Many small businesses often make the mistake of not investing in the proficient social media management teams and their services, including social media strategies, simply because they feel it is unnecessary.
More often than not, the problem also revolves around tight budgeting and uncertainty with the idea of social media marketing. Other saddening instances include businesses not understanding the workings inside social media management, which eventually leads to them undermining its inherent potential. Far too many businesses have fallen victim to these common misconceptions. Do not let them fool you as well.
Including an efficient social media strategy not only generates enough traffic for the expansion of your business but it also focuses your business efforts into avenues optimal for your progress as a business enterprise in general. Dont get intimated with the fancy business jargon just yet: its easier than you think.
In this article I describe the most basic formula for creating your own working social media strategy easily.
Creating your social media strategy essentially requires you to define your business. Like so:
1. Goals
What do you want to achieve?
Do you want to drive traffic to your website? Improve your customer service? Maintain customer loyalty? Increase brand awareness?
The faster you define your goals, whatever they may be, the faster you can concentrate on achieving them.
2. Audience
Who is your target market?
Do you want middle-aged business professionals to follow your brand? Fresh college graduates? The unemployed lot? Senior citizens? Millenials? Families?
If you are unsure who your target market should be, you can now refer to social media analytics, absolutely free of charge. This leaves you with no reason to remain uninformed about your target market.
3. Channels
Which social media sites line up with your goals?
Specific demographics flock to specific social media sites. Using your defined target market, you can determine the best social media to use.
Some of the most popular media sites right now, sites you should prioritize for your social media marketing strategy, include Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google, LinkedIn and Pinterest.
Facebook continues to dominate the social media networking world with the widest range of internet users. 71 percent of all (US) internet users are on it, regardless of demographic
The most prominent demographic Twitter caters to are those aged 18 to 29, the majority of which are men. So when youre revising your Twitter marketing strategy and learning the ropes on how to manage a twitter account, keep in mind that testosterone dominates the Twitter world.
Much like Twitter, Instagram also caters to those aged 18 to 29 but occupies a larger percentage (a whopping 50 percent) of all online young adults.
Google+ has around 22 percent of adult online population. Google Community serves as as a helpful and productive community for starting businesses.
LinkedIn caters to 28 percent of all internet users, most of which have a college education while nearly half of all online women internet users use Pinterest.
4. Content
What will you post about?
What kind of content can your customers expect from you on a regular basis? Will they be in the form of high-quality edited photographs? Case studies? Infographics? Real-time status updates? Blog posts? Webinars?
Research says that people give more credit to brands that effectively use their social media accounts. That should encourage you to learn how to manage your social accounts and modify their marketing strategy.
5. Response
How will you tend to your customers?
How will you maintain an engaging relationship with your customers? Through regular email newsletters?Through Twitter page management? Through private Facebook messaging?Through open forums?
A key factor for a thriving business is sustaining positive and engaging relationships with your customers. Therefore, this means that you should provide your customers with accessible ways to contact you. You, on the other hand, have to maintain the interactivity.
6. Measurement
How will you measure your progress?
What is your measure of a successful marketing campaign? Is it an increase in sales? An influx of interested applicants?An increase in brand recall?
What tools will you use to assess progress? Is it through regular visual reports from your social media management team? Or through free online social media analytics?
Regular assessment of your business performance is an essential practice in order to further your business potential. This allows you and your business partners to look back at what works with your social media marketing strategy and what does not.
Conclusion
Add them all together and voila! Youve created your own social media marketing strategy in only a matter of minutes!
A bonus step you can also add after youve defined your basic social media strategy is to incorporate a personal touch to your business strategy, exclusive to your brand only. This means you can find more creative and unconventional ways to convey your business image and message.
Needless to say, a successful social media strategy is so much more than just a simple, direct equation. There are countless other factors that involve devising the perfect social media strategy for your business. Nonetheless, this formula will help you maximize your business social media marketing strategy and your overall business potential.
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