As you scroll through thousands of virtual miles of any Social App, you will see that everyone is out there on social media discovering, following, and shopping from brands on Facebook, Instagram, Reels, etc.
Undoubtedly a proper marketing strategy on social media can yield great business and create dedicated brand advocates who not only drive your business but also influence others to follow their lead.
SMM is the most powerful technology tool that leverages the power of popular networks to achieve your marketing and branding goals. But you cannot just create a business account and start posting anything anytime – NO!
You need a systematic strategy with quantifiable goals to boost your business.
Find out what platforms your audience uses, what time they use it the most, what type of content they click on, who else they follow, and other such relevant data that helps you build your audience persona.
Research, analysis, and implementation of who is your target audience, what is the message you want to convey, what are the emotions you want to trigger, and how you want them to respond.
Drive your strategies and decisions based on quantifiable data gathered. This can be about your outreach, the type of content preferred, the best time to post, and such things that can be measured and validated to charter your course of action.
Maintain a regular post schedule to keep the people coming back. Engage back, keep up with the trends, and maintain perfect profiles.
Your post should follow the 70-20-10 rule where your posts should be 70% informational, 20% emotional, and 10% promotional. Focus on adding value with interesting content that will organically promote your business.
Choose your platform based on which are the most frequented platforms by your target audience. Pick a manageable number of platforms where you can actively
post and interact regularly. Start with one and then gradually add to the number as you become well-versed in the art of social media marketing.
Begin by posting once a day for a month and gradually start getting a hang of it by setting a profile, competitive analysis, etc. Once you set a rhythm, you can set specific targets like getting 10% more followers or publishing a certain type of post that has earned the most likes and shares.
Use the analytics of each platform to find out what type of content generates the most engagement and gets more followers, and check your audience demographic. Connect the dots and scale up what works and fix what doesn’t.
Once you are clear about the fundamentals, understand that you have created a roadmap to drive your plan. The next step is to put this strategy into action with the tips that will help you grow.
How-tos
Quick tips
Local and industry news
Contest
Polls
Questions
Data and insights
Updates
Announcements
Use more visual content like videos, live streaming, online stores, stories, and reels because visual content will always outperform plain text.
Content is king but context is everything. You have a great one-liner, but if you put it in a blog, it will get lost – a brilliant line gone to waste. But if you post that one line on Twitter, your one-liner might crush it. Try to judge the relevance and post it accordingly on appropriate media.
Each platform has its own unique environment and voice. You have to project your brand image across all these platforms without compromising your brand identity and voice. Stay consistent in your tone and identity - may it be trustworthy, friendly, fun, dignified, or technical.
The success of your social media campaign depends on the collection of data and analyzing the data to understand user behavior, analyze your competitors, and refine your strategy accordingly. As soon as you collect data, you will see a pattern emerging and help you discover your best platform and the best time to post.
Posting good content is not enough. You need to participate too. Pay attention to who is engaging – and engage back. Respond to the comments, like, share, and comment on their post, spark discussions, post polls, and live streams. Increase conversions by following back your followers and influencers and building a community around your brand. Make the participation as fun as possible and give great prizes to the winners.
Social media is extremely fast-paced with an attention span of 20 seconds to catch the viewer’s eye, so make short and interesting posts.
Most of your loyal followers will expect you to respond to them within 24 hours and some may even expect within an hour. Try to fulfill that expectation. Be genuine in your responses and follow through with the action promised.
With almost 3 billion active users on Facebook alone, you have 3 ways to increase optics:
Organic: Content that picks up views naturally
Paid: Organization-sponsored content that costs money
Earned: Free traction earned in the form of shares, likes, and comments
Organic reach is getting increasingly difficult because of the increase in AD SPEND. Now the whole game is about paying to play because, at the end of the day, the bottom line is to get more business. You can explore and go for authentic paid promotions.
Develop an ear for social listening and pick up trends. Identify new streams of income, gain industry insights, and look out for influencers in your niche. Platforms are merging - when you create an ad on Facebook, you can also run it on Instagram by clicking a single button. Explore other platforms that offer such convenience and expand your circle of influence.
FINALLY…
We have to understand that social media is free to users only because advertisers are paying a huge amount to reach users. The user is the product and to reach them, the sellers have to pay. But generally, this is an investment worth every penny of it.
Whatever we have discussed here is just the tip of the iceberg. Your homework begins by figuring out where your target audience is and getting going on that platform with your top-notch content and advertising strategies. So, how will you change your social media strategy?
Do share with us and we shall help you achieve your end-in-mind.
