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We all know that people are spending plenty of time on their cell phones these days, and a lot of that time spent on social media applications is a significant portion. We also know that social media users engage with businesses they like daily. For small companies focused on community and individual customers, this makes social media a powerful platform and often the most cost-effective way for getting your company in front of people.
Although having a Social media presence is Free, easy, and fun, it does not mean that you can just log in and start posting! It would be best if you had a specific social media strategy. In this post, we will share eight steps to help you get started, but before that, let’s find out what a social media strategy is.
What Is a Social Media Strategy?
A social media strategy is an overview and roadmap of what you want to achieve on your preferred social media platforms, along with the steps you will need to take to get there. A social media strategy helps you discuss and prepare what will make your brand popular across social media by outlining everything from your goals, your audience, and your posts to how you will evaluate your overall performance to see whether you are succeeding or failing.
Having active social media is advantageous to businesses of any size or industry because it enables them to find customers, which directly impacts their productivity!
According to Sprout Social’s survey, 57% of people are more likely to buy from a brand that they follow on social. You are going to miss these opportunities you are not active and engaging on social as a business.
But how do you get social media users to buy from you and make social media more valuable to your small business? In this post, we will show you how to put together a social strategy that establishes your brand on social media, covering everything from goal setting to choosing which content to post and when.
Determine What You Want to Get Out of Your Social Media
Creating a social media strategy is just like any other kind of business planning—you need to identify what you want to accomplish with your social media; Are you trying to drive more people to your website or blog? Or do you try to sell a product or service? This will determine everything from where to post and what you post to how often you post.
According to Buffer, Social scheduling tool, there are eight different social media marketing goals based on the main reasons businesses use social networks:
- Increasing brand awareness
- Driving traffic to your website
- Generating leads
- Increasing revenue
- Boosting brand engagement
- Providing customer service
- Raising PR (Public Relations)
- Listening to conversations about your brand
Whatever your goals are, they need to follow the SMART framework. SMART is an acronym for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely. Therefore, a SMART goal incorporates all of these criteria to help you increase the chances of achieving your goal.
Define Your Target Audience
A successful social media strategy should focus on people that are interested in what you offer. In creating your digital marketing strategy for your business, you might have worked on ideal customer profiles. If not, now is the right time to start.
You will find your target audience by answering these questions:
- How old are they?
- What job do they have?
- Where do they live?
- How much is their income?
- What are their hobbies?
- What are their problems that your business can solve?
- Which social media channels do they use the most?
If you need help identifying your target audience, contact Business Vibes to get all this necessary information.
Choose Your Social Platforms
Before we get into which social media sites to use, it is essential not to take on more than you can handle. It is probably best to start with two or three social profiles. Creating profiles on multiple websites, forget them, and post content occasionally is one of the worst things you can do!
When deciding which platforms you should be on, consider the nature of your business. If your company is a business-to-consumer (B2C), Facebook and Instagram help you gain exposure, visually engage, and communicate with potential customers. For a business-to-business company (B2B), LinkedIn is the best choice. Also, Facebook is the largest social network where you can have access to a lot people easily. So, having a profile there is always a safe bet.
Find Your Key Social Media Metrics
Now that you identified your goals and selected your social media platforms, you must monitor the relevant metrics to your objectives. Here are a few metrics to consider:
- Engagement: Measure shares, comments and likes. They show how actively involved with your content your audience is.
- Reach: This shows you how many unique users saw your post and how far your content is spreading across social media.
- Click-Through Rate (CTR): This is the number of individual clicks on your links or your specific advertisements.
- Conversion Rate: This shows the number of people who, after clicking on your link on social media, completed a desired action, against the total number of visitors on a page. The higher the conversion rate is, the more relevant the content is.
- Sentiment: This covers people’s reactions to your content. Were they positive, nonplussed, offended?
Most social platforms have free analytics that you can access easily to evaluate these metrics. We will discuss them in detail in a separate section.
Create a Content Plan
Now, it is time to create a content plan. Your content should be specific, relevant, and unique. Remember that your content should not be all about “you” as a business.
The best thing is to focus your efforts on creating content that will engage your target audience. To do so, you have many options:
- You can dig up visual trends on social media platforms and Google search.
- You can run a poll or create an audience questionnaire on your social media to gather feedback.
- Have a look at your competitors. Follow your competitors online and see what has worked for them. Don’t copy their content, but do find inspiration for your content.
Create a Content Calendar—and Post
When you are the only one in charge of social media, a content calendar will help you plan out content and stick to the schedule you set. An Excel spreadsheet or a Google Sheet is helpful. Your calendar consists of these components: social media platform, date, post copy, connection, and image/asset description. Social media doesn’t stop when you leave the office. For your content calendar to be a success, take advantage of inexpensive or free social media management tools. These tools will help you organize your workflows, save time, and deliver your content to the right audience at the right time.
Track, Measure and Improve Your Performance
There will always be an element of trial and error. So, keep a close eye on performance by tracking key metrics against your goals across each platform. You can track your data by using the analytics tools within each platform:
Monitoring success is a crucial aspect of your social media strategy. Knowing what works and what doesn’t work, will help you boost your service to loyal customers while still ensuring a strong return on investment.
Final Words
With the right social media strategy, your small business will have a huge customer engagement and sales increase while attracting new leads and gaining meaningful visibility.
Don’t underestimate having social media strategies. It is not a part-time employee job. Contact Business Vibes to take advantage of full-service social media management services. We transform your social media presence with high-quality content, daily activity, monitoring engagement and increased followers. This service will attract targeted followers to then convert into loyal customers.