Are you looking to craft a social media strategy for your business?
That’s a smart decision, even though you’re a couple of years late to the party! Over 77 percent of small businesses are already using social media to increase brand awareness, generate more inbound traffic, boost search engine rankings, and improve customer satisfaction.
However, effective use of social media for business isn’t about creating social accounts and posting random content. You need a well-thought-out social strategy.
In this article, we’re teaching you how to create the best social media campaign strategy for your business. Read on!
Identify Your Goals
What do you want to achieve from social media?
To answer this question, look at your brand. If you’re a lifestyle magazine, you probably want to grow your readership and sell more copies. If you’re an ecommerce store, you want to drive more traffic to your site, right? Other common social goals include increased online visibility, greater customer engagement, and improved brand authority.
Whatever your goals are, list them in order of priority and then proceed to the next step.
Select Your Social Platforms Carefully
Back in 2006, there were only a handful of social media networks. These days, we have more than 100!
Although the temptation to try out many of these social sites will always be there, it’s best to select a few that will deliver the biggest impact for your campaign.
The question is how do you narrow down from 100 to five or even less? Or how do you choose from the most popular ones, namely Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, or Pinterest? Here are a couple of things to consider:
Your Target Market
Your target market comprises the people who buy your products and services or engage with your brand.
Identify your target audience and dig deeper into its demographics. What’s the age of your typical customer? Are they married? Have any kids?
What about their annual income? Where do they live?
Because social media networks appeals appeal to different audiences. Having a fine grasp of your customer demographics will make it easy to pick the perfect sites for your campaign.
If your business sells to baby boomers, for example, focus on YouTube and Facebook. Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat are popular with Gen Xers, Millennials, and Generation Z.
Your Product/Service
Even though you can advertise any product or service on any social platform, some will deliver a better performance than others.
Let’s say your company sells digital cameras.
While advertising on Facebook isn’t a bad idea because of its large number of active users, Instagram and Snapchat will deliver the best results. These two platforms are primarily designed to host visual content, meaning that users are more likely to be interested in checking out cameras.
Let’s take another example. Your company is a recruitment agency.
Advertising on Facebook and Twitter will yield positive results, but it’s a LinkedIn campaign that’ll totally crush it.
Why?
LinkedIn is a social site for professionals. It’s where people looking for jobs and companies seeking candidates are hanging out.
Your Budget
If you’re like most small business owners, you’re working with a limited marketing budget. Running an effective social media advertising campaign costs money.
With a tight marketing budget, you won’t be able to advertise on multiple sites. As such, you must settle on the one with the best return on investment.
If funds aren’t a problem, don’t launch campaigns on several sites just because you can afford it. Pick social sites that complement each other, such as Instagram and Pinterest (photo sharing), or Facebook and LinkedIn (social networking).
Clean Up Your Current Social Media Presence
A social campaign will no doubt generate a ton of interest in your business.
Once the ad starts reaching your targets, the vast majority will want to know more about your business before making a purchase decision. What do you want them to find when they land on your company’s Facebook page, for instance?
Your social media activity influences how potential customers view your brand. If your latest post is several months old or you only have a few followers, few people will take your brand seriously.
Audit your current social media presence and clean up if necessary. Update your business contact information, start sharing content frequently, and build a social community around your brand.
If your business doesn’t have a presence on a social site you’ve selected for the campaign, create an account and optimize your profile.
Design Your Social Ads
Admit it, there are times you can’t help but tap on a spectacular ad that shows up on your social feed. Sometimes you even answer the ad’s call to action!
Well, wouldn’t you like your ad to have a similar effect?
This is doable. You just need to create a killer ad design.
The first step in ad design is to study your preferred platform’s recommendations. Facebook, for instances, requires your ad to be no more than 20 percent text.
In addition to such specifications, rely on your creativity to create an ad that evokes the desired action. Everything from color choice to image or video quality must be spot on.
After designing your ad, don’t publish just yet. Show it to your team members, gather feedback, and make the necessary adjustments.
Deploy and Re-evaluate Your Strategy
Finally, you’re ready to launch your social campaign. But the work doesn’t end here.
Monitor the performance of the campaign. Many social platforms provide tools to measure a range of metrics, from audience reach to click-through rate, mobile and web traffic, conversions, and cost per action. If the strategy isn’t meeting your goals, tweak it accordingly.
Remember, not all social campaigns will be successful. In fact, you should apply the 80:20 principle (two in 10 campaigns will be wildly successful), especially if you’re advertising on Facebook. Be sure to learn more about this principle before proceeding.
Let Your Social Media Campaign Strategy Do the Selling
Social media has the potential to take your business to the next level. However, you must know how to play to its strengths.
Luckily for you, we’ve fleshed out what you need to know to create an effective social media campaign strategy. Know your goals, pick suitable social platforms, and clean up your current social presence. Create compelling ads and monitor the performance of your campaign.
While at it, familiarize yourself with these unbreakable rules of social media marketing.
