Do you have a social media marketing strategy?

Asking this in full 2019 may seem silly. However, one of the most common mistakes companies often make is confusing social media profiles with having a social media marketing strategy. This difference is key to grow the brand’s reputation. Even when posting content often is part of any social media strategy, it’s not enough to have an impact on a company’s clients. To do this, you need to know who the audience is, what kind of content are they attracted to, and what social network they use, among other things. Like any strategy, setting clear and measurable goals is key to focusing the strategy. If we do not know what we want to achieve with the presence on social networks, resources are likely to be wasted and the various actions that are carried out from the company could be dispersed. The social media marketing strategy must also be framed within the company’s digital marketing. Even if efforts are focused on social media, it’s important to supplement them with other tactics to ensure that the brand’s digital reputation remains. In the end, in digital marketing every action counts. Throughout this article we will be learning what elements a social media marketing strategy must have to be successful. We’ll also give you some tips on how to define the most important aspects of the strategy so you can get the most out of your social networks.

Set achievable and measurable goals

The first question you need to ask yourself when designing your social media marketing strategy is: What do I want to accomplish with this? This step will allow you to think about the best actions to reach the goal and control the budget dedicated to social networks. In general it can be said that there are nine types of objectives for the social media strategy:

1. Brand recognition
2. Direct traffic to the web
3. Generate leads
4. Increase profits
5. Drive engagement
6. Building a community around the brand
7. Providing consumer service
8. Increasing mentions by the press
9. Listen to conversations about the brand

It is possible to have more than one goal with the social media marketing strategy. It is recommended that these goals are not too many to prevent the actions from being diluted. In the case of having multiple teams, different goals can be board at the same time. For example, the marketing team can target directing traffic to the web and generating leads while supporting customer service. These objectives have an important feature: they can be quantified. With the original tools of the platforms or third parties you will have the possibility to monitor the actions day by day. Also, by being quantifiable you can set specific objectives: Increase profits in X, gain X number of followers, get a higher percentage of interactions, etc. For the same reason, expectations need to be maintained as realistically as possible when setting targets. Doubling sales, reaching a million followers in a year, or building a community in two months are not achievable targets for most brands.

Meet your audience

Once you know what you want to accomplish with your social media marketing strategy, the next step is to get to know your audience. Thanks to the demographic data available in the analytical tools, you can avoid having to guess who to target the brand’s messages. In addition, to the demographics it is necessary to create a profile of our ideal client. This will allow us to design target-specific content. Some of the questions we need to answer about our audience are: Who are they? What may interest you about our products or services? What social networks do you use? Where do they consume the type of content offered by the brand? Why and how do they consume them?

Build your customer’s profile

It’s likely that if your business has been in the market for some time, you already have enough data to answer these questions. Otherwise, there are different types of market research that you can carry out to complete your client’s profile. Additionally, the same social media platforms often publish statistics of their users as do some marketing companies. This data builds an accurate profile of who the people interested in the brand’s products or services are. This way you can design the type of content your audience wants to consume and on the platforms where it usually lives online. The success of any marketing strategy depends on knowing the target audience.

What kind of content are you going to share?

Content is the cornerstone of digital marketing and especially social media marketing. Create engaging content that is capable of generating reactions and improving brand recognition. By meeting our audience, you’ll be able to design the type of content that connects with your audience. When we talk about the type of content, we don’t just mean whether it’s video or images. It’s more effective to think about the subject of our publications. For example, if thr brand is about sports goods, the audience may be interested in content related to wellness, active lifestyle, and sports. It is possible to work with different topics on social networks, provided they are related to the objectives of the company and the interests of the audience. However, it is important to find the balance between publishing only promotional content and informative content.

Where to share the content?

An important thing to keep in mind is which social media platforms your potential customers are on. Depending on age, socioeconomic status, and other demographic details, your audience may be on Facebook or Instagram. This way you can focus your strategy on the networks that use them the most. Although it is important for the SEO of the company to at least have profiles across all networks. Following these steps will help you succeed with your social media marketing strategy and make the most of each action.

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