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We live in a world where social media is everywhere, and people use it daily for entertainment, learning, socialization, news consumption, and even for discovering new products. However, despite the rising relevance of social media for all brands, there is no one-size-fits-all approach to a social media strategy. Instead, brands need to take several steps to understand their target audience and determine the right platform to ensure maximum return on investment.
Here are a few steps that you can take to help create an effective social media marketing strategy for your business:
Create SMART objective
The foundation of any successful social media strategy is knowing what the brand has set out to achieve. So ask a pertinent question: What does your brand intend to achieve using social media platforms? Is it leads, increased awareness, or something else?
Once the overall brand goal is outlined, the next ideal step is to implement it. To do this, we suggest using the SMART framework. A SMART marketing objective is:
- S – Specific – Having clarity on what the brand wishes to accomplish.
- M – Measurable – For your goal, ensure you know how you’ll measure your progress and success. For example, instead of stating a purpose as ‘increase Twitter followers, add a quantifiable metric to it such as ‘increase Twitter followers to 50,000.’
- A – Attainable – Make sure the objective is realistic and considers historical data and recent market trends.
- R – Realistic – Social media marketing is the best option when your objective is aligned with your overall brand purpose or goals.
- T – Time-bound – Set a timeline for your goal. It will also be beneficial to add specific milestones.
Identify the correct KPIs and important metrics
Once you have defined your objective, identify the right metrics and the key performance indicator (KPI). The KPI is essentially the main goal for your brand, while other metrics will play the supporting role.
For example, if your brand’s social media marketing objective is ‘To generate 10,000+ visits to your brand’s website in 2022’, the KPI will be the number of website views you get from your social media channels. The secondary metrics to support this goal will be to create engagement on your social media posts (likes, shares, comments) or other metrics that add to your objective.
Understand your customers and build powerful customer personas
A successful social media strategy is about the brand knowing their target audience and what they want.
The ideal step is to create a buyer or customer persona which incorporates your audience’s thought process or feedback. The persona is a fictional or generalized representation of the type of customers you cater to.
The most common parameters for any customer persona are:
- Demographics – age, behavior, or other attributes
- Location – where they are located
- Interests – why is your brand relevant to them
- Barriers / Challenges – which your brand, product, or service can address
- Beliefs – mindset, attitude, or common misconceptions
- Needs – what do they need, and how can your brand help them achieve these goals?
Focus on using the right social media platforms
Today, there are innumerable social media platforms to choose from. But the key is not to be present everywhere, but only where your brand needs to be. To understand which social media to focus on and which ones to ignore, you need to determine:
- The type of audience you are targeting, and which platform does this audience uses.
- The type of content that you are creating.
For example, if you are a B2B brand where live demonstrations or informative videos appeal to the audience, you should be on YouTube creating stellar content. YouTube ads have the potential to reach 2.56 billion users and are a prime source for users who want authentic and detailed information about a particular subject.
Remember, each social platform is tailored towards different audiences and types of content, so choose the platform accordingly.
Leverage multiple content types and options
At this point, your social media strategy has already taken shape and is now ready to deliver. But before you do that, ensure you plan your activities on social media correctly. Make sure you have a social media calendar that clearly outlines what you will be publishing and the kind of content you will create.
Content types for social media can be:
● Written posts: Text-focused content.
● Images or infographics: Image-heavy content that provides information in a visually appealing format.
● Video content: Information that is showcased in the form of interactive audio and videos. As per a Hubspot report, 92% of marketers who use video say it’s an essential part of their marketing strategy, and 86% of video marketers say video has been effective for generating leads.
● Interactive polls or competitions: posts that take inputs or feedback from your users and encourage them to act on your social media content.
● Live videos: Live videos are different from well-edited video as it reaches your audience in real-time and is ideal for promoting an event or a key occasion.
No matter which platform you choose, ensure that when uploading content, especially in video format, you pay close attention to optimizing your video to be as per the guidelines and best practices of that platform. Given the heavy competition and video quality requirement nowadays, the success of a brand on YouTube is about its ability to connect and impact the audience. Optimizing videos for each social media platform isn’t complicated anymore and can be done in seconds using a video maker to achieve the ideal results.
Measure, monitor, and realign as needed
Once you begin publishing your social media posts and content, do not forget to revisit your goals and monitor your activity regularly. We recommend a weekly or monthly check on your social media outcome viz-a-viz your objective and determining the proper steps.
Social media is a driving force for businesses to increase awareness, inform their audience and scale up the brand to reach a more comprehensive network. The tips provided here are just the starting point to help brands craft their social media strategy, and it needs to evolve and change to deliver outstanding results constantly. So use this as your base and keep developing your strategy as you progress to ensure you make the right marketing decisions for your brand.
If you want to learn more about putting together a successful video marketing strategy, Threecolts has a comprehensive article that you can read.
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