Building a Social Media Marketing Strategy: How Social Media Can Help You Grow Your Brand!

In today’s digital landscape, social media is no longer optional for businesses looking to grow their brands and connect with current and potential customers. With over 4 billion daily social media users worldwide, a strategic marketing plan is crucial for reaching your target demographics.

In this blog post, we’ll explore how you can leverage the power of platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and more to achieve key business goals like driving website traffic, generating leads, boosting brand awareness, and increasing sales. We’ll also provide tips for crafting social posts and campaigns that resonate with your audience and get real results.

DEFINING YOUR GOALS AND KPIS

Before diving into strategy, clearly understanding what you want to accomplish on social media is vital. Start by defining quantifiable key performance indicators (KPIs) and objectives tied to overarching business goals, whether that’s getting more restaurant reservations, credit union memberships, client registrations, or other conversions.

Example KPIs might include:

• Increase website traffic by 25% in 6 months
• Gain 2,500 new Instagram followers in a year
• Generate 500+ new email list sign-ups in a quarter

When setting these goals, think realistically, but don’t be afraid to be ambitious. Take the time to understand what success looks like for your business, and choose KPIs that will help you get there. Having measurable goals is crucial for tracking performance and ROI so you can optimize ongoing efforts.

SOCIAL MEDIA PRESENCE AND BRAND BUILDING

One of the key advantages of social media marketing is the ability to directly interact with your customers and build an authentic brand identity. To do this effectively, focus on crafting engaging social content and stories that reflect your brand voice and values. Share behind-the-scenes photos, introduce your team, or highlight customer success stories.

Getting creative with content formats can also capture attention in feeds – try Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, TikTok videos, Twitter Polls, Facebook Live, and more. Interactive formats promote higher engagement and sharing.

Consistency in posting and engagement is also crucial – aim to publish new branded content regularly on your chosen platforms so fans always have something new to see in their feeds. Staying top of mind keeps drawing fans back.

Respond to comments and messages promptly as well. This builds community and trust with followers as they see real interaction in responses. Social media allows brands to have genuine conversations at scale.

Over time, keeping social media efforts lively, authentic, and responsive will help you organically grow your audience and authority. As fans get to know and like your brand personality on platforms like Instagram or Facebook, they become more likely to convert to customers.

Leverage your social media profiles to highlight what makes your brand unique – whether that’s stellar customer service, small business charm, or authority around a niche topic. Share your differentiation across social channels through engaging stories.

EXPAND YOUR REACH WITH GREAT CONTENT?

Creating and sharing valuable, relevant content is one of the best strategies for cutting through the noise on social. Before drafting posts or campaigns, research what topics resonate most with your target buyers. Identify their pain points, questions, and interests to inform content themes and angles.

Your social content should educate or entertain fans while subtly speaking about your products or services as a solution. For example, an accounting firm could share tax tips without aggressively promoting their offerings while subtly demonstrating expertise. This “soft sell” approach nurtures leads over time.

You should also focus on repurposing content across platforms – that popular Instagram video could also be adapted for LinkedIn or Twitter, helping expand your reach. Don’t be afraid to experiment with different social content formats too, from static images to Stories and live video.

HIRING SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGERS?

Hiring specialized social media marketing staff or agencies is advised for local businesses without the bandwidth. Experienced professionals deeply understand each platform’s unique algorithms, audiences, trends, analytics, and best practices. They can share that expertise to optimize your branded profiles, post engaging content, run ads, implement growth strategies, track KPIs, and adjust efforts over time to hit goals.

While quality social management does require investment, the return can be well worth it. The right partner will elevate your social presence and strategies at every level, helping accomplish objectives that otherwise may have proven difficult on your own. If hiring a professional, research their specific experience and proven results with past clients in your industry.

GETTING SPECIFIC: TAILORING YOUR APPROACH

While the general tips above apply across platforms, it’s important to tailor branding and messaging slightly for each social media network’s culture. For example, casual visual content tends to thrive on Instagram and Facebook, while more professional posts align better with LinkedIn’s audience.

KEY PLATFORMS AND CONSIDERATIONS

Hashtag strategy also varies from channel to channel – the same branded hashtag on Instagram may get lots of engagement while going unnoticed on Twitter. Again, an experienced social media marketing pro can help provide network-specific recommendations and constantly optimize efforts. They’ll also stay on top of any emerging feature changes and best practices.

Here’s a high-level overview highlighting some unique strategic considerations for today’s most popular networks:

Facebook

With nearly 3 billion monthly active users, Facebook remains a powerful platform – especially for driving website traffic, registrations, and sales through ads. Organic branded posts can still generate steady exposure and engagement, too.

Instagram

Instagram is ideal for establishing your brand visually while nurturing leads through “lifestyle content.” Creative, eye-catching images and videos perform extremely well. Instagram Stories and Reels are also great for shorter video content.

Twitter

While smaller in scale, Twitter enables authentic connections with individuals through real-time commentary, branded hashtags, regular posting, and more.

YouTube

YouTube dwarfs all other networks in terms of monthly site visits and daily video views. Creating a branded channel to host video content speaking to your products or services can be tremendously valuable for search visibility, leads, and driving website traffic over time.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn promotes more formal professional engagement, though regular company updates, articles, and posts can still help expand your reach and nurture B2B leads.

THE POWER OF PAID SOCIAL CAMPAIGNS

While organic content can provide steady value, the real social media marketing muscle comes from paid advertising efforts. Platforms like Facebook and Instagram offer incredibly advanced paid tools to hyper-target prospects by location, job role, behavior patterns, and much more. You can then track campaign performance in real-time, optimizing creative and targeting as needed.

For example, a restaurant could only serve ads for their new weekly specials to locals who previously engaged with posts or visited their website. Campaign setup, management, and optimization are generally best left to trained professionals. However, the ability to turn social media fans into real-life customers has massive profit potential.

ANALYZING AND IMPROVING RESULTS?

Speaking of tracking, analyzing key metrics and social media analytics is required to gauge campaign or initiative effectiveness and ROAS. Are you actually hitting or getting close to the website traffic, registrations, or conversions originally defined as KPI goals? If not, what content, targeting, or strategies need to shift?

Again, experienced social media marketers will actively benchmark numbers week-over-week and month-over-month, adjusting approaches to improve performance. If managed internally, Google Analytics and platform-specific analytics tools can provide the data needed. Just be sure to make the time for regular analysis.

The only way to succeed with social media marketing is to start with clear goals tied to revenue, implement strategic best practices per network, create captivating content, pay to promote posts and run conversion campaigns, track meaningful KPIs, and optimize efforts over time. While this likely involves both trial and error combined with input from professionals, brands that realize the incredible value possible from social media will separate themselves from the pack.

CALL IN THE SOCIAL MEDIA EXPERTS?

If you’re ready to boost your business and work towards your growth goals this year through strategic social media marketing, our team at evok advertising can help guide the way. Leverage our expertise in content creation, community management, paid social campaign execution, performance tracking, and beyond.

With seasoned specialists dedicated fully to social media marketing on your side, you’ll have the skills and resources needed to create branded profiles that resonate, publish engaging posts consistently, run targeted conversion and traffic campaigns, analyze meaningful metrics, and optimize efforts over time.