Social media is a big deal, not just for celebrities and self-made blog stars, but for businesses large and small. This is why 44% of local companies depend on their social media marketing campaign to build their business awareness.
And another 41% use social media advertising to drive revenue. It’s no surprise 90% of marketers claim social marketing boosted their exposure. And another 75% say it’s enhanced their incoming traffic.
But in order to witness this type of success, you first need to develop a social media marketing strategy.
Let’s review 9 ways you can do just that.
1. Develop a Social Media Marketing Campaign with Clear Goals
A lot of brands go into social media marketing with big dreams. This is great, but not if you don’t have key metrics to focus on to reach them.
This is why it’s imperative that you have clear goals set well before you begin your social media advertising. For example, are you looking to get more email subscribers, more traffic to your landing page, or sell more of a particular product?
The more specific your goal, the easier it’ll be to target key audiences and drive forward your campaign.
If you need help with forming a strategy, you can check out this website.
2. Be Social, Be Human
Now, if you truly want a successful social media campaign, then you have to be human. This means being personable, authentic, and responsive. If you’re ignoring comments on your posts or not answering questions, then it’ll make your brand look cold, distant, and uncaring.
You want the exact opposite – to appear warm, familiar, and nurturing. In fact, social media is an excellent platform for nurturing your leads into paying customers or loyal subscribers.
3. Add Imagery and Video to Your Posts
It’s not rocket science – people love images in all their forms – still shots, GIFs, and video. So by adding these to your posts, it can help boost your views, clicks, and comments. User engagement tends to go up on social media posts that have intriguing videos.
This is why you’ll find that product videos can boost purchases by 85%. And posts that have videos get 3X the shares.
4. Select the Right Channels
Here’s a mistake that’s commonly made because brands jump into social media marketing without doing any research. This is a major problem because it can lead your campaign down a dark, lonely path with no views, comments, likes, or shares.
If you’re using the wrong channels, then this means you’re posts aren’t reaching your intended audience. And if you’re not reaching them, then no one’s going to interact with your posts. And you can guarantee little to no traffic and conversions.
5. Promote Your Social Media Pages
Unless you’re a popular brand that people like to look up, then chances are people aren’t going to find your brand pages on social media. One way to around this is to promote your social pages on all of your marketing mediums.
This includes your emails, business cards, fliers, billboards, video ads, video content, blog, website, and so on. But don’t just mention your pages, include links and handles so they can go directly there from the source.
6. Collect & Analyze Your Social Media Metrics
Since you already created specific goals for your social media marketing campaign, it’s time to track them. And the best way to do that is with analytics tools provided by the social platforms.
Facebook is one social network that offers such tools, among others. The key is to hone in on the metrics that matter the most. Don’t get caught up in vanity metrics like follows and likes, especially if they’re not converting.
You should also pay attention to where your traffic is coming from, such as your blog or email newsletters.
7. Use Content Marketing in Combination with Social Media
One way brands are excelling in social marketing is through their content marketing strategy. You can easily combine your social media marketing with the content you create for your blog and other channels.
For instance, if you’re developing videos for your YouTube channel, then you can share them on social media to drive traffic. Then from there, you can direct your viewers to your website and social media pages.
The same can be done for your blog posts. And if you’re looking for more email subscribers, then it’s advised that you promote it on your social pages. It also wouldn’t hurt to have a sign up link added to your page so followers can easily sign up.
8. Make Sure to Post Frequent Enough
The platform you use, your industry, and the audience you’re targeting will all play a role in the frequency of your social media posts. For instance, if you’re in finance, you should be ready to post about breaking news topics related to your brand and audience.
However, if your audience isn’t looking for your content multiple times per day, then it’s best to fall back on the frequency. Otherwise, you could run them away.
Since there’s no silver bullet for killing it on social media with your post frequency, you’ll still have to test it out. Pay attention to your analytics to see which frequency rate gives you the best engagement.
9. Keep an Eye On Your Competition
You’re not the only brand in your industry using social media – your competitors are on it too. This gives you a great opportunity to “spy” on them and see what they’re doing to gain success. Find out what type of posts they’re making that generates lots of engagement.
If you can find their sweet spot, you may be able to duplicate that success or better yet, improve on it. See what they’re missing and then offer it on your channels.
Learn More About Content Marketing
As you’ll quickly learn, content marketing is key to your social media marketing campaign success. If you’re not already implementing content marketing in your strategy or would like to improve what you’re doing, we can help.
At Blogging WP, we offer plenty of tips brands can use to increase their visibility and traffic. We also include tips about running Word Press websites. If you’d like to learn more, then visit our blog today!