Social media can make or break your brand. It can be the source of powerful word-of-mouth which can either bring customers flocking to your door, or have them avoiding you like the plague. Good, bad, or ugly, social media is like the traffic cop to your business.
Having a good social media strategy doesn’t have to be difficult, but it does require a little planning and forethought. We’ll take you through some tips to developing a good social media strategy, and some exclusive tips for making your strategy even better.
What Is a Social Media Strategy
Some businesses post things up on their social networking walls willy-nilly, hoping for the best – praying something sticks. That might get you a little more attention, but it’s not really a good overall strategy. When utilizing social media as a marketing tool, every single post, reply, like, and comment should serve a purpose.
A social media marketing strategy is the summary of everything you plan to do and hope to accomplish on social media. It should guide your actions and tell you whether you’re succeeding or failing. The more specific that strategy, the more effective you’ll be in its execution. The goals you set will influence everything from your budget to which social networks you’ll prowl.
You’ll have to keep in mind that this is a marathon, not a sprint. You’re not going to post one genius piece and have an immediate million followers, half of whom flock through your door the next day. You’re looking to build up awareness of and interaction with your brand over time. Tackle smaller, realistic goals so you can scale your efforts in a way that’s reasonable, affordable, and attainable.
Social Media Goals
Because everything you’re going to be doing has a purpose, you have to set specific goals. Your goals will obviously determine the path your social strategy takes. Here are a few of the common goals people set.
Increase Brand Awareness
When you’re looking to create authentic and lasting brand awareness, publish more than just promotional messages. Focus on content putting your followers ahead of the hard sell.
Achieve Higher Quality of Sales
Efficient social media targeting can reach your desired core audience easier and faster.
Drive In-Person Sales
Posts should be enticing enough to make people want to come into your brick and mortar to see you. Let them know what’s going on inside your stores, including promotions.
Improve ROI
Paying attention to your strategy and what’s working (and not) can help you to keep tabs on the cost of labor, ads, and creatives.
Create a Loyal Fanbase
Encouraging your customers to post on your behalf can lead them to be your best cheerleaders. User-generated content can really help to drive your followers.
Have a Better Pulse on the Industry
Keeping your eye on your competition and their social strategy can help you to drive engagement and sales for yourself with a better understanding of how to position your own brand.
How To Build a Social Media Strategy
- Because social impacts all areas of your company, your social should come from multiple corners of your company, not just one dedicated social media guru. Develop a cross-functional team that can work together to conceive and operate the strategy. Involve someone from sales, customer service, marketing content, etc.
- Learn to listen to your audience and your competitors. Pay attention to what they’re doing and where their focus is. They can give you a pretty good guide as to where and how you should be active on social media. Find channels where you can interact with audiences who are already talking about your brand (or close to it!).
- Figure out who that audience is. Knowing who they are, their online behavior, values, and challenges can help you determine how to talk to your audience, and what platforms to use. Use their demographic and psychographic characteristics to get a better grasp on how you could interact with them.
- Once you know what it is you’re looking to accomplish and how, you’ll know what metrics you need to follow to determine your success. What key measures will you use to evaluate your social media strategy effectiveness? Knowing what you’re going to measure helps to set organizational expectations about how the ROI of your social media efforts will be measured. Enlisting the help of Clock Tower Insight to help you evaluate what is happening with your strategy and where you stand with your goals.
- Once you have all of that covered, then you can create an actual physical plan for your actions. Our plan will help you keep your eye on which audience you want to engage, your content plan and editorial calendar, necessary resources and how you’ll measure success on each platform.
- Your plan for each channel should be very specific. You should have an outline of steps and reasons for each.
Being the Best
It’s not enough just to offer a stand-out product or superior service. You really need to differentiate yourself from your competition. You really need a way to captivate and engage your audience because just your products or services alone aren’t enough.
Find a way to appeal to your audience in a way that sets you apart from your competition. Apple doesn’t just create technology; they’re all about innovation. Disney doesn’t just make movies; they make magic. Interact with your consumers uniquely so that they feel drawn into your brand.
Be real. Be a person. Not just an entity.
Spending a little bit of time on your strategy can really help you drive sales and gain support for your brand. Keep your goals in mind, and your strategy will be well worth it.