Let me ask you a simple question: How many people do your friends know who don’t have a social media account? If you’re like most people, it’s likely that you can’t think of many people who don’t use social media.
The average internet user today uses 6.6 social media platforms, and spends approximately 145 minutes per day on these platforms. Social media is used by over 3.6 billion people worldwide.
It makes sense that brands also use social media because consumers love it.
Enter social media marketing. Social media marketing refers to the practice of advertising on social media your brand, products or services. If you’re not an expert in social media marketing, it can seem complicated. But we can help. This article will guide you through creating a winning social-media strategy.
What is a social strategy?
Without a strategy, you can’t start your social media journey for your brand. If you don’t know where to go, you won’t be able to reach your destination.
Social media strategies can be described as a spreadsheet, map, or document that describes your approach to social media.
- Marketing strategies
- Goals
- Key Performance Indicators (KPIs),
- Design options
- Quality control rules
- Your team’s roles and responsibilities
Although many people mistakenly use the terms “social media strategy” or “social media marketing program”, there are important differences. Your strategy will cover your entire social media presence over the lifetime of your company, while your plans will only guide you to short-term goals (such as optimizing winter revenue).
This article will be about social media strategies.
Why social media marketing strategies are essential for 2022
Social media marketing strategies do more than just guide your marketing.
- Stay on track to your goals
- Assist new members of the team by acting as a resource
- Help your marketers design social media content
- Your marketing messages should be consistent across all social media networks
- Your social media efforts should be visible to your managers and investors.
- Help you produce Search Engine Optimised (SEO) content
A social media strategy can give you an edge over your competitors. Your marketing will be more thought-provoking, simpler to create, and more data-driven. This advantage is significant, considering that 91% of US marketers work for big brands that use social media marketing.
How do you plan a social media marketing strategy that works
Although your social media strategy does not need to be a lengthy document with 100 pages of information, it should provide you with useful guidelines that you can use in your marketing.
This section will show you how to create these guidelines.
Step 1. Step 1.
You must first define your goals for social media. You should have a goal and multiple objectives in order to get the best results.
Commonly confused are objectives and goals. A goal is your “why,” while objectives are your milestones towards your goal. You might have a goal to create a community around your brand, while an objective might be “get 10,000 Instagram fans.”
It is easy to identify your goal by asking yourself: “Why do I want social media marketing?”
It could be:
- Increase brand awareness
- Generate leads
- Revenue growth
- Increase your media presence
- Social media users should build a community of trust.
- Increase website traffic
- Answer customer questions and comments
You don’t have to be focused on one goal. You should instead choose as many targets and goals as you can realistically achieve.
Step 2. Define your target audience
Who are you going reach via social media? This is the key question that will guide the rest of your strategy.
It is important to identify your target audience. Once you have this information, you will be able to better plan how you market your brand.
Your audience may be familiar to you. They are likely your most loyal customers. Note the demographics of your audience (age, gender, location, and gender) as well as their interests.
A marketing persona is also possible. A marketing persona is a fictional representation of a customer to help you create content that appeals to your audience.
Here’s how you can create one.
Source: FoundationInc.co
Step 3. Step 3. Analyze your competitors
Once you have defined your target audience, it is time to do a competitive analysis. To see which strategies work and which don’t, a competitive analysis allows you to examine the social media strategies of your competitors.
Analyze 3 to 5 competitors who have a similar target audience to get the best results. Your competitive analysis will yield more information the closer you are to your target audience.
These are some things you should look out for in your analysis.
- Which social media platforms do they use?
- How often they post
- How many images, videos, polls, and text they post?
- Average number of comments, likes and shares
- What types of posts are most effective?
- They approach their bios, comments, and Calls to Action (CTAs).
- How long have they been using social media?
You should look at the posts for several weeks or even months. You can get a better picture of their strategy by looking at their accounts over a longer period, as social media performance is subject to fluctuations (especially during the winter holidays season).
Step 4. Step 4.
Next, choose the social media channels that you want to use and create profiles. There are many social media platforms to choose from. However, most people follow brands on Instagram and Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn. Facebook, YouTube, Reddit. TikTok. Snapchat.
Source Statistica
Although each platform has a different way of structuring user profiles, it is important to include these three items:
- A description of your brand including your name, your location, and your past.
- A description of what products or services you offer. You can also list products that have a name.
- You can provide a link to your website, online store or other information. If you need multiple links, you might use Bio.fm or ContactInBio.
Your profile should include high-quality header and profile images. This will help your accounts look professional. The same username can be used across all accounts to make them look more official.
If you are eligible, verify your social media accounts.
Step 5. Step 5.
Although you have the profiles, market research, and audience to launch your social media journeys, there is one thing missing: a content calendar.
A content calendar is a schedule that details when and what you will post each post. A content calendar can help you plan ahead and post consistently on social media.
Your calendar should contain a variety of posts, including:
- Surveys
- Images
- Videos
- Infographics
- Text-posts
- Posts with question-and-answer
- Posts featuring influencers
Plan your content calendar at least one month in advance to get the best results. This will allow you to create unique posts while still keeping in line with your marketing. If you are interested in working with influencers, planning ahead is a great idea. Influencers take several weeks to create and publish sponsored content.
Also, make sure to include an approval process in your calendar. An approval process after posting will ensure that everything meets your quality standards. It will also help you reach your social media goals.
Step 6. Step 6. Get inspired to start publishing
Now you are ready to publish. Open your account and create an introduction post inviting new followers to join you on social media. You are free to be creative and create something that will attract new followers. Afends has a great example.
Source: Ends
Although it may take some time to build a community around your brand, it will be worth it in the long-term. Research has shown that 57% consumers follow brands they enjoy to learn more about their offerings. A further 40% of internet users aged 18-34 would consider purchasing something via social media.
You can foster a community by sharing your posts.
- React promptly to all comments
- Use a hashtag for your brand
- Respond to Direct Messages
- Post frequently
- Invite your loyal followers to sign up for your email marketing
- Both promotional and non-promotional posts
The 80/20 rule can help you balance your promotional and informative content. This rule states that 20% of your content should promote your brand.
Step 7. Step 7.
Your social media marketing strategy should not be viewed as a set of rules and procedures. Instead, view your strategy as a work document that can be modified as needed.
As your brand grows, you will need to change your objectives, content calendar, target audience, and target audience. You will need to adapt your social media strategy to keep up with the changing world.
Negative changes in your social media engagement KPIs are a great way to determine when your strategy needs to be changed. These are some KPIs you should be paying attention to:
- Likes and hearts
- Comment
- Shares
- Views (though each platform defines “view” differently).
- Click-Through-Rate (CTR)
- Brand mentions
- Followers
- Active followers are the percentage of your followers who interact with you.
That’s all! Now you are ready to create and implement your strategy.
2022 Social media ideas
Conceptualizing engaging and creative post ideas is one of the most difficult parts of creating a social media strategy. Here are some suggestions:
Stories
Images and videos that are live for more than 24 hours are called stores. These images are very popular on Instagram, Snapchat, Snapchat, and Twitter (which refers to them as “Moments”)
Stories are often overlooked by brands because they don’t stay on your feed for long. This is a huge mistake. This is a mistake.
A story can contain almost any information. You can host an Ask Me Anything (AMA), shout out a follower or create an infographic.
Short videos
Posting videos can bring out great results for many brands. After creating an explainer video, Edgar, a social media automation tool company, saw a 27% increase in their visitors-to-sign up rate.
Your social media traffic will increase if you include videos in your strategy. Instagram and other platforms like it push video content heavily because it keeps users on the site for longer periods of time.
You might consider posting an unboxing video or expert review of your product. Videos don’t have to be polished or overproduced. They should just be authentic and engaging.
User-generated content
User-generated content (UGC), is free images, texts, and gifs your followers create, tag, and post. Here’s an example of a photo someone submitted to Ipsy, a makeup brand.
Source Twitter
Encourage people to create UGC. This will increase your engagement and help connect you with your followers.
To draw attention to your profile, you can also post your UGC to other brands’ pages. Gary V calls this “the $1.80 Instagram Strategy”, as he posts 0.02 cents per trending post for ten hashtags every day. This is $1.80 worth of comments.
Giveaways
Giveaways have a proven track record of success. Giveaways are fun and free. People love to win because they’re exciting.
You can use social media to promote many giveaways, such as:
- Photo contests in which people vote to choose a winner
- Referral contests in which people tag their friends
- Hashtag contests are where people create UGC and tag others to enter
- Gift card giveaways
You don’t need a lot of followers on social media to tell people about your giveaway.
Source: Hopepond
Social media marketing is a key to success
Brands are spending more money on social media. Brands in the United States spent $17 Billion in 2019, up from $7 Billion in 2014.
Social media marketing is so well-known. Social media is used by half of the world’s population, so if you don’t use it, your brand will be left behind.
A social media strategy is essential to capturing the attention of your audience. This article will explain how to create a social media strategy.
- Your target audience will guide your marketing
- Different social media platforms
- Your content should be able to change and grow.
- Your posts can be measured with KPIs and goals
Please share your tips and tricks for social media success in the comments section below.
Scoop.it Blog published the post Creating Your Social Media Strategy: Step-By-Step Guide.
Did you miss our previous article…
https://onlinemarketingagencies.net/this-marketer-converted-cookie-cutter-landing-pages-into-120000-leads-discover-how/
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