Since the rise of giants like Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok, having a solid social media presence has become a necessity for almost any business. It may seem simple, but reaching your target audience and making meaningful connections goes far beyond simply posting at the right time of day and hoping for the best. Having a strategic social media marketing plan is key if you want to turn likes and follows into conversions.
What is Social Media Marketing?
Social media marketing is a form of digital marketing that leverages social media channels and platforms to further your business goals and promote your goods or services. Content creation, interacting with customers in comments, and posting are all aspects of social media marketing.
Having a strategy in place will help your social media marketing efforts be as effective as possible and reach the right people.
Why Social Media Marketing Matters
There are a few ways social media marketing can help your business grow:
Increase Brand Awareness
Increasing brand awareness is one of the easiest benefits to take advantage of on social media. Putting out consistent, quality content that goes beyond simply promoting your business will create familiarity with your followers and get your name out there. Engaging with other businesses’ social platforms, liking, commenting, and reposting are all ways you can boost brand awareness and create social proof for potential customers.
Build Relationships
Before asking for a sale, it’s important to build a relationship with potential customers. Simply responding to direct messages and comments is a simple and effective way to connect with your followers and build that relationship so when you do ask for a sale, they’re already familiar enough with your business to take the next step.
Generate Leads
When someone chooses to follow your social media profile, they already have some level of interest in your product or services. Generating promotional content like contests and giveaways and consistently posting about what you have to offer will keep your followers interested in your business and generate new leads.
Establishing Your Social Media Marketing Strategy
Once you’re ready to begin utilizing social media for business growth, you’ll want to create a plan for how you’ll leverage your social channels. Having a strategy in place will keep your goals and campaigns on track and keep you from being pulled in too many directions. A quality social media marketing strategy will include:
Choosing the Right Social Media Platforms
There are so many different social media platforms to choose from, all with their own strengths and weaknesses. Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, Youtube, and Twitter users span the range of demographics and interests and many businesses spread their content too thin to be on every social media platform possible. The result is weak content everywhere instead of solid content in the places that matter most to your marketing goals. Identifying your ideal audience will help you choose the social media platform(s) with the highest concentration of that audience so you can engage with them where they’re at.
Defining Metrics for Success
With any marketing endeavor, it’s important to have clearly defined standards of success. If you don’t know exactly what you’re hoping for, chances are you’ll end up disappointed and unsure where you went wrong.
Vanity metrics like number of likes and followers are appealing but don’t always translate into sales. You want your social media marketing goals to be data-driven so you can track progress and adjust course as needed.
Planning Your Content Calendar
When it’s finally time to create posts, planning your content ahead of time will help you make sure your content is balanced and consistent with your goals. Scheduling a social calendar will also take the burden of daily content creation off your shoulders and free you up to focus more on the relationship-building aspects of social media.
Ready to Learn More About How You Can Leverage Social Media for Business Growth?
Cultivating a successful social media presence can seem daunting. Knowing what to post, how often, and on what platform comes from extensive research and experience that takes time to accumulate.
If you’re ready to get started, but not sure how to, our strategy experts can help. Request your FREE social media strategy guide now.
