Social Media Marketing 101: Everything You Should Know to Grow Your Business
Social media has emerged as a powerful tool for businesses to increase their reach and grow to the next level. Over two billion people today use at least one social media platform, and there is a chance that a significant percentage of your audience is already there.
If you are not engaging with your prospects and customers on social platforms such as Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, and Facebook, you are missing out on a great opportunity to connect with them.
But to reap the most out of social media, you must have a good content and marketing strategy. You must employ innovative tactics to stand out and ensure your target audience notices your content.
Here is everything you need to know to develop an effective social media strategy and a detailed step-by-step procedure to get you started.
1. Set your Goals
First things first, before you take your marketing campaign to social media, set relevant and realistic goals that complement your overall business objectives. These goals should be SMART; Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound.
Sample Social Media Goals for a Business
- To increase brand awareness
- To improve your ROI
- To drive people to increase in-store sales
- To achieve a set higher quantity of sales
- To grow your audience
2. Define Success and Metrics to Measure It
Success to you depends on what your business targets to achieve. Therefore, determine the metrics you’ll use to measure the success of your social media campaign. For example, if you’re aiming to increase your brand awareness, post reach is a relevant metric since it tells you how many people have engaged with your content.
3. Perform a Competitors Analysis
Your business is not operating in isolation, and chances are your competitors are already running a social campaign. Conduct a competitor analysis to understand what they are doing, their strengths, and what prospects expect from the brand in your industry. This helps you spot their weakness and exploit the gaps.
For example, your competitors may be prominent on Facebook but have a weak Instagram presence, despite the fact that many Facebook users are on Instagram too. So, instead of focusing on head-to-head competition on Facebook, you can put more resources into Instagram.
4. Choose Social Media Channels
You don’t need to take your social media marketing campaign to all social networks available. All you need is to identify the platforms popular with target your audience and direct all your efforts there. To do this, you need to conduct a demographic and psychographic analysis of your potential customers. For instance, if you target a young audience, you are more likely to reach them through Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat.
5. Set up Your Social Media Accounts Properly
Ensure your social media accounts have a consistent visual look with company logos, similar graphics, and carefully selected colours. Fill in the bios and profiles and link to relevant landing pages on your website. Take time to upload the best resolution photos on your profiles and bios.
6. Establish the Ideal Type of Content
The success of your social media campaign hinges on your ability to consistently share high-quality content with your audience. Your content should resonate with and provide value to your target audience. It should also represent your brand persona.
Don’t share excessive promotional materials on social media platforms. A social media campaign should first aim to engage and create lasting relationships with your audience. Balance the content you share to strike a perfect blend of entertaining and informative items and some percentage of promotional content.
What can your Business Deliver?
It is important to know your abilities when it comes to content creation. For example, running a great YouTube channel requires that you have the equipment, human resources, time, and knowledge to shoot high-quality videos. When choosing a social media strategy, ensure you are well equipped and able to create a particular type of content.
7. Interact with Your Audience
People visit social networks to view, read or watch content and interact with others. A successful social media strategy requires that you broadcast to your social audience and also engage with them. Ensure you respond to comments and social mentions to demonstrate that you value customers. You can also create custom hashtags to encourage discussion and ease the `search of posts that reference your company.
8. Track Your Results
After giving your best to develop a perfect social media strategy, you need to track your results to establish the success of the campaign. Evaluate your progress using the metrics you had set earlier. Keeping a constant eye on your campaign allows you to make small adjustments where necessary for more gains.