Social media is one of the most powerful marketing tools in your arsenal. These days, some 90% of young adults use social media to communicate with brands, and if anything, that’s only likely to increase.
1. Creating an audience persona
The core of effective social media marketing is about speaking to a specific audience with your social posts. And unless you have an intuitive idea of who your target audience really is, you’ll need to create audience personas.
Here are some helpful resources for creating your audience personas:
2. Goal-setting and objectives
Once you’ve got a good idea of who your audience is, you’ll then need to identify key goals for your social media marketing efforts. What do you actually hope to achieve with your strategy?
The top goals for most SMB social media marketing programs are:
-Building brand awareness (74%)
-Getting website traffic (53%)
-Lead generation (41%)
Here are some resources that can help you define your goals and metrics:
3. Budgeting
With your goals set, next, you need to determine how much money you can allocate to your social media marketing strategy.
You’ll need enough funds to invest in:
-Your campaign content,
-Paid social promotions,
-Social media management tools,
-Community engagement efforts,
-Analytics tools.
Here are some resources to help you determine your social media marketing budget:
- How to Determine Your Social Media Marketing Budget - The Next Web
- Social Media Marketing Budget Template - Demand Metric
4. Resourcing/team building
Your big decision here is deciding if your internal staff will head your social media marketing strategy, or if you’ll outsource the work. You could utilize a combination of both - it’s easy to find freelancers who will manage your social accounts. But finding someone who will develop social campaigns that speak to your target audience is a bigger task.
Here are some resources to help you build the right team and find helpful tools:
- 48 Social Media Marketing Tools and Resources - BrandWatch
- The Essential Roles and Responsibilities of Your Social Media Team - FlypChart
- How to Structure a Social Media Team - LinkHumans
5. Research
For this, you’ll need to spend some time finding relevant blog posts, memes, and other social content to share. You can do this using a tool like Buzzsumo, or by following social groups and lists related to your niche. You should also take this time to identify which types of content generate the best response from your target audience.
Here’s some content that can help you in the social media research process:
- The Essential Guide to Content Sharing - RazorSocial
6. Choosing your platforms
Consider the purpose of each platform, and how it relates to your business goals - Facebook’s great for building brand loyalty, for example, while LinkedIn is best for B2B business development. You’ll also want to think back to the demographics of your target audience to help decide which platforms are the most worthwhile.
Check out these resources on choosing your platforms:
- The Zero BS Guide to Choosing a Social Media Platform for Business - WPCurve
- Social Media Demographics to Inform a Better Segmentation Strategy - SproutSocia
7. Producing content
If you want to ensure optimal performance of your content, make sure it’s:
-VisualIncluding images as part of your social posts is one of social media marketing’s best practices.
-Emotional
-Emotional
Create content that evokes awe, excitement, or amusement to encourage engagement and shares.
-Useful
-Useful
People like to share content that they think might be helpful or educational for others. Find a way to offer something of value to your social followers. Create compelling social content and develop a powerful strategy to promote it.
Here are the most common tools people use to measure social media marketing results:-Native analytics tools on Facebook, Twitter, etc. (65%)
-Social media management platforms like HootSuite and Buffer (62%)
-Web analytics such as Google Analytics (59%)
Dedicated social media measurement platforms (22%)
Just remember that a successful social media marketing strategy is ongoing - pay attention to your goals and analytics, then adjust as you go along. This will ensure that down the road you’ll continue to get better at engaging your target audience.
These resources will help you to create great social content:
- 9 Best Social Media and Content Marketing Tips From Buffer - Convince and Convert
- 100 Killer Ideas For Your Social Media Content - Forbes
8. Tracking analytics
Analytics tracking is one of the most important things you can do to improve your social media marketing strategy over time. Tracking analytics gives you a detailed picture of what kind of content and promotion strategies work - along with the ones that don’t - enabling you to adjust and improve.
Here are the most common tools people use to measure social media marketing results:
-Social media management platforms like HootSuite and Buffer (62%)
-Web analytics such as Google Analytics (59%)
Dedicated social media measurement platforms (22%)
These resources will help:
- How to Choose The Best Digital Marketing Analytics Software - Forbes
- How to Measure the ROI of Marketing Programs - Marketo
Conclusion
This guide is probably a lot take in, but if you look at each section as a starting place to learn about what works, then it’s much easier to implement.
Just remember that a successful social media marketing strategy is ongoing - pay attention to your goals and analytics, then adjust as you go along. This will ensure that down the road you’ll continue to get better at engaging your target audience.
8 Most Effective Social Media Marketing Strategy Tips
Reviewed by maaniiii
on
October 10, 2023
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