7 Tips on Setting an Effective Social Media Marketing Strategy

Social Media is getting bigger and bigger by the day and if you are not using it to market your business and brand, then you are really missing a lot.

Click to read If you missed out on our previous article on introduction to social media marketing.

Marketers have an endless opportunity of promoting their businesses through social media. As I go through my morning ritual of sipping my cup of Hausa Koko and scrolling through my Facebook feed, I come across a lot of paid ads. And I must say, I sometimes click on them and even get converted.

Before going into social media marketing, it is important to have a plan and strategy in place in order for you to achieve positive results. Once you have your strategies in place, you won’t only get brand promoters, but also capture leads and convert them into customers.

So for those of you who have left your social media channels to gather dust and cobwebs over the years, it’s now time to take control of them with these social media marketing strategy tips.

 

  1. Identify your business goals

 

Any business that has no goals is as lost as the pin that fell into the haystack. Every strategy you put in place towards your social media marketing must be towards achieving your business goals.

Every company has its personal goals that need to be achieved but there are common ones that no company can do without and must include in their strategy. These goals include increasing brand awareness, retaining customers, increasing sales and of course reducing marketing cost.

It is important however to have two or three primary goals and two secondary goals to work towards. Having too many goals only distracts you and you end up being unproductive.

 

 2. Set Marketing Objectives

Goals are useless if you don’t have specific parameters to help define when they are achieved. Marketing objectives simply help you move from an unfilled goal A to a fulfilled goal B. For example, if your business goal is to generate leads and increase sales, the best marketing objective would be to increase leads by 50% or more in order to achieve your goal.

You will be planning for failure if you set unachievable objectives such as increasing leads by 150% when you know you cannot possibly do that even if you employ an angel as your marketer.

Your objective of increasing leads by 50% can be achieved provided you use the S.M.A.R.T approach which is used by many marketers to achieve their goals.

 

3. Identify your target audience

This cannot be overlooked if a business really wants to make money. Not knowing who you are selling to is like carrying fish to Chorkor or taking coal to Newcastle. A business that experiences low engagement is mainly due to the fact that they are not directing their content towards the right audience.

Having a great knowledge of your buyer persona (target audience) with regards to their age, occupation, income, interests, problems, habits, likes, dislikes and objections will make it easier to target them with your message on any platform be it inbound or outbound. The more specific and targeted you are, the more conversions you are bound to make.

 

  4. Research on your competitors

 

Every business has competition and it is best you know what your competitors are doing at any point in time.

When it comes to social media marketing, researching on your competitors will let you know what’s working for them so you can also adjust and incorporate it into your strategies. You can do this by researching the type of content they post and how they engage with their audience.

The most important thing to look out for is engagement, be it organic or paid. You can make a list of two or three competitors, research on which social media platforms they are active on, the type of content they post, the frequency of their posting and the times they post.

All these will give you a general idea of how your competitor is doing so you also know how to power up to face each other

 

 5. Choose your platforms and tactics for each platform

 

This will be very easy to do when you know exactly where your target audience spends most of their time. If you learn that 50% of your target audience spend more time on Facebook, 30% on Instagram and 20% on Twitter, you would know that Facebook would be your primary platform, followed by Instagram and then Twitter.

You need to be on a specific network where you have the majority of your customers and not try to be everywhere. The tactics you use basically depend on your business goals and marketing objectives.

For example, if your goal is to increase leads with Facebook as your primary platform; one effective tactic will be to invest in Facebook paid ads and promotions to help give you more exposure and engagement which will, in turn, lead to greater lead generation.

 

  6. Create a content strategy.

Social media and content always walk hand in hand. If you lack great content, then your social media strategy is weak. For a successful social media strategy, you need to have in mind the type of content, time of posting and the frequency of posting.

READ ABOUT: Introduction to Content Marketing for small businesses

The content you post comes in form and context. Form means how you present your content be it text, images, links, videos, etc. Context has to do with the voice which you use be it funny, serious, highly detailed or something else.

 

 7. Allocate budget and resources

 

Social media marketing has its own kind of budget that comes with it. Before marketing for social media, it’s important to take into consideration your business goals and the tactics you have put in place to achieve them.

Make a comprehensive list of the tools you would need such as monitoring tools, listening tools, email marketing etc. After that, include your annual projected cost so you know what you are investing in and how it affects your budget.

You can also establish your budget before selecting which tactics fit your budget. It works either ways

Now Your Turn

Your social media marketing strategy isn’t written in concrete hence you are free to make changes when you realize some tactics are not working well. Quickly adapt and introduce changes to your strategy as and when the need arises.

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What do you think? Do you have a clear social media strategy? What tools do you use to keep your team moving ahead? I would love to hear your thoughts, questions or comments about this process. Please leave them in the comment section below!