Social Media Marketing, as with all forms of Business Development, will give much better results if you have and adhere to a plan! Otherwise you may find the return on your time and monetary investment rather poor.
When devising a social media marketing plan or strategy there are a number of key points to consider:
- What do you want to achieve? Doing something for the sake of it is not ideal. Decide what you want to get from your investment.
- What products or services do you want to promote? You need to be specific, simply listing all your products or services on social sites will not be terribly effective. Highlight the benefits of each individual item you want to promote.
- Who are your target markets? Once you have your product and service list and benefits, assign a target market(s) to each one. Make sure you drill down and really understand the pain points or solutions you are providing each target market and profile them in detail. Are they male or female, what age range, where are they located, what interests do they have, what job role will they hold, what associations will they be members of, what competitors might they already be following? These are metrics that can be used in paid adverts to make your campaigns highly targeted.
- Be specific and create campaigns per target market/product or service – one size does not fit all!
- Make sure your marketing is true to the tone and brand of your business.
- Choose the most effective social media site for each target market.
- Create a calendar to plan your content taking into consideration seasonal activity, your target market preferences.
- Set goals and targets for engagement, interaction and clicks through to your website.
- Measure the effectiveness of each campaign and continue to hone and develop your social marketing content. Making small changes can quite often have profound affects.
- Use clear calls to actions, make it as easy as possible for the target to buy into your product or service. For example, if you are marketing a product that can be purchased make sure links take the user direct to the item not another generic page. If it is a service offering create a dedicated landing page or direct them to a specific existing service description page.
- Create engaging content, ask questions and ask for opinions, use different media like video, infographics and visually impactful images.
- Ensure your social activity promotes other aspects of your marketing, highlight exhibitions or events, reinforce email campaigns, highlight blog articles or case studies, share testimonials and reviews, share press releases and features… social media marketing should complement your other marketing aspects, not replace it.
- Consistency, make sure you keep the ball rolling, allow time during every work day to monitor your accounts, keep the posts updated and respond to interactions. There is absolutely no point going to all this effort if you miss enquiries!
If you need assistance collating a social media plan for your business contact our social media experts on 01604 654545 or email sales@thelasthurdle.co.uk