Social Media Marketing: Vital Points and Strategies
2020-07-15
Social media is a vital marketing channel for businesses of all sizes. The common question a few years ago, “why should our business use social media?”, is now being replaced with, “how can our business grow with social media marketing?”.
As a social media marketer, this makes me very excited. What doesn’t make me excited is how many businesses are still trying to market on social media without a documented strategy. In this post, you will learn how your business can create an effective social media marketing strategy.
Audit Your Current Social Presence
“Know thyself. Know the customer. Innovate.” – Beth Comstock
Before you strategize about where you are headed, take a quick look at where you are. A few areas to consider when auditing your business’s social media presence are:
- • Which networks are you currently active on?
- • Are your networks optimized (photo and cover images, bio, URL, etc.)?
- • Which networks are currently bringing you the most value?
- • How do your profiles compare to your competitors’ profiles?
Document Who Your Ideal Customer Is
“The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself.” – Peter Drucker
You will want to get as specific as possible with this part. For example, if you identified your target market as parents it would be ok. However, if you identify your ideal customer as a parent that lives in the United States, is between 30 and 50 years of age, earns over $70,000, primarily uses Facebook and has an interest in outdoor activities you will have much more success.
Create A Social Media Mission Statement
“What makes you weird, makes you unique and therefore makes you stand out.” – Dan Schawbel
Your social media mission statement will drive your future actions, so make sure you put some thought into it. This statement will make it clear exactly what you plan to use your social media presence for and should reflect your brand identity. Keep in mind your ideal customer when trying to create this statement.
An example mission statement might be “to use social media to educate current and potential customers about digital marketing, with a focus on social media marketing.” Once you have this statement documented, it will make it simple for you to decide what to share and create.
If it doesn’t align with your mission statement, forget about it. Businesses that post randomly without a guiding mission will fail. People follow experts, not generalists.
Identify Key Success Metrics
“If you cannot measure it you cannot improve it.” – Lord Kelvin
How will you determine if your social media marketing efforts are successful? I am not just talking about gaining more followers, I am talking about making money. Afterall, it is hard to rationalize spending time and money on something that isn’t improving the bottom line.
Create and Curate Engaging Content
“Content is where I expect much of the real money will be made on the Internet.” – Bill Gates
Sadly, many businesses jump straight to this step. Hopefully, this post has made it clear that there are several vital steps that you must take before you start creating and curating engaging content to share on your social media channels.
Let’s now discuss the fun part, posting to social media. You know who your ideal customer is and you used that information to create your social media mission statement. Armed with this information it should be easy for you to begin creating and curating content.