What is a social media strategy and why do you need one?
Every company in today's world should have a social media presence, and how you use social platforms greatly
You need to create a "strategy" for your social media marketing to define exactly how your business will use your chosen platforms and communicate with customers.
It is important to determine in advance what kind of posts you will create, how often you plan on posting, who will be responsible for replying to interactions, and how you will measure the results of your social media marketing.
It is essential to plan out this strategy in advance to save time, stay organized, and make sure everyone at your company is on the same page.
The 5 Steps Below Outline the Key Concepts of a Successful Social Strategy:
Step One: Understand Your Purpose
Before posting, or even creating your post, you must first know your reason for the particular post.
Is it to gain more customers, clients, or patients?
Improve the level of trust and loyalty within your network?
Expand your visibility to potential buyers?
Or increase your website's linkability and traffic?
You can do all of these things, but obviously not all at once.
Next, you must determine how you are going to measure the success of your posts. It is important to analyze the success rates of each post so you know what works and what doesn't.
Although it may be difficult, do not measure a post's success by "vanity metrics" (likes, shares, comments) because those are typically not a reliable indicator of success.
Instead, focus on statistics like leads, clicks, sales, and conversion rates.
STEP TWO: DEFINE YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE
Creating a detailed buyer persona of your target customer can help you fine-tune your marketing posts.
For those of you that do not already know, a buyer persona is a very detailed profile of your company's ideal customer.
Rather than just evaluating traditional demographics, this type of profile consists of meaningful insights into behavior and how customers utilize and engage with others on social media.
Once you have developed an accurate buyer persona you will be able to create social media posts that utilize highly targeted content that directly addresses your audience's concerns, interests, and questions.
For example, do not try to connect with all individuals ages 18 to 35, but rather, focus on connecting with a more specific group.
STEP THREE: CHOOSE WHICH SOCIAL PLATFORMS YOU WILL UTILIZE
Unfortunately, you cannot just pick your favorites and decide to go with that.
You have to analyze your buyer persona and determine which platforms they are using most.
Pick the top two or three and stick to those.
Rather than attempting to manage and post on seven different platforms, focusing your efforts on fewer will result in better quality posts and more overall results and ROI.
Some platforms just work better for some businesses.
For example, LinkedIn is great for connecting with other businesses (B2B marketing), while Instagram, SnapChat, and Pinterest are better for young and creative industries.
You may need to create new accounts and delete old ones that no longer support your social media marketing goals.
The platforms you choose also depend on the kind of content you wish to post. If you will be posting primarily visual content, then LinkedIn probably isn't the best choice.
STEP FOUR: CREATE A CONTENT CALENDAR FOR THE YEAR
First, you need to plan how many times a week you want to post and at what times, then start to create the calendar of what you're posting.
I know thinking of planning out an entire year of posts in advance sounds daunting but in reality, you don't need to plan every post, just overarching topics for the month and the type of post that is best for the specific day.
That way, at the beginning of each new week you will know the kind of post you are doing on each day and the theme of that post.
However, picking what type of content to post on a particular day of the week takes some thought.
You should diversify the type of content you are posting day today and the specific day of the week should largely influence the type of content you choose.
Some examples of content you should be considering include:
- Images
- Review Links
- Text
- Memes
- Videos
- Quotes
- Reference Article
- Promotions
- News
- Blog Features
- Tips
- FAQ's
- Infographics
- Ultimate Guides
- Calls to Action
Our marketing team has worked and studied client behavior in order to develop a pretty successful system that I will share with you so you can implement it into your own social media marketing strategy.
So, I have found that on Mondays, people are not usually in a mood to read a long scholarly article or reference post, therefore, keep Mondays laid back with images or funny memes.
Tuesdays people are more motivated and into work, this means it's a perfect time to delve deeper into some content. Post some text or FAQ or list posts for people to read. A longer form video that answers common questions would also work well.
Wednesday, aka hump day, is the ultimate day to post more informational content like blogs, ultimate guides, and reference articles. We found people will be more inclined to delve into this type of content in the middle of the week when they are in full on work mode.
Thursday, so close, yet so far to the end of the week. People are still willing to read and utilize their brains today, but less likely to get invested in long-form content. Therefore, Thursday is also a great day for lists, text overlays, or infographics.
Friday, the holy grail of weekdays. Everyone is just about checked out and ready for the weekend, so keep it simple. People may spend more time on social media on Fridays but they aren't interested in spending a great deal of time or energy reading through a long article.
Therefore, today is the perfect day to post promotions, reviews, or relevant news / current events.
Repeat this process for the two or three platforms you picked to post on that would be best for your business.
In no time at
However, when you have extra time, you can even jump ahead weeks and create the post with a pre-scheduled post date. This way, it automatically will post on the correct day and time even if you created it a month prior. This will save you time and stress.
STEP FIVE: SET UP NOTIFICATIONS TO MONITOR ENGAGEMENT
Creating a successful social media marketing strategy means that it is also important to create a system by which the accounts will be monitored.
It is crucial to interact with your customers and potential customers online.
If someone leaves a comment, respond. If someone asks a question answer it. If someone has a problem or issue, attempt to rectify it.
Keeping an open line of communication will build trust and authority for your brand in the industry.
Setting up notifications is necessary to be sure you can respond to comments in a timely and professional manner.
This is a great start to a social media strategy but keep in mind, like anything else your calendar will have to be refined to accommodate your target audience. Regularly analyze your results and adjust accordingly.
These tips should help you get a head start on developing your first social media marketing strategy, but once your business takes off, give the professional marketers at Donovan Digital Solutions a call for a Free Marketing Consultation.
