How to Make the Most of Your Social Media Marketing Strategy
Mallika S.
Helping Health and Wellness Coaches and Founders attract Attention, Leads and Opportunities | Let's build Your Personal Brand | Social Media Manager | Social Media Strategist
You can love it, or hate it, but you just can’t ignore it. That could be a pretty apt way to describe social media and the impact social media has on our lives today.?
There is no doubt that today almost every business uses social media to fulfill one or multiple business goals. However, the big question is, is it enough to just be on social media? Of course not!
A social media marketing strategy is more than just creating a profile and posting random content once in a while. It’s essential to have a clear strategy to achieve your goals, like increasing brand awareness, visibility, or sales.?
This blog explains what a social media marketing strategy is, its importance, and how to make the most of your social media strategy.?
What Is a Social Media Marketing Strategy?
A social media marketing strategy or plan is a summary of everything you plan to do and hope to achieve in your social media profiles. The famous saying goes, ‘well begun is half done and it is true in the case of your social media presence too.?
Only when there is a well-thought-out, detailed strategy in place will you be able to achieve the desired results. The more specific and comprehensive your plan is, the easier it will be to monitor your actions and performance. However, it’s also essential to keep your social media plan realistic and not to have unattainable goals.
The Importance of a Social Media Marketing Strategy
Let’s take a look at some statistics.
According to Datareportal,?
These statistics are an indication that social media is an important tool for marketing and it has immense potential. Social media is one of the best ways to reach your customers. When social media is used correctly, it tells your customers that your brand is active and focused on communicating with them.
How to Make the Most of Your Social Media Marketing Plan
So, now that you know the importance of a social media marketing strategy, it’s time to put it into action. Here’s a look at some of the most important factors to keep in mind when creating an effective social media marketing strategy.
Set the Right Goals
The first step is to list down your goals and understand what you want to achieve from social media. No matter what your goals are, they will define how your social media marketing strategy is shaped. It’s almost impossible to measure return on investment (ROI) and success without goals.?
When listing down your goals, keep the S.M.A.R.T goal framework in mind.?
According to this framework, your goals should be:
Some examples of goals are to increase brand awareness, generate leads and sales, grow your audience, boost community engagement, and increase website traffic.?
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Do Your Research
Understanding your target audience is vital to any marketing strategy. Unless you understand your audience, their likes, their pain points, and their needs, you will not be able to create social media marketing content that impacts them.?
It’s highly recommended to create some buyer personas based on key metrics like age, location, interests, average income, etc.?
Another aspect of research is to find out what your competitors are doing on social media. You can look at the content they’re creating, their tone, the kind of engagement their content is generating, their schedule for posting content, etc. This can be a great way to learn what works and what doesn’t and improve your strategy.?
Determine Your Metrics
While creating a social media presence and using time and resources are important, it is more important to establish whether your plan is seeing success or not.
It’s vital that your social media strategy is data-driven and you must focus on social media metrics that matter. Focusing on vanity metrics, like followers, won’t help. Stay away from using tactics like buying fake followers. Instead, focus on metrics like reach, likes, clicks, engagement, etc.?
The metrics you need to look for would also depend on your goals. For example, if your goal is brand awareness, then Reach would be a relevant metric to track.?
Do a Social Media Audit
If you already have a social media presence, take a look at your efforts so far. Once you understand what you have been doing, you will be able to think about how to improve. A social media audit will give you a clear picture of what social media platforms are benefiting you and if they’re not whether you should continue using them or not.??
Choose the Right Platforms
Social media is more than just Facebook. When choosing social media channels, look at each option and how they would benefit you. The aim is to use social media platforms that your target audience uses and to use social networks that suit your brand’s image.?
In addition to this, it’s also essential to use the best content types and formats for each specific social network. You could also use a single sentence declaration to help you stay focused on the goal for that channel. For example, we will use LinkedIn to promote our company and focus on sharing our company culture.?
Create Content
Your entire strategy hinges on the social media marketing content you create. You need to create content based on your goals, brand identity, and your target audience. Ensure that your brand theme is consistent across social media networks.
Create a social media content calendar to plan what you post and when you post. You can set your posting schedule keeping in mind when your audience is most active.?
A calendar also helps to make sure that your posts are spaced out appropriately and that you have the right content mix. A good rule when starting is the 80-20 rule, in which 80% of your posts should educate, entertain, or inform your audience. The other 20% of posts can be used to promote the brand.?
Do ensure that you’re not posting too frequently or you will end up annoying your audience. On the other hand, posting too little will not allow you to get in front of your target audience enough. To make it easy to post the social media marketing content, you could also use a scheduling tool like Buffer or Hootsuite.
Assess and Improve
Once your social media marketing plan is active, it’s important to adapt the strategy throughout the year. Analyze and track your efforts, so that you can adjust your strategy accordingly. Social media is a lot of trial and error, and monitoring your campaigns will allow you to make minor tweaks to your strategy than major changes.?
In conclusion, businesses must understand how to create a social media marketing strategy so that they can improve their social media presence. It also plays a huge role in growing their brand and their business.?
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