Almost every business has some sort of a social media presence, but it can be overwhelming to create a successful social media strategy. With so many networks available, and the need to learn and integrate new features, it’s difficult to find the time to do it all. However, focusing on the following 6 core elements will ensure that your business gets the most out of its social media marketing initiatives.
1. Make a Plan
At the core of every successful social media strategy is a solid plan that includes your goals, as well as an editorial calendar that will support these goals and objectives. Developing a plan will help you keep track of important dates, campaigns and will allow your team to have a clear understanding of your upcoming social media initiatives.
Your plan should also include research into your audience, which platforms you will be focusing on, and all the elements needed to reach your targeted customers. Once you have a clear plan in place, you can start focusing on other aspects of your social media marketing such as community engagement, content creation and analytics.
2. Showcase Your Brand
Your brand starts with your product but extends much deeper. It should reflect your purpose, beliefs, differentiators, and appeal to your intended customers. After you develop your brand identity, it’s time to focus on brand recognition. By posting consistently using your brand colors or slogans, viewers will begin to recognize your content and what is associated with it. Brand imaging is based on trust with your customers, which makes your brand known as dependable and credible. Here’s more insights on the components of branding.
3. Demonstrate Consistency
Consistency, consistency, consistency! The key to getting the results you are looking for is to post consistently across the social media platforms that work best for your brand or company. From the tone of voice used in messages to the aesthetics of your profiles, you need to be recognizable to gain traction among your intended audience. Posting consistently using a variety of post formats and images that reinforce your brand is the secret to being recognizable. When you post consistently, you will see your profiles grow, engagement increase and more traffic will be generated to your website.
4. Produce New Content
In order to have a successful social media strategy, you need to include a mix of content to ensure you are reaching your goals and targeted audience. Content that performs well on one platform doesn’t necessarily mean it will perform well on another. If you want to ensure optimal performance, make sure you’re generating a mix of visual, emotional and useful content. Test out different content formats as well, such as images, videos or text-only posts.
Once you have produced and published multiple types of content, you can start to develop a better understanding of what resonates best with your ideal customers and audience. This will help you with future planning, adjusting your social media strategy if needed and thus, reaching your marketing goals.
5. Monitor Your Analytics
One of the most important things you can do to improve your social media marketing strategy over time is to track your analytics. Tracking analytics gives you a detailed picture into what kind of content and promotion strategies work—along with the ones that don’t—enabling you to adjust and improve. Some of the most important metrics to monitor are follower growth, engagement, clicks, and impressions. These metrics can be tracked inside each platform or via a third-party platform such as SproutSocial or Hootsuite.
6. Adjust Your Strategy
Remember that a successful social media marketing strategy is ongoing; pay attention to your goals and analytics, then adjust as you go along. This will ensure that down the road you’ll continue to get better at engaging and reaching your target audience. When adjusting your strategy, don’t be afraid to try things completely new and outside of the box!
Reaching Your Social Media Marketing Goals
Social media marketing is a powerful tool that requires constant work and adjustments in order to be successful. All these elements can be overwhelming at first, but if you focus on them one step at a time, your brand will have a fighting chance of long-term success and you will get closer to reaching your overall marketing goals.
If you need help tackling your social media efforts, take a look at our services or drop us a line.