How to create a social media marketing strategy
Do you want to promote your brand and increase your sales via social media platforms? Social media plays a vital role in our customers’ lives in the digital era. Social media marketing will be your best option if your business seeks a convenient way to communicate and engage with your customers. Once your business gains enough attention on social media, launching and promoting your new products or services will no longer have obstacles.
So how to create a social media marketing strategy? To begin with, you need a plan for your business. Next, you will need to set a specific goal for your business.
Setting reasonable and affordable social media goals.
According to the 2021 Sprout Social Index™, most companies use social media to realize their goals of increasing brand awareness (58%) and community engagement (41%). Whether you want to increase sales or launch a new item, setting accountable and realistic goals are a must-do for marketers. You can begin with a broad objective and narrow it down by using SMART(Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time-sensitive) goal-setting analysis.
Next, consider your time and budget, and identify your goal metrics.Make sure your goals are “realistic” because smaller objectives are easy for you to scale your social efforts, and you will achieve a big goal by realizing short-term goals time by time.
Learn the differences between different social media platforms
Looking at the mainstream social media platforms today, you will find they have other functions for different audiences. Accordingly, you can create content based on the most appropriate platform. For instance, creating short videos on TikTok while exciting pictures on Instagram. Here are some takeaways for your 2023 social media marketing strategy:
Facebook and YouTube are the ideal places for ads. This is partly because they have high-earning user bases. Most consumers and marketers plan to use Facebook and then YouTube.
Most Millennials and Gen Z want to use Instagram and YouTube for social networking. This is led by the characterized, bold, and eye-popping content posted through these platforms.
LinkedIn has well-educated users. They prefer meaningful, industry-specific content.
US consumers spend the most time on TikTok, and 73% of users have a better impression of brands they interact with on TikTok than other platforms.
If you still don’t know where to start, below is a quick overview of all major social media platforms:
Facebook:
The best platform to grow a loyal local following. It is a must-have for brick-and-mortar businesses looking to target local customers.
Twitter:
The go-to platform for customer service. A suitable venue for hashtags, tagging, and brand voice.
TikTok:
A short-video platform that keeps users scrolling for hours. A new branding game changer that goes viral overnight.
LinkedIn:
A great chance provider for networking in the B2B space.
YouTube:
It represents the best type of social network video content.
Instagram:
An ideal platform for e-shops. A central hub for creative content with eye-popping photos and captions.
Understand your target audience
After you know the differences between various social media platforms, it’s time to consider your target customers and who would potentially be your customers. It would be best if you had an approximate overview of your customers’ age, preferences, gender, societal positions, and education. Also, remember to make your target audience reachable.
Choose your networks and reach your audience
According to social media demographics 2022, Facebook has the most monthly active users (2.91 billion) among all popular social media platforms. TikTok may not have that much audience, but users spend the most time on it (89 minutes per day), and young people are its most prominent age group. 63% of LinkedIn users access the network weekly and 22% daily. YouTube and Instagram have more than 2 billion users, 25-34 (31.2%); 18-24 (31%). When you have your target audience and choose your best network, you can now reach your audience.
Here are some tips for you:
- Create engaging social content. If you want to educate your audience in the B2B space, publish blogs, news, and videos relevant to your industry. Make sure your content matches your goals.
- Don’t forget to add a hashtagwith your content
- Find your brand voice and make your posts match your brand.
- Make social media storiesand be time-sensitive.
- Engage with your customers like a human. It is touching when you show your brand’s personality. Humanized posts can shorten the distance between you and the audience.
Evaluation
Monitoring your social media marketing could be difficult, but you can evaluate it by bringing other departments into the mix. For example, you can think about which department can be benefited from social data. Departments like Human Resources and Sales can work together to manage social media content and monitor each other’s social media data.
Setting actionable social media marketing goals and realizing them as each of the steps above will lead your business to a new level.
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