Developing social media strategy
Developing social media strategy That drives real growth and measurable success is complex and challenging. Social media, and its trends, has allowed millions of businesses to connect and engage with potential customers. This could be LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, or younger platforms like TikTok.
Though the competition is tough and intense, with a strong strategy and the ability to create engaging content, marketers can contribute to social media success. There are questions that linger in the minds of marketers when it comes to social media marketing because of over 1.9 billion Facebook users, 1 billion Instagram users, 500 million LinkedIn members, and approximately 261 million Twitter users. How many of those people are potential customers, and how many are competitors?
Social Media Presence
Having a presence on social media is a highly effective way to get in front of potential customers, but only if you have the right strategy. For this, you firstly must understand what and who you are up against. In addition, you will need to keep track of:
- Follower growth
- Reach
- Replies and comments
- Social media referral traffic
- Click rates
- Mentions
- Optimal times for engagement Track – likes and reactions to your posts
- Audience’s demographics
Accurate Tracking results:
Because social media is so fast paced, it can be difficult to reflect on your posts and accurately track their results. However, with analytics available on most platforms, account administrators can accurately measure the effectiveness of campaigns. Remember, if you want to measure social media success, you must start with clearly defined goals.
Social media objectives:
- Persuasion
- Increase in market reach
- Attract customers, get customer feedback, and build customer loyalty
- Customer service and relationship management
- Increase revenue by building customer networks and advertising
- Brand awareness
Each of these is measured differently in terms of success. The resources you have will determine how well you execute this. Because coordinating this process is highly specialised, many small to medium-sized businesses hire the services of a digital marketing agency. There are numerous factors to consider, and a team of digital marketing experts can match these metrics to your priorities.
Effort and Time:
Before you can even think about developing a social media strategy, you must first research your industry. This includes research on what competitor brands are doing and where and when your potential customers are online. You must first identify your niche, how your target audience operates and interacts online, and how many times on a weekly basis you should post and interact with your audience.
You will need to do the following when creating a social media plan:
- Examine your competitor’s social media to see what works and how the top brands use social media
- Research your industry on social media for advice articles, discussions, guides, etc.
- Determine the role of social media in your digital marketing strategy based on the strategy
- Determine which channels will be most effective in achieving your goals and plan accordingly
- Create a post content mix (educational, promotional, entertaining etc.)
- A multi-channel engagement strategy (responding to mentions and replies)
- Invest an hour per day in community management (expanding your channels, participating in online discussions, and following relevant accounts)
- Create a social media calendar
Compiling, assessing, and processing the analytical side of social media requires a significant amount of time and effort. So, if you are running a business, you should concentrate on that and delegate responsibility for your online presence to someone else.
Remember, you cannot dominate the web within weeks. It could take up to a year before you see any tangible results.
For true social media success, consider outsourcing:
As a business, you should use social media for the following reasons:
- to increase the visibility of your company
- to build and cultivate your professional networks
- to establish and develop relationships with customers and relative industry influencers
- to regularly engage in real-time conversations with your customers
- to publish and distribute authentic content that demonstrates you
Success on social media is incredibly beneficial to business, like a never-ending well. Unless you go out and hire a few new employees to handle it, you will just be treading water and never really achieving any real goals. Don’t forget to make a budget for social media marketing as expanding your team in-house requires a significant investment.
Another easier and cheaper way to run an epic social media marketing campaign is to outsource your social media management. You will be investing in expertise for less than half the cost of hiring a full-time employee, and it will be so worth it because you will be investing in a whole team of specialists.
Looking for a digital marketing agency in London to help you build a great social media marketing strategy? Whether you are starting fresh or revamping your strategy, FBS Digital has you covered. Call FBS Digital at 0204 526 5195 or e-mail at hello@finchleybusiness.co.uk today!
