Social media is quickly becoming one of the most important aspects of digital marketing. It provides the most incredible benefits that help reach millions of customers worldwide. If you are not utilising social media in your digital marketing strategy, you are missing out on an incredible marketing opportunity. Below I have written up my top 5 tips for effective social media marketing.
Start with a clear social media strategy
Creating a well thought out plan is the key to a social media presence that is consistent and effective across all platforms.
A helpful way to structure your plan is by using a clear marketing framework.
I have provided a quick but helpful guide to ensure your social media has a clear direction:
Situation Analysis: where are we?
Objectives: where do we want to be? (e.g. gain followers, improve engagement, customer service, post frequency/quality) – make sure these are SMART objectives.
Strategy: how can we get there? (Consider insights on your current audiences and content formats)
Tactics: which tactics do we need to use? (e.g. which social networks to use, post frequency, content themes)
Actions: how will tactics be carried out and who will be involved? (Consider things like staff abilities/time, outsourcing, internal systems and processes, etc).Control: how will we know we’ve got there? (KPIs, analytics, customer feedback/surveys, reports, who monitors results?)
Know your audience
You can’t post relevant content if you don’t know who you’re posting it for. Make sure you learn about your audiences. This could be through market research, social insights, or social media listening/monitoring. Create audience profiles by defining exactly who your target customer is and make sure you include the four main principles; segmentation, messaging, engagement and measurement.
Have a read of article for more details on audience profiling.
Keep your brand image consistant
Your brand should always be reflected in the right way across every social media platform. It’s important that these themes link with your overall branding strategy – including your website. In addition to visual aspects, make sure to also includes things like tone, messaging and values.
Post Helpful and Valuable Content that fits in with business objectives
Make sure that your social media posts are meaningful and not posted for the sake of it.
When you’re creating social media posts or thinking up campaigns, ask yourself – ‘how will it help the business?’ and ‘how will it help the viewer?’ If you can’t answer either of these questions, maybe you need to rethink your social media strategy!
Examples of objectives that could be achieved with social media are:
- Increase in engagement – shares/likes/clicks/replies
- Increased customer satisfaction/service
- More purchases of your product or service
- More visits to your website
- Increased followers
- Brand awareness – how far is your message spreading?
Monitor your results
When you monitor your campaigns, keep the focus more on just likes. There are many other useful things to gain from social networks. This includes community engagement, customer service and sharing valuable tips and information about your service or product.
Once you know the types of metrics you need to measure, find a suitable tool to do so. Many scheduling tools and social media channels provide their own form of tracking, or it’s possible to explore using third party avenues or building your own APIs.
Overall, it’s important to keep up to date with social media trends, features and algorithms that social networks are always throwing at us. Make sure you are making the most of new trends and try out some new platforms to increase reach. This will be key to an effective and (hopefully) rewarding experience with social media marketing.
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