Social media is one of the fastest growing trends in history. It’s been around since the dawn of the World Wide Web, but it has outpaced the growth of the internet itself. Within...
Social media is one of the fastest growing trends in history. It’s been around since the dawn of the World Wide Web, but it has outpaced the growth of the internet itself. Within the first 10 years of being available to the public, the internet has already amassed about one billion users on social media.
And it doesn’t stop there. There’s been an explosion of growth in various social media platforms. Reports show that every month there are over two billion users on Facebook, one billion on Instagram, and 365 million on Twitter.
The sheer number of active users is enough proof that social media holds great power in connecting with your audience and driving greater sales. And a well-oiled social media strategy can help you achieve your business goals with maximum impact.
Online marketing isn’t just a passing trend. Social media advertising provides value because it allows you to reach audiences in a low-cost way with high-impact results. With a solid social media presence, you can foster brand loyalty, increase website traffic, and engage with new and existing customers.
It all starts with a social media plan. Your plan encompasses the series of coordinated marketing efforts you need to take to reinforce your brand’s values. These targeted campaigns are strategically focused to initiate action and provide measurable outcomes.
Social media is one of the best ways to influence your target audience’s purchasing decisions. But keep in mind that this doesn’t translate to pummeling your customers with your message. Rather, it means targeting your customers on a platform they are most receptive to. So it helps to use tools that can help you build meaningful, long-term relationships.
Your marketing plan should summarize everything you plan to do and achieve on social media. It provides direction by informing you about whether you are succeeding or failing at your campaign. After all, every post you make online should have a clear purpose.
With an effective social media strategy, you can manage your reputation online and ensure that your message is heard by the people you want to talk to.
Social media plays a significant role in today’s world that more and more people are using it every day. The latest data on social media use reveals that 72% of netizens will access the web solely through their smartphones in 2025. And even older generations will not be left behind—older adult tech adoption is on the rise. Data shows that the fastest growing demographic for Facebook and Twitter are those between the 45-64 age bracket.
When it comes to the purchasing decisions of Millennials, social media is one of their key influencers. Data from Smart Insights shows that about 46% of social media users are already on the consideration stage of the sales funnel, while 40% of netizens decide what to buy based on what they have seen on social media platforms. If this teaches you anything, it’s that an impressive social media presence could push Millennials one step further down the sales funnel.
Recommendations from peers can also reap greater customer conversions. HubSpot reports that consumers are 71% more likely to purchase after receiving a social media referral. Taking that idea further, influencers account for the lion’s share of referrals brands receive on social media. Endorsements from key influencers like celebrities and video bloggers, for instance, can increase brand credibility and make it easy to communicate their message.
Since info-sharing on social media happens at an alarmingly fast pace, marketers can take advantage of social channels to analyze and share information in real-time. Also called social listening, this practice allows marketers to monitor their social media channels for feedback and direct mentions of their brand. Unlike social monitoring, listening is a two-way street that looks into the causes behind social conversations before implementing long-term strategy changes.
Your social media marketing efforts are not a solo act. Think of it as part of a jazz combo that blends with the rest of your digital marketing strategy. Integrating social media with the rest of your digital channels makes it easier for you to create a cohesive and scalable experience for your customers. So make it your goal to establish a clear social presence right from the start.
A huge fraction of the customer experience now takes place on the web. And social media platforms provide countless opportunities to delight customers and add value to your brand. These interactions, in turn, lay down the foundation of what could be one of your greatest marketing assets: customer advocacy.
Moz describes advocacy as the nirvana of social media. Customers who spread positive feedback and shout your name from the rooftops give a clear sign that your business is doing well. And if your brand ever gets a bad rap, your advocates can help remind the rest of the world what you stand for.
Advocacy isn’t something you can buy—earning it takes time and requires continuous and positive engagement with your audience. So use social media to build meaningful connections with your audience, tap social media influencers, and make better insight-based business decisions.
One of the best values of social media is that it allows your brand to engage with a community of like-minded people. This engagement is at the heart of any social media campaign: social platforms, after all, connect you with customers in real time.
Apart from facilitating responsive communication, social media helps you foster deeper relationships with your target audience. These interactions encourage customer retention and loyalty. And it starts by taking the following steps:
A social media audit is like a marketing health and wellness check-up. Take the time to check the activity, DNA, circulation, vitals, and deficiencies of your current social media efforts. A few questions to ask yourself would be:
Answering these questions can help keep your strategy on track. Once you gather the data, you’ll have a good starting point on how to improve your online presence. Make it a point to verify your social media accounts to update your profile, identify impostor accounts, and determine new opportunities for social engagement.
Set the tone to creating a winning social media strategy by defining what your goals and objectives are. Do you want to attract younger customers to your brand? Or establish your credibility in your industry? Set realistic goals that address your biggest challenges. This way, you can scale your marketing efforts in a way that’s reasonable and affordable.
Bring structure and trackability into your goals and objectives by following the SMART goal framework.
Get a better pulse on your industry competitors and perform a competitor analysis. Consider what strategies they have in place to drive better engagement and higher sales. Paying attention to what your competitors are doing allows you to identify content gaps so you know which areas to focus on for your campaign. Ask yourself which topics they aren’t covering and which ones have low-quality content.
Looking to your competitors for guidance will inform your own strategy. Keep in mind that the goal isn’t to mimic or steal your competitor’s ideas. Rather, it’s about finding out what works then adapting this to your own strategy.
Making assumptions about your target audience is a dangerous game. To scale growth and keep your acquisition costs down, you’ll need to position your brand in front of the right customers at the right time.
Understand your customers better by creating a buyer persona. Buyer personas are fictional representations of your ideal customers. A deep understanding of these buyer personas is crucial to content creation because it allows you to tailor your content to the specific needs, behaviors, and concerns of different groups.
On top of that, you can also access relevant info about the people you’re targeting by searching for demographic data and using social media analytics tools. Obtain useful info like who your followers are, where they’re from, and what languages they speak so you can refine your strategy and create more targeted ads.
Your social media marketing strategy revolves around content. After a closer look at your competitors and audience, you should have an idea of what sort of content would resonate well with your audience. Some social trends and best practices you may want to keep in mind include:
Social media calendars help you schedule and track your campaigns. It provides your team with an overview of what content needs to be published as well as what’s coming next. If your marketing team has several tasks to do, a social media calendar will help you stay on track and on top of your priorities.
Customers use social media to converse and share content. Don’t miss out on the chance to appeal to your customers by learning the best times to post on social media and engaging with them after posting. Gain respect for your brand by making social customer care a priority.
Trial-and-error is part and parcel of creating a successful social media strategy. As you start to implement your plan and track its results, you’ll realize that some strategies fall short of what you’ve anticipated, while others work better than expected. Monitoring the metrics behind your campaigns in real-time makes it easier for you to tweak your strategy so you won’t have to resort to large-scale changes.
Put your social media plan into perspective by analyzing your activity from a bird’s eye view. This entails taking a closer look at your top-performing content and refining your next campaigns to produce similar results. And once the data comes in, use it to re-evaluate your strategy every now and then for optimum results.
Developing an effective social media strategy is no easy feat. For one, it challenges you to shift your mindset from your daily tasks and look at things from a high-level perspective. After all, it means you aren’t just posting for the sake of posting content. Instead, every post you make brings you one step closer to reaching your business goals.
Create a social media strategy that educates and inspires. Partner with Growth Rocket and attract loyal customers to your brand through meaningful conversations. Get in touch with us today.
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