social media strategy

Social Media Marketing Strategy: A Business Start-up Guide

social media strategy

In our generation that is transitioning to a digital and informational one, social media is one of the most used tools by almost everyone in the world for various reasons. Social media has been a perfect tool to achieve success, especially in the industry of marketing. It has been a medium for improving brand awareness, building brand trust, producing content, and generating sales and income. Most companies that are starting their ventures are relying on social media since it is the cheapest and easiest way to market yourselves to your target audience.

Set your Objectives

The basis of everything that you will do in your strategy and other factors that will determine your success is your business objectives. This will become your business’ benchmark points which will become the determinants of your accomplishments. It is important to determine every single one of your objectives; you do not want to be the owner that does not have any criteria to base the progress of his business. Every move and decision you make for your social media marketing plan is based on the objectives you should’ve identified. Two stages can help you in setting your goals which are your high-level goals and detailed objectives.

First, high-level goals are the objectives that you want to be accomplished in the long run. These are the general objectives of your business. Determining this helps to pinpoint the specific objectives you need to achieve your high-level goals. It is very important to keep track of the bigger picture because it will help you to keep your drive-in progressing and growing more.

Second, detailed objectives are the specific goals you will need to do to reach those high-level goals. You would be identifying your specific percentages and rates to achieve. Also, you would need these objectives to be measurable and realistic for the marketing of your business. Once you know what you want to get for your business, you will easily know what blueprints to plan and strategies to execute.

Research your Competition

Another source of information that can give you more ideas of what to do with your strategy is researching and observing your competition. You can start by listing and knowing who your competitors are. Look at businesses that offer the same product or service with yours. Also, look at the business of any size whether they may be small or corporate. Corporate and middle-sized companies will help you on how to act like an experienced store in the industry.

Since we are talking about marketing skills, observe their techniques and strategy for their content and social media marketing. When are they posting content? What are their content buckets? Do they share posts from blogs or create their own? Do they engage more with their customers rather than posting articles only? Those are just some of the question you can ask yourself while observing their online practices.

Engage with your Audience

You need to build a relationship with your audience this will help you effortlessly make your content visible in other places since your audience will share it. Remember that new is always better, so you need to think of new and fresh ways to get your audience’s attention and at the same time, to know more about your business. You may want to consider not publishing long and text-heavy content, instead, focus on engaging content like videos, crowdsource posts, gif, memes, giveaways, etc. Valuing your audience’s interests and attitudes online and incorporating it with your various contents will take you to places and even make your business effectively to them.

Create a Content Strategy

Now you have a ton of basis for your content, you can start making your strategy on how to create your contents. It is best to fill your social media pages with the appropriate content depending on the platform you are posting and on the various interests of your audience. Social listening can help you in knowing what the most effective treatment is in engaging with your visitors. You can find the best content for them, and this will automatically be your best path to success.

Unique and fascinating content is never expensive; you just need to be creative and resourceful with every information you have about your audience. You can also create a simple social post to help in boosting your audience engagement.

It is also important to take note of your brand persona in making your content. Make sure to exhibit a consistent tone of voice on all content that you will be producing. You can create a brand guide to help the producers of content for your business, regardless of the people who are doing it. This will help you build a reputable and consistent image to your audience.

Lastly, you need to consider your overall theme or content bucket before thinking of treatment for your contents. For example, an infographic may not complement your overall theme, so instead of executing it and get minimal engagement, think of something else that will be perfect for the theme. If you are unsure if your social posting fits your theme you can use this social media cheat sheet to help you align your posts. With this thinking, your work will be cost-effective and lessen your efforts.

Boost your Content

Paying for advertisement is an effective strategy to place your content in different places online. It is usually popping up to various people who are under your target audience on a different platform. It is relatively cheap, and a low amount of money can take your content to places. Most of the businessmen nowadays are turning to social media paid ads instead of subscribing to above the line advertising such as billboards, commercials for TV and radio, etc. Living in a digital world can make the life of the audience and the entrepreneurs easier.

Boosting your content on Facebook is one of the most cost-effective ways to reach your audience on Facebook instead of spending hundreds on advertising. Facebook offers more effective and more efficient results in audience engagement and follower growth.

Different merchandises can improve your image but changing the cost of those merchandises and putting it on your social media advertising budget will help you invest more on the future of your business and potentially make your business grow.

Collect Instant Feedback

One of the best practices exhibited by many companies is monitoring the feedback from their customers and writing it down for future reference and innovations. It can ultimately help in improving your brand, products, services, approach, techniques, etc. since all these feedbacks should be valuable to you and should be constructively said. Social media has become an avenue also for feedback posting through customer reviews and even posting on their own walls about a company. You may assign a person that will oversee the whole social listening task where he should research the feedback on your brand on different platforms online and coming up with a report summarizing your overall image to your audience.

Marketing on social media is vital in your path to success for it enables you to promote your brand to bigger audiences and eventually, engage and transact with them. This gives your brand more revenue and much higher conversion rates because your brand is literally seen through ads and your content. Incorporating these strategies into your marketing campaign might give you the push you need.

 

Violet Smith is a marketing communication specialist and a part-time blogger who loves shopping. Her goal is to drive the awareness to people through her writings.

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