Social media marketing strategy
One of the first mail stones before you start social media marketing is to have a social media strategy. Actual not to confuse with a social media plan. Just like before you start building a house, you must have a guide for making the home complete. Without a strategy in place, you will be posting content without understanding your audience.
Why you need the strategy
One might ask, what is social media strategy? It is just a detailed guide that stipulates when, where what why, and how your content will be published in various social media platforms.
Times have changed where most of our customers are using social media. A business that has no social media presence is disadvantaged. Your competitors could be using these platforms to increase their customer base at your peril, with the rise of people accessing social media via smartphones. According to Statista, 61% of American people access social media via phones, and the number is set to increase globally every year.
One of the most straightforward ways of creating social media strategy is to ask yourself the 5ws and H-what, who, where, when, and how.
- What do I want to achieve in social media?
- Why am I using these platforms?
- Who am I?
- Where will I post
- When will I be using these platforms?
- How am I going to use them?
The strategy should be concise and clear, enabling you to have a better R.O.I.- Return On investment. Like a regular business, you should also consider the S.M.A.R.T. strategy that your objective should be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, realistic, and timely.
- Who is my audience
Just like any market research, you need to know your customer. Do your demographics research early on. You can use your countries censor’s statistic, which would help you map your demographics statistics. What is their:
- age,
- background,
- purchasing power,
- where they are,
- their interest?
- What percentage are using smartphones?
- Or computers to access their social media platforms? Etc
Study your competitor to see how they are engaging with their audience. Evaluate their brand voice, tone, and the strategy they are using. What techniques are they using? Why did they use this image or video? Why are they using these phrases instead of the common phrase?
Make the persona of your audience. Make the customer like a fictional character. Imagine how radio presenters talk to a mass audience, but the listeners feel the presenter is talking to them personally. That is the same concept you should use in social media marketing. Imagine your audience as a person who earns a specific amount of money, lives in a particular place, likes to hang out in certain areas, and these are his friends.
For example, Harry works at an I.C.T. firm; he earns $7500 per month during weekends; he likes hiking with his friends. This one can work if you are trying to sell adventure gear like tents and mountain climbing equipment.
Its also good to know your customers personally. What appeals to them? What scares them? How do they respond to your massages? How do they behave in different demographics? These insights are helpful in the generalization of your audience.
Study your client’s comments and engagement. How many people are responding to your content? When are they responding? How are they responding? What type of content arouses more engagement? The more shares and engagements from consumers is a good indicator, your strategy is working.
If you are already in business (sorry startups), you can conduct surveys by asking audience questions. It is a sure way to get your audience’s opinion. They are many tools you can use like Survey monkey. Remember, all these concepts have to be measurable and achievable.
- Draft your goals
Why am I using social media? Many people are on social media because they have had the buzz all over. You can easily set a social network but have no clear end goal. you might start social pages because of the following aspects:
- To increase brand awareness
- Generate traffic to your website
- Create a community around your brand
- Increase number of followers
- Listen to what people say about your business
- Increase sales
- Multiple your business reach
- Establish customer care services
For example, if you decide, my aim is to drive traffic to my website. Every social media post will have your website link. Your posts should make your audience click the link that will drive them to your site. Your call to action should make the audience click the links in your posts.
- What will I be posting?
- What will be my content?
- How will I post it?
- How will I create it?
- At what time will I post it?
- In what platforms will I post it?
- At what intervals will I post the content?
These are some of the questions that might run in your mind.
You have seen businesses use images and videos. You can also try written posts, guides, eBooks, external content links, videos stories, live videos, Infographics, Testimonials, reviews, Announcements, Contests, and Holidays.
Your content depends on what your product is. For example, if you are in a beauty shop selling cosmetics and makeups. You will need a lot of displays in terms of pictures and videos. Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook will be ideal for your business. You will need powerful images on Instagram for presentation. You will use Pinterest to inspire your audience. Occasionally you will make videos to explain how to create makeups you sell in your shop. Facebook is versatile for all kinds of posts.
The best strategy is to draw inspiration from your favorite social media pages. Here is an example of a Facebook page. I get inspiration from called Thinking Humanity. Their Facebook page drives people to their website. They mainly use a mix of quotes and graphics, sometimes curated content.
(Image)
What I have learned from this page it posts inspirational content every day. The page considers holidays, seasons, and events. If its Father’s Day or Mother’s Day, they make content related to the event.
As much as we should stand out, you should follow pages related to your market niches to get ideas and inspiration.
- what should I post?
You might decide that:
- 45% will drive people to your website
- 25% curated content
- 15% of your business activities
- 15% Lead generation content- email list sign-ups and eBooks, etc.
It can be quite challenging what to post. Many people are on social media because they want entertainment, get information, and be inspired. You can decide to use the concept of 80% of the content to inform, educate, entertain, and inspire, while 20% can promote your business.
Oh, wait a minute you are wondering how my post should look? Just look for inspiration around
Here is an example of an Instagram page of Labelle fashions. They use simple images to display their products to sell fashion products. Sometimes they also use models to showcase their products.
(Image)
- who are you
What is your brand identity? What is your business culture? And what do you stand for? Your brand should come out in your social presence. The company’s logo and brand colors should stick in your audience’s mind. The voice and tone of your company should stand out. Most crucial talk like a human, not a robot.
All social media accounts have information that companies should take advantage of by filling all the details.
- Fill all the required profile information- Brand name, contacts, website link
- Use tags and keywords your clients will use to search for you
- Your logos, colors, and labels should be consistent across all your accounts
What is your company known for? For example, Thinking Humanity’s Instagram page is Know for posts the try to uphold human compassion, check their post below.
IMAGE
- What platforms should I use
Many social media platforms emerge every year. Every platform has its pros and cons, depending on the nature of your business.
Some platforms have many users, and they are predictable. Here is a sneak preview of some statistics to guide our social media strategy.
IMAGE
Source: https://www.statista.com/topics/1164/social-networks/#dossierSummary__chapter5
https://www.statista.com/statistics/272014/global-social-networks-ranked-by-number-of-users/
The most popular social networks worldwide as of April 2020 the rank is by active users.
The popular platforms for most business, according to active users globally:
- YouTube
If your business involves lots of photos and video sharing you might consider using:
- YouTube
- Vimeo
For interactive video
- Tik tok-it is gain popularity
- Snapchat
For Blogging or Community
- Tumblr
- Medium-good for writing articles
Remember, Facebook is suitable for all demography groups. Snapchat and Tik tock work well with youths. LinkedIn is good for business to business communication. Search google engine will love if you have a profile with their own Google+, which you can use to set your business location.
You might be thinking of using all social media platforms, buts its better to have a strong presence in 3 platforms. You can decide to have:
- Twitter for customer services
- Instagram for sharing demonstration videos and images
- Facebook for studying your audience behavior
What are the best times to share your content?
After studying your consumers for some time, you should know at what times your audience will be online to interact with your content. Here are some few tips:
People like interacting with social media in the evening after work at home, between work breaks. Also, during weekends, there is enormous traffic.
Travelers might use the platforms while traveling and weekends planning for their trips.
College students are more likely to use the platforms than the working class, especially during holidays.
Breastfeeding mothers are more likely to use social media while breastfeeding.
Sports fans are more likely to use their phones during weekends during sports matches.
National holidays can see many people interacting online.
Remember to consider seasons like national holidays, religious holidays, electioneering year.
- What Tools will I use in social media marketing
There are crucial tools that you can use to make your social media strategy easy and successful.
Its recommended nowadays to have a social media Calendar. Platforms like Hootsuite and Buffer can help one create one. More so, they are suitable for scheduling posts.
For example, you can create scheduled posts for the whole month in Hootsuite on three social media platforms. This platform will post your posts even while you are sleeping. Buffer works the same way but allows a 14-day trial compared to Hootsuite, which allows one post per day for 30 days.
If you are planning to make graphics, Canva is the tool to use. It’s a free online-based platform, although some aspects are bought. The platforms offer graphics templates that are suitable for different social media platforms. You can easily create compelling graphics using this tool.
Wave.video and Biteable are suitable for making videos. Both are online-based online video making platforms. They can create short videos, but for more video minutes, one has to pay.
Use Buzzomo to find the content that is most shared in social media. This will help you make the right keywords.
All hashtags site is suitable for getting popular and latest hashtags. Remembers sites like Instagram and LinkedIn perform well with hashtags.
There you have it
Developing a social media strategy can be one of the complicated things to formulate. Remember, the next thing is social media planning. How do you plan to implement the strategy? If you are a company, it’s better to involve the whole time in the planning stage. Your colleagues are your first audience. Evaluate your strategy every month, quarterly, and yearly. Generally, you should study your audience’s behavior to predict outcomes.
