Social Media Marketing Strategy

Are you a social media handler? Do you know what social media marketing strategy is? Do you know what you can achieve with your social media account? Do you want to venture into social media marketing? Do you have a huge presence on social media? Do you want to turn your audience, followers and fans to loyal customers who will purchase your products and allow you to make huge sales?

If your answer is yes….then keep reading because in this post I am going to walk you through the various ways to create and develop a social media marketing strategy that will enable you to use your social media account to promote and market your products and generate huge sales.

Before we start, let us look at the meaning of social media marketing strategy, especially to enable newbie who are still new to social media marketing to know what social media marketing strategy is. A social media marketing strategy is a summary of everything you plan to do and hope to achieve on social media. It guides your actions and lets you know whether you are succeeding or failing. To create a social media marketing strategy that will lead to success in your business, you have to follow these guidelines and steps which I will be outlining on this post.

The first step you need to take in creating a social media marketing strategy is to establish your objectives and goals. Because without goals and objectives, you have no way to measure your success or your social media return on investment (ROI). Each of your set goals should be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound. Make sure to align your social media goals with your overall marketing strategy. Because the more specific your strategy is, the more effective the execution will be. Don’t make your plan so lofty and broad that it becomes unattainable or impossible to measure. This will make it easier for you to show the value of your work and generate huge sales.

The second step you need to take in creating a social media marketing strategy is to learn everything you need to know about your audience. Knowing who your audience is and what they want to see on social media is the key to creating content that they will like, comment on and even share to their friends. This will enable you to create a plan on how to develop your social media fans into customers for your business.

Check this out Social Media and Mobile Marketing Strategy and learn from experts on how to use your social media account  to grow and sustain your business.

Try and create an audience persona. These will allow you to think of your potential audience, fans, followers, and customers as real people with real wants and needs, and that will enable you to think more clearly about what to offer them. Try and visit your social media analytics often. Your social media analytics can also provide a ton of valuable information about who your followers are, where they live, which languages they speak, and how they interact with your brand on social media. These insights will allow you to refine your strategy and better target your social ads.

The third step you need to take in creating a social media marketing strategy is to research the competition. You need to know that your competitors are already using social media and that means you can learn from what they are already doing.

The first approach in researching your competitors is to conduct a competitive analysis. A competitive analysis will allow you to understand who the competitors are and what they are doing well and not doing so well. With that knowledge you will then get a good sense of what is expected in your industry, which will help you set some social media targets of your own.

This competitive analysis will also enable you to spot opportunities. For example, maybe one of your competitors is very dominant on Twitter, but has put little effort into Instagram or Facebook. You might want to focus on the networks where your audience is underserved, rather than trying to win fans away from a dominant player.

The second approach in researching your competitors is to engage in social listening. Social listening is another way to keep an eye on the competition. The best way to do this, is to track your competitors accounts and relevant industry keywords, you may notice strategic shifts in the way your competitors use their social media accounts. Always keep an eye on this information and use it to evaluate your own goals and plans.

The fourth step you need to take in creating a social media marketing strategy is to conduct a social media audit. To do that, you need to evaluate your current efforts. If you are already using a social media tools, you will also need to take a step back and look at what you have already done and accomplished. Ask yourself questions like: What is working and what is not working? Who is connecting with you on social? Which social media sites does your target market use? How does your social media presence compare to that of your competitors?

Check this out Social Media and Mobile Marketing Strategy and learn from experts on how to use your social media account  to grow and sustain your business.

Once you gather all this information in one place, you will have a good starting point for planning how to improve your results and achieve your set goals. You have to bear in mind that your audit should give you a clear picture of what purpose each of your social accounts serves. If the purpose of an account isn’t clear to you, then you have to think about whether it is worth keeping. It may be a valuable account that just needs a strategic redirection or it may be an outdated account that is no longer worth your while. However, to help you take a positive decision; you need to ask yourself questions like: Is my audience here? If so, how are they using this platform? Can I use this account to help achieve some meaningful business goals?

Asking yourself these tough questions will help you to keep your social media strategy on track as you grow your social media presence. While performing your auditing process, you may discover fraudulent accounts using your business name or the names of your products, that is, the accounts that you and your business don’t own. These imposters’ accounts can be harmful to your brand, so you have to be sure to report them. Reporting them may lead to getting your social media account like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts verified to ensure your fans and followers know they are dealing with the real you.

The fifth step you need to take in creating a social media marketing strategy is to set up accounts and improve existing profiles. That is, you need to determine which networks to use and how to use them. As you decide which social channels to use, you will also need to define your strategy for each network. Also remember that it is a good exercise to create mission statements for each network.

Your mission statement will help you to focus on a very specific goal for each account on each social network. However, if you can’t create a solid mission statement for a particular social network, you may want to reconsider whether that network is worth it.

Once you have stipulated your mission statement, the next thing to do is to set up and optimize your accounts. Once you have decided which networks to focus on, it is now time to create your profiles or improve existing profiles so they align with your strategic plan. In general, make sure you fill out all profile fields using keywords people will use to search for your business, and also use images that are correctly sized for each network.

Check this out Social Media and Mobile Marketing Strategy and learn from experts on how to use your social media account  to grow and sustain your business.

The sixth step you need to take in creating a social media marketing strategy is to find inspiration. You can draw inspiration from other businesses that are great on social media. Start by reading all of the social media success stories that highlight how other brands and businesses are using their tools effectively. You can usually find these on the business section of the social network’s website. You can check the success story of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. You can also check out the winners of the Facebook Awards and brands that are at the top of their social media game.

Your followers can also offer you social media inspiration. Check what your target customers are talking about online? What can you learn about their wants and needs? If you have an existing social media channels, you could also ask your existing followers what they want from you. Just make sure that you follow through and deliver what they ask for.

The seventh and last step you need to take in creating a social media marketing strategy is to test, evaluate, and adjust your strategy. Your social media marketing strategy is a very important document for your business and you can’t assume you will get it exactly right on the first try. As you start to implement your plan and track your results, you may find that some strategies don’t work as well as you would have anticipated, while others are working even better than expected.

To track your data, you need to re-evaluate, test, and do it all again. Once this data starts coming in, use it to re-evaluate your strategy regularly. You can also use this information to test different posts, campaigns and strategies against one another. You also need to know that constant testing of your marketing strategy will allow you to understand what works and what doesn’t work, so you can refine your strategy in real time.

Surveys can also be a great way to find out how well your strategy is working. To do this, you have to ask your social media followers, email list, and website visitors’ questions on whether you are meeting their needs and expectations on social media, and what they would like to see and expect from you. Then make sure to deliver on what they tell you. When you update your social media marketing strategy, make sure to let everyone on your social media team know, so that they can all work together to help your business to make the most out of your social media accounts.

Check this out Social Media and Mobile Marketing Strategy and learn from experts on how to use your social media account  to grow and sustain your business.

If you have other ways to develop a social media marketing strategy so as to turn your friends, followers and fans to loyal customers and improve sales, your comments is highly appreciated. If you love this post please take few minutes and share it to your social media accounts.

Austine Ikeru
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