Strange how time passes, correct? We’re already entering July of 2021, and knowing how 2020 changed our lives, it’s challenging to predict what will happen next. The pandemic changed our lives, and in a way, things might never be the same again.
The same can be said about business. For better or worse, businesses have changed, evolved beyond comprehension, and competition between companies has skyrocketed. There’s one aspect that played a crucial role in our lives; social media.
With that in mind, if we looked back in 2020, there’s a chance your social media plans for 2020 were completely thrown off because the year didn’t go as planned for a variety of reasons.
But that is okay. Not everything works out according to plan, and even though there are setbacks, there’s an opportunity to do better than before.
It’s time to plan for a strategy that delivers results and delivers a clear brand message with a vision that showcases your company’s objectives. It also means that your marketing budget (again) is up for evaluation, and you have three critical tasks lined up, which are;
- Evaluate your social media marketing strategy’s success within the previous six months.
- Based on last year’s results, create a social media marketing strategy for the remaining six months of this year and 2022.
- Evaluate what resources your business needs to succeed.
As soon as you begin exporting data and preparing summaries, you might start thinking if you have achieved what you set out to accomplish in your previous year. In addition, you might be wondering if there ever was a distinct and motivating goal.
Social Media Strategies for Profit & Nonprofit Business Organization
Before we get started, it is essential to know that it doesn’t matter what type of business organization you are; Profit or Nonprofit. But if you are a profit organization, it is pretty straightforward for you to have your fair share of traffic from social media platforms, unlike nonprofit organizations.
For them, keeping track of their social media accounts is like a never-ending hamster wheel in a cage. If you’re a nonprofit organization, you are not the only one who feels this way because social media management for nonprofits is not easy.
However, some businesses have been helping nonprofits save time (and money) for over a decade by setting up free and low-cost social media management tools to help them manage and monitor all of their accounts quickly.
Without further ado, let’s hop on to the ten most effective and handy tips for creating a result-oriented and exceptional social media strategy for your business:
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What and Why’s of Social Media Strategy Context:
Why is the very first question that has to be addressed before we move any further.
Why – has to do with your social media objectives. Are you using social media to market your goods? Do you want to increase the traffic to your website?
There are nine social media goals one might have in general:
- To boost brand recognition
- To increase traffic
- To obtain new leads.
- To increase revenue.
- To promote brand loyalty and engagement.
- To promote customer services
- To encourage more customer feedback
If you have multiple social media accounts, it’ll be easier to understand your users. However, unless you have a dedicated team for social media, it is a good idea to focus on a limited number of tasks over all of them at once.
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Setting SMART Goals:
Once your why is sorted, the next step is to set SMART business goals. There are only two factors you must consider when selecting your goals; they should be realistic, and should always be SMART, which means they should be:
Specific:
The process, audience, and desired outcomes should be well described as a goal.
Measurable:
The objective must have a measuring system for tracking and comparing progress.
Attainable:
The goal/objective is within your company’s capability.
Relevant:
The goal should advance a part of your company’s broader strategy.
Time-bound:
The goal must have a beginning and an end.
Instead of saying, We like to use social media to have more followers who will shop more of our goods. Your brand should say, “We’re planning to develop X blog posts on these topics to target these customers (specific-Teenage audience) over two months (specific – 2 months) to increase sales for product X by 30 percent (measurable, attainable) over in the last quarter” (Relevant and Time-bound).
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Know your target audience well:
It’s essential to understand your target audience and what they want to see on your social media channels. As a result, you’ll be able to develop content that they’ll enjoy, comment on, and share.
Knowing them well is also essential if you want to convert your social media followers into paying clients. Though most of your social media followers will contribute to your general audience, don’t assume they’re the for all the social platforms you’ve selected in your strategy.
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Conduct Competitive Analysis:
Always remember that on social media, you and your competitors are vying for the same target audience. Inevitably, your competitors are already using social media, which means you can learn from their mistakes.
A competitive study can help you figure out who your competitors are and what they do well and not so well. You’ll gain a clear understanding of what’s required in your field, which can help you define your own social media goals.
To conduct this analysis, select 5–10 business competitors, then look them up on all of the major social media platforms common for you and your competitors. Look for postings aimed at grabbing the attention of your competitor’s followers, such as the ones below. It simply implies:
The various types of media:
Does it look like their posts are performing well for them?
The tone of the content:
What kind of messages appears to be the most effective?
Messages of various types:
Are the questions practical? Are there surveys and customer feedback?
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Choose your primary social media platform well:
There are plenty of popular social media platforms that your company might use. Because getting the most out of any platform can require a lot of time and money, you should focus your business’ resources on the platforms that will provide you the most return on investment.
You must audit your social media channels to know what each of your social media accounts is for. Consider if an account is worth maintaining if the purpose is unclear. You need to find out which platform or channel works best for you and keep that channel on the top of your list for the best content creation.
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Keep Content in the Pipeline:
While it’s great to be aware of your objectives, target audience, platforms, and rivals, it’s crucial to keep content plans ready for publishing. Your social media initiatives will either stand tall or fall based on the content you offer daily. The best part is that your approach and strategy can compensate for a long-term plan for content creation and delivery.
Keyword research can help you learn more about what users are interested in. It entails using a tool like Google Trends to see what terms people search for while investigating a topic. You can use this in conjunction with the platform’s analysis capabilities to highlight unique social media hot topics.
It will reveal what questions users have and allow you to develop solutions.
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Use a Social Media Content Calendar:
To keep your content in the pipeline is to have content ready way before the time comes. Using a calendar for tracking is crucial nowadays. It is a good idea to plan and have posts lined up for specific days and events that are coming up. Planning leaves room for contingencies – something most social media strategies lack.
Pro-Tip:
After you’ve set up your content calendar, utilize a scheduling application to prepare messages ahead of time rather than constantly updating your calendar throughout your day.
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Adjusting Social Media Strategies as You Move Forward:
Social media platforms have always been very uncertain because of the velocity with which your social media posts produce results – you can quickly determine what works and what doesn’t; you can alter your strategies and plans accordingly.
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Keep Track of KPIs And Other Metrics:
The social media strategy of your business should ALWAYS be data-driven regardless of what you’re offering. This involves concentrating on the most critical social media indicators and metrics. However, rather than focusing on conventional metrics, brands are expected to look into data directly related to their objectives.
But, what metrics or KPIs are we talking about? Take a look at the following breakdown:
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Engagement:
Engagement tells a lot about you & your brand. The total number of social interactions divided by the total number of impressions is your engagement. It reveals how your audience sees you and how willing they are to communicate with you.
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Reach:
The actual number of users who saw your content is known as post reach. So how far does your material make it into users’ feeds?
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Clicks:
It is the total number of times your content or account has been clicked. It’s critical to track clicks per campaign to determine what piques people’s interest or encourages them to buy.
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Hashtags:
Hashtags are one of the most major KPIs. What hashtags did you use the most? What hashtags were the most closely associated with your company? These answers can help you define the direction of your content in the future.
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Budget Planning
Last but not least is the budget you decide to allocate for your social media strategy. Budget planning is necessary to promote your posts on social media and be included in every successful social media plan.
Spending without understanding where the budget line is drawn, on the other hand, is a terrible idea. You can understand how particular posts perform by using a small amount in the initial stages and move the budget up as you see progress.
Conclusion
Creating a social media marketing strategy is one of the most challenging tasks since it requires taking a step back and considering the larger picture. It would help if you shift your focus from day-to-day duties such as scheduling and responding to comments to higher-order thinking.
On the other hand, having a social media marketing strategy can be highly profitable and beneficial, as it ensures that you aren’t simply producing content for the sake of providing material. It will assist you in achieving long-term social media and business objectives.
Author
Eliza Jeffrey is an editor in a leading Internet strategy, marketing, and development firm. She is responsible for designing an online strategy, marketing, and development campaigns for maximum impact. I’m responsible for ensuring that every blog post I write is EPIC.
Social media marketing is one of the most efficient ways to improve your business’ online presence, sales, and branding. Many entrepreneurs in various industries have already invested in social media and they can already see the positive effect of it towards their businesses. The abundance of small businesses and start-ups shared articles online can testify how popular and cost-effective this strategy is.
For marketers, the potential to grow their business with the help of these social networks is endless. However, the problem is some people, most often the budding entrepreneurs, struggle and get confused on how to handle different social media platforms. Instead of gaining more followers and attracting new customers, the opposite happens.
Managing social media for your business may seem difficult to do but it doesn’t have to be that way. It can become really simple if you learn how to put your customers in the center of your business’ campaign. You do not have to invest too much time on your social networking sites, while getting better profit. Want to know how? Check out these easy-to-learn social media tips that even newbies can follow:
Follow verified accounts to get a follow back.
Managing a social media account is like walking into a party. You can’t connect with people easily if you don’t initiate conversation first. In social media, you reach out to people and engage with them.
To increase your popularity on any social platform, here are the steps that you must do:
- Recognize the relevant verified accounts.
- Follow people who have verified accounts to build your network.
- Try to follow other relevant users, even if you do not know them.
- Share their content, mention them on your status updates and interact with them.
After doing all these, be patient and wait for them to follow you back. Eventually, you will be able to build a connection with not all but some. Nonetheless, don’t go on a following spree and be reminded of the follow-to-follower ratio that you have to keep, particularly in Twitter, or else you could get suspended.
Optimize images to get attention.
According to a new research, images could be the “holy grail” of social media engagement because it is easier to consume than text. Optimize the image you post on your profiles to get more followers and attention. You can use catchy or interesting images that can entice your audience’s curiosity.
Make sure that you check the size of your featured photo or status update photos. Basically, you’ll reproduce the photo in different sizes. To make your life easier, lay out your subjects in the center of the image. Leave 40-50 pixels at the side of your photo, and 10-20 pixels at the bottom. With this, your images will be properly presented as if it is specifically made for the page.
Know the best time to post to boost audience reach.
Analyze your audience and find out which is the best time to post updates. Analyzing is a bit challenging because you have to determine your follower’s attitude. Once you figure it out, your business’ social media accounts will get better engagement, traffic, and share rate. Remember user habits vary on every social media platform. Typically, the best time to post on Facebook is during 2PM -6PM when users are about to leave their workplace. Meanwhile, Twitter gets a better reach during 1PM-3PM.
Moreover, check what day users typically go online. Facebook peaks during Wednesday while Twitter has a lot of users during Monday- Thursday. During Friday, LinkedIn users don’t often log in and use their accounts. In Pinterest, users often log in during Friday afternoon and the weekend.
If you are not available to post during these specific time, you can schedule it via social media management tools like Buffer and Hootsuite.
Image Source: SurePayroll
Ask questions to encourage engagement.
Words are powerful and it can drive people to action. In blogs, most marketers apply call-to-action statements in the form of questions, encouraging people to leave a comment or share their thoughts. This is also true when it comes to social media. Asking questions moves people to share their answers or opinions thus stretching your engagement rate. Questions also help foster better communication between you and your followers.
Try an emoji to make status standout.
Many companies haven’t tried incorporating emojis or special icons on their social updates. They think that it lessens the ‘professional look’ of their accounts. But your choice of keeping it too rigid makes you miss a huge opportunity to boost your likability. Emojis act as a visual hook, just like an image, but with a subtle effect. Still, it makes a post standout among the pile of feeds. Also, these icons can make your company less intimidating, and more friendly towards people.
Add hashtags to manage posts properly.
Hashtags were first used in Twitter. But because of its effectiveness in managing tweets and improving searchability, it was then adapted by Facebook, Google+ and other social networks. When properly used, it can increase your followers, improve reputation and find information. Hashtags do not only make social media management painless, it also helps marketing your product or services more effective.
Post informative content to improve shareability.
The core of a great social media is not the number of followers, nor the rate of user engagement. It is all about the content you share. If you have great content, people will start to follow you. Remember to mix up the types of content you post. It can be news, blogs, photos, quotes, videos and more. Be sure that it is something informative so that people will share it among friends.
Note that 50% of your social media content should not be about your site, share content from other sources as well. It is not just about you, it is about what your followers will find interesting and helpful.
These tips are easy to follow, not to mention effective when properly used. Don’t get intimidated with the buttons, and features of the social sites interface. Just put your followers and fans in the center of your marketing strategies, and all will lay perfectly to your advantage.
About the Author:
Maddy Bertelsen writes for different newsletters. She is currently working for Superiorpapers while also taking her graduate studies. She dreams of becoming a famous novelist someday.
An ideal marketing strategy is composed of different marketing actions, integrated together to form an effective, and efficient way of meeting goals, boosting sales, and improving brand awareness. Unfortunately, not every business owners are good at integrating their marketing strategies.
One of the common mistakes they commit is how they use their social media sites, especially when integrated with content marketing plans. The moment business owners realized that social media is a trend in digital marketing, they just easily jump into the band-wagon without any knowledge of what they are doing.
Without proper knowledge about social media they can either make plenty of mistakes that would damage their business, or they won’t maximize the potential of their business. Combine it with another popular strategy like content marketing, and digital marketing becomes more complicated.
If you are a business owner thinking of integrating social media and content marketing with your business strategy, you should watch out for these mistakes that might hinder your business goals.
Share not just blogs, infographics are equally effective
A common mistake that even professional marketers do is to share only blogs on their social media accounts. Content marketing is not limited to blogs, news and press releases. You can also post creative infographics and images as replacement to the blogs you commonly share. These materials have better ROI because it is shared easily, and has better click-through rate.
Use Attractive Featured Images
Pictures are what attract readers to read your shared contents that is why you have to be creative in choosing which featured image you use. Remember, when you share your blog to Facebook, a shared link thumbnail will be featured. Make sure these images are attractive and optimized.
Social media is not only for sharing, it is also for newsjacking
If you think of Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms as tools meant only to share your contents, then you are not using these tools’ potential. Many experts also use social media sites for newsjacking. It is a technique where marketers share, publish, and talk about trending topics, to ride on its popularity. While it might sound like taking advantage of other’s credits, newsjacking is an effective strategy to use in content creation and social media.
It is not all about you, do content curation
Content curation is the next big thing in social media. Maria Popova of Brain Pickings does this, and Guy Kawasaki of AllTop suggests this, as well. As experts say, your contents should be 20% about you, and 80% about someone else. Content curation is convenient for readers because they can find loads of related articles in one place.
Social buttons for your visitors
Never hide social media buttons on your blogs. These buttons make your blogs, and contents easier to share. Once shared, you have to respond to comments. There might be positive and negative feedback about your contents, so make sure to choose which are the ones worth responding.
Be consistent in sharing your contents, schedule them if you need to
Consistency is the key in social media and content marketing. You won’t improve your sales, and followers overnight so you have to keep on sharing and posting contents. Analyze reader response- likes, shares, comments, mentions- to maximize your site’s potential. If you are busy, you can use social media management applications to schedule your posts.
Integrating social media accounts with your marketing plans can be helpful. But you should also be careful in using it because a single mistake can hurt your business. The tips above can help you avoid making wrong actions online, and also create a better marketing plan beneficial to your company’s growth.
About Author:
Author’s Bio: Lace Wanders is a blogger, and a writer who has been writing professionally since she was in college. She took a degree in business communication, and is now working as a writer for Best Essays.