Social Media Strategy – why you need one
Are you having trouble keeping up with everything you have to do on social networking sites? If you don’t have a clear and achievable strategy, read on to learn why you need one and see some excellent examples of strategies you can implement. The most successful individuals on social media have them
What we will discuss is as follows:
- Why having a social media strategy is essential for your business success
- Social Media Strategy Examples
- 7 steps to developing a Social Media Strategy
- Social Media Branding Strategy: What Is It?
Why is a social media strategy necessary for success?
If you intend to establish your brand on social media, creating an approach to social media is crucial. The same is true for every successful organization; without a plan, you can’t expect to achieve the greatest outcomes and will wind up wasting a lot of time on things other than expanding your company. You may prioritize the tasks that are crucial for that day, week, or month with a well-defined plan, which will also provide you with a clear path forward. Your plan doesn’t have to be perfected in the beginning, but the more specific it is, the simpler it is going to be to concentrate on the finish.
The most important factors to take into account while developing a social media strategy
Who are you trying to reach?
Who would be your ideal client? Who do you think you know would be interested in purchasing your goods or services? Create a visual representation of this client by describing their occupation, residence, habits, and interests. You should also strive to learn as much as possible about this important customer audience, including where they spend time on social media and what platforms they use. It’s crucial to keep in mind that your audience communication style will vary depending on the channel; even if the information is the same, it must be customized for each format. It’s an excellent idea to
Top things to consider when starting to create a Social Media Strategy
Who you are targeting?
Who is your ideal customer? Ask yourself – who do you know would want to buy your product or services? Start with this customer and start to create a visual image of them, describe them, their jobs, where they live, their habits & hobbies, where they are on social channels – what social media channels are they using – try to create as much information as you can about this key customer audience. It is important to remember that the way you talk to your audience will be different for each channel – whilst it may be the same content, it will need to be tailored for each format. A good idea is to start to look across different channels, here you will pick up some tips and insights and you can add these to deepen the customer profile you are developing..
Decide what you want to achieve from your Social Media Strategy
We all know that social media takes time to do well and you have to commit a good chunk of time to building out your own brand awareness as well as marketing to your audience. This is a great time to set out what you want to achieve at the end of your efforts or at least the first phase of your effort e.g first 1 year to 18 months – timelines may move, however, start with this goal in mind . Remember unless you know where you are going then you cannot expect to get to the end goal – start mapping out a strategy and you will achieve your goals. Here are some examples of goals you could consider when developing out your strategy.
1. Brand Awareness
Increasing your brand visibility – you can achieve this by increasing the number of social media followers you have and more brand mentions, this will increase your reach and the number of impressions on your posts.
2. Audience Engagement
Start building meaningful interactions.Start to increase likes, get more comments and encourage people to share your content. A key part of any engagement strategy is to take part in the conversations on social this will drive the engagement rate per post.
3. Start building a community
Create a community around your brand, products and services. Start growing the number of community members. You can do this by developing more user generated content, showing proof and trust points and showcasing your community to potential community members. Ensure consistent posting and ensure the quality of posts is high.
4. Lead Generation
Start generating leads.Track Click-through rates (CTRs) on all your posts and ads, track the number of downloads or form submissions etc. Develop a conversion rate and continue to try and beat it.
5. Website Traffic
Endure you drive traffic to the website or specific landing pages. Where and when possible make sure your posts link back to the website and identify referral traffic in your analytics – you will be able to see which channels are delivering the referral links to the website. Also look at the engagement on the website – where are people dwelling, on what topics etc.
6. Customer Feedback and Sentiment
Improving customer experience.Benchmark the existing sentiment and then take steps to improve this – identify what the negative mentions are and the type of comments and reviews your product and services are getting. Customer satisfaction scores are good to have and you should look at tactics on how this can be improved.
7. Influencer Partnerships
Collaborations.Start to identify and engagement with key influencers which fit with your brand, this can often amplify your follower count and goes up during campaigns, ensure you have user generated content from these influencers and any brand campaigns.
8. Social Media Advertising
Ensure you are amplifying your content with ads and manage your return on investment. Measure your results by reviewing the click through rates (CTR) and any conversion rates for downloads, form completions etc. You will be able to see the cost per click (CPC) and understand how much it is costing you to buy the ad. Ultimately you will be able to understand your cost per acquisition (CPA) which will tell you what it has cost you to achieve your goals on social media. Testing different offers and different formats is a key part of the learning and should be an ongoing process as the media landscape is continually evolving.
9. Employee Advocacy
Let your employees do the talking and become your brand advocates. There is nothing better for your employees, your brand and your bottom line that having a fully engaged Team sharing your content and promoting your company. This level of trust and testimonial cannot be beaten and many highly successful companies put employee advocacy as the number one key to their success. If you have employees who are actively sharing your company content your brand will sing and it is the ultimate support to any campaign and collaboration activity. Make this one a priority.
10. Managing a Crisis – Escalation
Become highly effective responding to any challenges on social media. There may be times when you need to manage a crisis on social media – remember a crisis can appear to be very small and grow to massive proportions within second on social media – it is critical that you have a strategy in place to escalate any issues and to prepared responses so allow you to respond quickly and efficiently. Managing who has access to your accounts and it is key that everyone involved with posting from your own accounts are fully aware of the escalation process and know how to respond. It is also worth setting up social media listening – there are lots on the market to chose from – this will allow you to monitor activity easily across different platforms and alert you to any crisis that may be happening.
In summary
Whatever your goals are make then very clear and easy to measure. Setting a three month month goals, reviewing it and then adjusting as you go along will allow you to easily manage the process. Social media is evolving every day and remembering and using the SMART rules and with a strong strategy in place, you will be able to adapt quickly and keep your goals on track – here is an easy framework which will guide you through the process
- Be Specific when you set out your goals
- Make sure the Goals are Measurable (you need to know if all the effort your putting in is working)
- Achievable – keep the goals small and build up – a sense of achievement is important to keep the momentum moving
- Relevant – keep up to date with what you audience needs and wants and know keep up to date with the social channels they are using.
- Timelines – put a start date and end date to your goals – review, adjust or set new goals as you keep learning how and what your audience is responding to and when you do, review, update and keep testing.
