Making the Most of Social Media

USING social media for some small business can be hard, even large ones struggle. For this week’s blog, I’m going to write about how to devise a social media strategy that will be the best for your brand/business/organisation.

Step 1: Set social media marketing goals that align with your business objectives
The more specific your strategy is, the more effective the execution will be. Set SMART goals and track the right metrics to set yourself up for success.

Set SMART goals
The first step to creating a social media marketing strategy is to establish your objectives and goals. Without goals, you have no way to measure your success or your social media return on investment (ROI).
Each of your goals should be:
Specific
Measurable
Attainable
Relevant
Time-bound

An example of a SMART goal for your business might be “Grow our Instagram audience by 50 new followers per week.” With SMART goals, you’ll make sure your goals actually lead to real business results, rather than just lofty ideals.

Track meaningful metrics

While vanity metrics like retweets and likes can be fun to share and easy to track, it’s hard to prove their real value for your business. Instead, focus on targets such as leads generated, web referrals, and conversion rate.

Make sure to align your social media goals with your overall marketing strategy. This will make it easier for you to show the value of your work and get executive buy-in and investment. Start developing your social media marketing plan by writing down at least three social media goals.

Step 2: Learn everything you can about your audience

If you’re not engaged in social media listening, you’re creating your business strategy with blinders on—and you’re missing out on mountains of actionable insights from real people who are actively talking about you or your industry online.

Here’s how to start listening and building your understanding of your audience and their needs.

Create audience personas

Knowing who your audience is and what they want to see on social is key to creating content that they will like, comment on, and share. This knowledge is also critical for planning how to develop your social media fans into customers for your business.

Try creating audience personas. For example, a retail brand might create different personas based on demographics, buying motivations, common buying objections, and the emotional needs of each type of customer.

Personas sharpen your marketing tactics. Luxury buyers, for example, might not respond to Facebook ads with sales. But they might respond to Facebook ads with exclusive in-store events to be the first to see a new line of clothing. With personas, you’ll have the customer insights you need to create campaigns that speak to the real desires and motivations of your buyers.

Gather real-world data

Don’t make assumptions. Social media analytics can also provide a ton of valuable information about who your followers are, where they live, which languages they speak, and how they interact with your brand on social. These insights allow you to refine your strategy and better target your social ads.

Step 3: Research the competition

Odds are, your competitors are already using social media—and that means you can learn from what they’re already doing.

Conduct a competitive analysis

A competitive analysis allows you to understand who the competition is and what they’re doing well (and not so well). You’ll get a good sense of what’s expected in your industry, which will help you set some social media targets of your own.

This analysis will also help you spot opportunities. For example, maybe one of your competitors dominates on Facebook, but has put little effort into Twitter or Instagram. You might want to focus on the networks where your audience is underserved, rather than trying to win fans away from a dominant player.

As you track your competitors’ accounts and relevant industry keywords, you may notice strategic shifts in the way competitors use their social accounts. Or you might spot a specific post or campaign that really hits the mark. Keep an eye on this information and use to it evaluate your own goals and plans.

Step 4: Conduct a social media audit

Conducting a social media audit helps you assess how well your current social media use works for you.

Evaluate your current efforts

If you’re already using social media tools, you need to take a step back and look at what you’ve already accomplished. Ask yourself the following questions:
What’s working?
What’s not working?
Who’s connecting with you on social?
Which social media sites does your target market use?
How does your social media presence compare to that of your competitors?
Once you gather all this information in one place, you’ll have a good starting point for planning how to improve your results.

Your audit should give you a clear picture of what purpose each of your social accounts serves. If the purpose of an account isn’t clear, think about whether it’s worth keeping. It may be a valuable account that just needs a strategic redirection, or it may be an outdated account that’s no longer worth your while.
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Step 6. Find inspiration

While it’s important that your brand be distinctive and unique, you can still draw inspiration from other businesses that are great on social.

Social network success stories

All of the social networks feature success stories that highlight how brands are using their tools effectively. You can usually find these on the business section of the social network’s website.
These can offer valuable insights you can apply to your own goals for each social network. You could also check out the winners of The Facebook Awards or The Shorty Awards for examples of brands that are at the top of their social media game.

Consumers can also offer social media inspiration. What are your target customers talking about online? What can you learn about their wants and needs? If you have existing social channels, you could also ask your existing followers what they want from you. Just make sure that you follow through and deliver what they ask for.

Step 7. Create a social media content calendar

Sharing great content is essential, of course, but it’s equally important to have a plan in place for when you’ll share content to get the maximum impact. Your social media content calendar also needs to account for the time you’ll spend interacting with the audience (although you need to allow for some spontaneous engagement as well).

Create a posting schedule

Your social media content calendar lists the dates and times at which you will publish types of content on each channel. It’s the perfect place to plan all of your social media activities—from images and link sharing to blog posts and videos. It includes both your day-to-day posting and content for social media campaigns. Your calendar ensures your posts are spaced out appropriately and published at the optimal times.

Plot your content mix

Make sure your calendar reflects the mission statement you’ve assigned to each social profile, so that everything you post is working to support your business goals.

If you’re starting from scratch and you’re simply not sure what types of content to post, try the 80-20 rule:
80 percent of your posts should inform, educate, or entertain your audience
20 percent can directly promote your brand.

You could also try the social media rule of thirds:

One-third of your social content promotes your business, converts readers, and generates profit.
One-third of your social content shares ideas and stories from thought leaders in your industry or like-minded businesses.
One-third of your social content involves personal interactions with your audience.

Once you have your calendar set, use scheduling tools or bulk scheduling to prepare your messaging in advance rather than updating constantly throughout the day. This allows you to craft the language and format of your posts rather than writing them on the fly whenever you have time.

Step 8. Assess, evaluate, and adjust your strategy

Your social media strategy is a hugely important document for your business, and you can’t assume you’ll get it exactly right on the first try. As you start to implement your plan and track your results, you may find that some strategies don’t work as well as you’d anticipated, while others are working even better than expected.

Track your data

In addition to the analytics within each social network, see which posts create the most impression, engagement and awareness; which of them lead to other activities such as product purchase or other forms of conversion.

Re-evaluate, test, and do it all again
Once this data starts coming in, use it to re-evaluate your strategy regularly. You can also use this information to test different posts, campaigns, and strategies against one another. Constant testing allows you to understand what works and what doesn’t, so you can refine your strategy in real time.

Surveys can also be a great way to find out how well your strategy is working. Ask your social media followers, email list, and website visitors whether you’re meeting their needs and expectations on social media, and what they’d like to see more of. Then make sure to deliver on what they tell you.

In the social sphere, things change fast. New networks emerge, while others go through significant demographic shifts. Your business will go through periods of change as well. All of this means that your social media strategy should be a living document that you look at regularly and adjust as needed. Refer to it often to keep you on track, but don’t be afraid to make changes so that it better reflects new goals, tools, or plans.

When you update your social strategy, make sure to let everyone on your social team know, so they can all work together to help your business make the most of your social media accounts.

So, that’s it, 8 simple ways to make an effective social media strategy, I hope this can help you and your brand/business/organisation.

If you need any help, don’t hesitate to contact me via Twitter, Instagram, Facebook or LinkedIn. Also, for those of you looking to hire someone into your business to look after your digital marketing strategy get in touch.

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