Social media marketing has proven to be the most effective form of marketing especially compared to traditional media advertising
Over the last decade, social media marketing has proven to be the most effective form of marketing especially compared to traditional media advertising. It is much cheaper, can reach a much bigger audience, can be highly targeted, is easily measured, and provides a direct two-way communication with an audience.
However, embarking on a social media journey is no simple feat. Many startups and businesses treat it as a series of random posts which usually proves ineffective. Creating a social media strategy is crucial to ensure a professional and productive social media presence for your brand.
Creating And Implementing Your Social Media Strategy
A sum of many: A proper social media strategy includes many components, among them goal setting, target audience and creating personas, asset mapping, position in the sales cycle, choice of channels, voice and tone, posting frequency, posting time, content types, content calendars, community management, online advertising strategies, influencer marketing strategies, social media policies, crisis management policies, monitoring, measurement, and reporting.
Goal setting: Setting quantifiable goals is very crucial so that everyone is clear on what you want your social media plan needs to achieve.
Knowing where you stand: What your target audience already knows about you will dictate what you can credibly have a conversation about on social media. That is why is it important to be aware of your position in the sales cycle.
Time is still money: A common myth about social media is that it’s free, or at least very cheap. While it may be free to set up a Twitter or Facebook account, it requires time and lots of it to effectively manage these accounts.
Creation of personas: A great way to ensure you hit your target and focus communications on the right people is to create personas. These are short descriptions of fictional individuals that represent your target.
Have clear priorities: Prioritize your channels, start slow and get comfortable even if it means starting with just one platform. Spend time getting accustomed to posting content, answering questions and comments, and the overall level of engagement required. Once you’re comfortable, add another platform and slowly build your network.
Set your voice and tone: This is very important to create a professional brand for your business on social media. Voice is your brand personality described in an adjective while the tone adds specific flavor to your voice based.
Think scientifically about content: Content creation is a vital element in contemporary marketing strategies. There is a science behind what motivates users to share digital content. Researchers have discovered a number of psychological triggers that inspire people to engage in online activities: social approval, communication, support ideas, and entertainment.
Create value through content: So that your social media content is more shareable, consider the following: create high-quality content, use smart structuring, add value to users’ lives, keep your audience in mind, trigger emotions and exploit trendy topics.
Crisis management: Make sure to create a crisis management strategy that takes into account speed, hyper-transparency, dialogue, search and detractors.
Understand how the algorithms work: Before commencing with paid advertising, you should properly understand the organic algorithms for the platforms that you are using.
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