Social media marketing is so much more than just creating a list of content that you intend to publish on Facebook. Entrepreneurs and companies, big and small, need a strategy in place if they want to be effective in social media marketing.
Marketing on social media is a lot like how you do business in the real world. To be successful, you need to proactively build authentic relationships with your customers.
Just as you aim to bring value to your customers’ lives by delivering quality products and services, your social media marketing efforts should focus on bringing positive attention to your business through meaningful interactions.
Here are 8 tips to help you create a successful social media strategy:
1. Understand Your Own Company
Have you recognized your own company’s strengths and weaknesses on social media?
Without knowing where you stand next to your competitors or how the market views you, you can’t identify what you need to accomplish and create the social media strategy that will take you there. It’s often hard for entrepreneurs to accept the truth about their flaws. However, by being honest about your company’s abilities, you can recognize your potential.
Once you have realized what your company is capable of, you can start setting goals with social media. Know who your audience is, and what they care about. Start crafting a content plan and delegate content type to the right people on your team based on their personality and technical skills.
A good way to learn about yourself as a company is by listening to what people say about you. Understanding who you are can be accomplished in the same way as you would analyze your competitors. Just as you can learn about who their followers are and what their customers say about them, you can take a step back and analyze your own company as an outsider would.
2. Clear Plan and a Dashboard
Social media marketing, like other departments within any organization, cannot function without a structured process. To be successful in social media marketing, you must have a clearly defined plan paired with specific intentions that are measurable with results that add real value to the business.
Have you mapped out all the content you are going to create for the month, the year? Have you figured out format or a distribution calendar? Have you set KPIs so that your team members know if they are hitting their targets?
To efficiently track your efforts and progress, your team should have a dashboard that reveals performance metrics. All your data can be documented using a marketing automation tool or a simple spreadsheet. What’s important is that you have documentation that your social media marketing plan is being followed and progress is being monitored.
3. Meaningful Relationship with Your Audience
As mentioned, social media marketing is much like marketing in the real world. If a customer in your physical store approached you with a comment or feedback, would you ignore them and walk away? Certainly not.
So when people mention you on Twitter or leave a comment on your Facebook business page, be mindful about how and when you reply. Don’t keep them waiting too long and avoid responding with a default reply that lacks personality.
When your audience mentions you on their tweets or tags you on Facebook or Instagram, they’re inviting interaction, and it would be unwise for you to walk away from an opportunity to build a meaningful relationship.
Replying to every comment, mention, or tweet may seem time-consuming. However, it is crucial to maintain interaction with your audience as it also drives engagement. Be creative and think of it as an opportunity for your brand to show off its unique personality.
People who try to develop a relationship with you on social media have the potential to be converted into customers. And once they are your loyal customers, they become advocates of your brand who will spread the news about your company and essentially do free marketing on your behalf.
4. Connect with Decision-Makers via LinkedIn
LinkedIn is an excellent channel to connect with leaders in their companies who have the purchasing power. LinkedIn is a valuable platform in B2B social sales. Finding the right people can be challenging if you don’t know your way around LinkedIn. If you want access to more information, sign up for LinkedIn Sales Navigator.
Consider this paid tool as an investment as it will give you access to lots of accounts of decision-makers that you want to sell to. With LinkedIn Sales Navigator you’ll have access to their other social media accounts and gain plenty of valuable B2B social insight. One of the secrets to making a successful connection on LinkedIn is finding a commonality such as a school you both went to, a charity you both support, or even a hobby you both enjoy. LinkedIn Sales Navigator will give you the social information you’ll need to get your “foot in the door” and reel in warm leads that could develop into meaningful business interactions.
5. Use Facebook Groups
The key to Facebook Groups is to find a niche that aligns with your industry, audience, and products. Be proactive about encouraging engagement by sharing relevant and exciting news that will be valuable to the other members of the group. The more positive attention you get, the more that people start to recognize you as a thought leader in your field.
Create posts that ask questions that encourage people to comment with their thoughts and opinions. Have a smart exchange that modestly displays your expertise while also being helpful to other members who are reading through the conversation.
Leverage the power of Facebook Live which allows your audience to learn more about you. Video content has been proven to have a more lasting impression than any other type of content.
6. Facebook Ads to Build a Community
Facebook groups may be considered a slow-paced strategy when it comes to building a community. While it takes time to establish relationships and grow them into meaningful ones – don’t overlook this tactic; it will pay off in the long run. Paid Facebook ads, on the other hand, is a more powerful tactic that promises to grow your audience and social reach much more rapidly.
Facebook ads are known for their unparalleled targeting capabilities, making it an effective way for you to target messages to very specific demographics. The art (and science) though is focus and relevant targeting; invest the time to get it right and always test different approaches until you land on the strategy that works for you. Lastly (or perhaps first) – start with the “dollar-a-day” tactic.
7. Curate leads on Twitter
Twitter is a gold mine for curating leads. Start by growing your community with the type of accounts that are of interest to you. Fedica can help you here.
8. Track Success
In the beginning, much of the valuable insight you will gather is from your own campaigns’ hits and misses. Through failure, you will discover what content doesn’t work, but you also learn what your audience is looking for based on the content that performs the best.
But how do you know which of your content has gained the most attention and most engagement?
Monitor your success. Have the right social media tools that analyze the performance of your posts. Fedica is ideal for planning campaigns and managing your content effectiveness for its engagement analysis with deep comprehension into any tweet or groups of tweets. Get the reach of any your tweets, replies, and re-tweets. You can even drill down interactively to a city level.
When you’ve determined what types of posts your followers are most interested in, you’ll be able to create more of that type of content. And avoid creating content similar to the ones that flopped!
Social media marketing isn’t complicated. It does, however, require preparation and patience. So before you dive into your social media marketing strategy, define your purpose, create a clear plan, complement your efforts with the right tools and track your progress.