.
When you set your goals, make them attainable and break them down into smaller action steps.
How to set attainable goals to slay your social media marketing strategy:
Use numbers (such as reach 5000 Instagram followers)
Always set a deadline
Be specific and make your goals “SMART”
Make your goals in line with your entire marketing strategy
2. Research and learn about your audience
Connecting and engaging with your audience is crucial in today’s marketing if you want to turn a profit.
But, in order to do that, you need to understand your audience – inside and out.
You should be able to pinpoint their needs, wants, and desires -if you have a hope of creating a successful social media strategy.
Survey your audience to better grasp their pain points
Look carefully at their demographics
Take part in conversations on forums filled with your target audience
Respond to comments on your blog, and comment on other blogs with the same target audience
Reply to all comments or questions on your social media channels
Collect feedback
3. Run competitions to amp up your social media strategy
Crafting a successful social media contest is one of the most alluring tactics you can use. It’ll increase your online visibility, your followers, and your engagement.
There are a number of social contest tools you can use to create an outstanding giveaway or sweepstakes.
The key to executing a successful contest is offering something of tremendous value.
Something that’ll be irresistible to your audience.
How to run a competition on social media:
Figure out what your goals page is like? Increase followers? etc etc
Decide what social media channel you’ll host the comp on
Come up with a deadline for when it’ll end and when the winner will receive their prize
Create the competition (look at different types and choose the right one for your audience)
Promote like crazy!
4. Craft your social media content carefully
Every piece of content you post on social media should be carefully thought out. If you’re posting just to post something – you’re going about it all wrong.
Depending on the social network you’re posting on, you’ll need to learn the various purposes of each network.
Here are some examples:
LinkedIn – A professional network that is perfect for B2B audiences. Also includes LinkedIn Pulse, a content publishing and distribution platform.
Facebook – Almost everyone has a Facebook account. Particularly good for news/entertainment-related content. While Facebook Pages struggle to perform, Facebook Groups can be a great way of connecting with your ideal audience.
Instagram – Perfect if your content is highly visual. Static images and short videos work incredibly well but it’s not as good at driving traffic back to your blog.
Pinterest – Similar to Instagram, Pinterest is highly visual. Although it’s limited to static images, it can be highly effective at driving traffic back to your blog.
Once you learn about the varying networks, you can focus on which ones you think will mesh well with your business.
5. Keep sales pitch tactics to a minimum
Intrusive, traditional marketing went out the window a long time ago, for good reason.
People don’t want to be sold too.
They want to establish real connections and relationships with you. That’s the secret sauce to getting your audience or customers to trust you. And, if they trust you – they’ll buy from you.
Consumers find it off-putting when brands and businesses post too many promotions.
Alternatively, you can craft helpful content that people actually want to consume. Content that leads buyers to your products or services – without being pushy or salesy.
6. Take advantage of video content in your strategy
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know how potent video content has become. Especially in social media marketing.
So, if you haven’t already, it’s time to jump on that bandwagon as soon as possible!
There are loads of different ways to use video content in your social media strategy. But live videos (like Facebook Live Videos) appear to be very popular right now.
Facebook live videos allow you to connect with your audience in an authentic way that isn’t possible in other content formats. Plus you can repurpose your live videos!
People engage by asking questions. So you can show them you’re not just a brand, by interacting with them during and after your live video.
They’ll see you’re a business owner who cares and that will bring more results than anything. According to Facebook, you’ll see 6x the interaction and engagement with a live video.
7. Connect with your audience
If you’re not building relationships with your audience and/or customers – it’ll have disastrous effects on your business.
Expanding your reach is undoubtedly forefront in your mind. And the best way to do this is by connecting in a genuine way with your audience.
This will lead to targeted people landing smack dab on your website and purchasing your services or products. Social media is one of the best tools to bring in new customers or clients.
Social media is a powerful tool for any marketing strategy. And that mainly comes down to the fact that businesses can interact and engage with their customers in a way that’s impossible otherwise.
Smart ways to connect with your audience:
Interact in Twitter Chats
Retweet on Twitter
Survey your audience
Engage in Facebook groups with a similar target audience
Always reply to comments on your Facebook business page
8. Start a Facebook group
If you’ve thought about creating a Facebook group – now is the time.
With the drastic changes occurring within social media – Facebook was hit the hardest. Facebook’s algorithm changed, making Facebook pages more challenging to grow or profit from. Basically, Facebook is saying you’ll be seeing more from your friends, family, and groups in your newsfeeds. And less “public content”, such as from businesses or brands.
Benefits of running a Facebook group:
An increase in your website traffic
Promote your products and services in a non-salesy way
Engage and connect with your audience in an authentic way
Build your email list
Grow your business and earn more money
9. Promotion is key to your entire strategy
You could create the most mind-blowing, quality content on the web – but if nobody gets eyes on it, you’re not going to see results.
That’s where promotion comes in.
We’ve talked about automation tools; it’s vital that you use them for the social media platforms you’ve chosen for your social media strategy.
You’ll also want to have a separate tool for Pinterest, such as Tailwind.
That'll maximize the number of people who see your content and it’ll help to skyrocket your website traffic and your income.
Creating outstanding and diverse content for social media is crucial, but don’t overlook the promotion process.
So what promotional work can you do to level up your strategy?
Cross-promote between your other social profiles
Collaborate with influencers in your industry
Run a social media contest that encourages participants to follow you
Leverage other platforms you have access to (for example, after someone subscribes to your email list, invite them to follow you on social media.)
Take an SEO-driven approach to the content you publish on social networks (for example; use relevant hashtags on Instagram and use popular keywords in titles/descriptions on YouTube.)
10. Consider the latest trends and changes
Staying ahead of the curve is essential in social media marketing.
It’s forever changing, and algorithms are being altered left, right, and center. Making it your job to stay on top of the latest trends and changes in social media.
This includes reading up on current statistics for the social platforms you use, and social media statistics in general.
Here are some trends happening right now:
Live video content is only climbing and is continuing to grow
Instagram stories are a go-to tactic for businesses
Messaging apps are on the rise as a way for consumers to speak to businesses
Influencer marketing is all the rage
Virtual reality in marketing is becoming more popular.
To make the most out of your social media strategy it’s imperative to stay on top of these trends and any algorithm changes. Because we both know what was trending a year ago is likely not now!
Need our help?
Social media marketing can be hard work. But the benefits are difficult to ignore. If you don’t take it seriously, you’ll undoubtedly miss out on leads, customers, online visibility, and sales.
That’s where we can help.
We integrate supporting a cause into your social media strategy to enhance your customers’ engagement with your brand. We do this by delivering campaigns that benefit both your company and the social and environmental causes you support. Part of this is showing your customers and potential customers the positive impact of your business.
If you're interested in finding out more about integrating supporting a cause into your social media strategy, please give us a shout and we’ll be happy to go through the finer points with you.
Yours ethically,
Ethical blog squad
Email: info@clickethical.com