Introduction
In the past decade, social media has become one of the most important ways to market your business, get your message across and reach customers. For a successful social media presence, you need a robust plan or strategy otherwise it might not work as well as you expect it to. But how do you create a good social media marketing strategy? What are some of the key components of a successful one?
It should have a clear focus
A good social media marketing strategy should have a clear focus on what you want to achieve. Your objectives will help you decide what tasks you need to complete, and how they can be used to achieve the desired results.
You should start by asking yourself: “What do I want my customers or audiences to know about my brand?” These will be your key messages for social media.
You may also have other key messages that relate specifically to specific platforms and channels, like Instagram or LinkedIn, but these generally fall under the umbrella of one main objective for each channel (i.e., build awareness).
It should reflect your target audience
Your social media marketing strategy should reflect your target audience.
To start, it’s important to ask yourself who is your customer: B2B, B2C or both? The answer will determine a lot of other factors in your plan. For instance, if you have a B2B focus, then you need to identify your B2B target audience type, geography and size of business; If you have a more diverse audience that includes individuals (i.e., B2C), then think about identifying the types of individuals in each category (age groups, gender) as well as their income levels so that content can be tailored accordingly for each group’s needs and interests.
It should define the most appropriate social media channels
A good social media strategy should include a detailed review of your target audience. We recommend that you survey your existing customers to learn about their habits and preferences, as well as conduct market research on the most popular social media channels for your industry.
Once you’ve determined which channels are most popular among your target audience, it’s time to determine how each channel can be used to achieve specific goals. You want to keep in mind the demographics of your target market, as well as their behaviours, interests, and preferences.
For example, if you’re marketing a new line of herbal supplements for weight loss, then Instagram would be an ideal place to share photos of fit people enjoying their morning smoothie or promoting the health benefits of leafy greens on Facebook. On Twitter? Not so much: People who follow your account there are more likely to be interested in current events than healthy eating tips.
It should contain competitors’ practices analysis
If you want to build a strong social media marketing presence for your brand, then you need to know what your competitors are doing as well. You must understand what works for them and what doesn’t. It is important that you look at their profiles and see how they are different from yours.
It should contain a content analysis, a brief content plan and page recommendations
Your content analysis should be based on your competitors’ practices, as well as those of your own brand’s previous posts and social media activity: what was working, what wasn’t. The insights of this process will prepare you for creating a brief social media content plan, also it will give you future content ideas and social media page recommendations (e.g. making branded highlights on Instagram).
Once you have your brief content plan in place, it’s time to start thinking about what kind of content will work best for your audience on each social network. You can do this by looking at some other brands that have similar audiences to yours (e.g., target market segments) or by doing some research into niche topics related to the industry(s) related to yours (e.g., agriculture).
It should be realistic and measurable
It’s important to set clear, measurable KPIs before you start on your social media marketing strategy: what results are expected from the campaign? If it’s not clear what success looks like, how can you know when you’ve achieved it?
Agree with the client on the scope of work. Before beginning any kind of marketing campaign—whether digital or traditional—defining exactly what will happen during this phase is essential for everything else later down the line (e.g., implementation) to go smoothly.
Ideally, it should include a paid advertising budget
When you’re just starting out, it can be difficult to gauge the effectiveness of your social media marketing strategy. Paid advertising is one way to get your content in front of your target audience and see how it performs.
Paid ads can also be used to test which type of content works best for you. If you have an Instagram account, for example, paid ads allow you to run campaigns with different types of images and determine which ones perform best with your target audience. This will help inform future posts about what kind of content they’re most likely interested in seeing from you.
It’s also a good idea to use paid ads as part of a lead generation strategy because they enable companies the opportunity to grow their social media following while simultaneously targeting strong leads – people specific to your brand interests, age groups, etc. They might buy from you at first sight but may someday become customers if they receive enough personalised attention through engaging content on your social media pages.
Conclusion
In Blue Sword, we know how having a good social media marketing strategy is crucial to your success as a brand nowadays and using our knowledge we can help you convert prospects into customers. It’s important that every aspect of your strategy be well defined and planned, from the objectives, key messages, and types of content you post on social media, to how much money you allocate towards paid advertising.