How good would it feel to have a clear plan of attack for your social media marketing? To save a heap of time each week because you have a pot of great content ideas and are very clear on who you are talking to and what you need to say?
I can tell you it feels great! And, it’s within reach for everybody.
If you find the time to invest in developing a strong social media marketing strategy you will discover the success it can create and wish you had done it months ago!
What are the benefits of social media marketing?
Some of the great benefits of social media marketing are:
- It helps to build rapport and trust with followers, customers and clients.
- It provides a platform to demonstrate your expertise and inspire or entertain your audience
- In addition to being a great customer service channel, you can also use social media to ask for opinions and to discover more about your audience
- It helps you to drive traffic to website, blog, leadpages, e-comm sites etc
Where do I start with creating a social media strategy for my business?
Go right back to your business objectives – what are you trying to achieve?
Next, work out what you need to achieve with your social media marketing in order to start meeting your business objectives. These goals will vary between short term, mid term and long term and will obviously change with time, so you need to revisit often.
What will success look like for you in terms of your social media marketing? Do you want a bigger following? Do you want a more engaged community? Do you want more traffic? More leads or sales? How much more?
Who are your ideal clients?
You need to go deep on this – figure out who they are, which platforms they are likely to hang out on, what problems you solve for them, what other things may be of value to them in terms of knowledge and inspiration and finally, talk to them with your copy and your images.
You can build your whole content strategy around your ideal clients. Don’t fall into the trap of using social media to sell, sell, sell. It rarely works. Be a resource; provide value to your ideal clients and develop the level of trust.
Setting up for success 🙌
Take the time to set up your platforms for success. Create cover photos and profile pictures to the correct size specification and don’t forget to check that they look great on desktop and on mobile.
This link will take you to a spreadsheet of all the current social media size secs, maintained by Sprout Social – you’ll wonder what you ever did without it!
Other top tips for setting up for success are –
- Stick to your brand guidelines at page set up and with ongoing posts. If you haven’t had professional brand guidelines developed, create some simple rules to stick to for now, but do consider getting in a pro – it will be well worth it!
- Fill in all details and maintain consistency of information across all of your social media channels
- Get familiar with a simple graphics tool like Canva or Easil to help you create great cover photos and images for posting
What can I post on the business social media platforms?
Think about your ideal clients and post things that will appeal to them in a variety of formats. Bring them value, inspire them or bring them some joy. It’s a simple as that!
Also, show the people behind your business to help you connect on a deeper level with your ideal clients and customers. People buy from people – I can’t remember where I first heard this, but I think it is extremely powerful, and it is something we should always consider with social media marketing.
Social Media presents an amazing opportunity to showcase the people behind a business; whether you are a personal brand or a huge multinational company. Use this to your advantage; having a human, authentic presence is so valuable in today’s world.
How can I track the success and impact of social media marketing?
A few things here:
- Take benchmark data before you start to implement your new strategy – focus on the stats which match your social media objectives.
- Key metrics are generally Reach, Engagement, Engagement Rate, Post Clicks, Page/Profile Views, Link Clicks and New Follower numbers. You should also keep an eye on Google Analytics and if you are running paid social ads as part of your strategy you can find endless data within the Ads platforms.
- Keep an eye on the data each week for the first couple of months and during any campaigns to ensure you are on the right track. Once you have the data and a good understanding of what is working, you can drop data review to fortnightly and detailed monthly if you are struggling for time.
How much time do I need to mange social media marketing effectively for my business?
To have consistent success with social media marketing you need to invest time. You need to consider allowing time for:
- Planning
- Creating content
- Curating content
- Scheduling content
- Engaging with followers and influencers
- Analysing the data
- Refining plans based on the data
- Social listening if necessary for your brand
- Staying on top of platform developments, changes to the algorithms, new tools and features
And you need to consider doing this for every platform where you have a presence.
My advice; if you are time and resource limited you need to cut down on the number of platforms you post on or you need to consider outsourcing. Don’t let yourself become overwhelmed. Take one step at a time – allow yourself a chunk of 4 hours a week to focus on your social media strategy followed by ongoing management and strategically test.
Keep things simple and consistent, plug away and keep an eye on your data so you understand what works and what doesn’t. Help is always at hand; find someone to bounce off, or, if you like the sound of what I’ve been saying above, get in touch to see how I can help kick start you in the right direction.
I love helping businesses to create more success through effective social media marketing and some of the things I offer are:
- Power Hour or Expert on call package – an hour to 3 hours focussed on your most immediate pain points in person or via Zoom
- Social Media Kick Start packages for small businesses – high level guidance on strategy and what, where and how to post; post mock ups; how to videos; one to one training. Please get in touch for a quote.
- Social Media Strategy development.
Thanks for taking the time to read this; I hope it has helped in some way. If you have queries please feel free to email me here or contact me via DM on Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn.
Cheerio!