Creating a marketing strategy is challenging enough, but in this ever-evolving digital world, it is now important more than ever, to create content for social media. From choosing what to post, to what platform to post, the decisions are endless! Not to mention, it has to be engaging enough to catch your busy readers’ interest.
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Creating a Social Media Strategy
The gruesome and endless decisions for creating content on social media can be made very easy and accessible through proper planning and goal setting. A “social media strategy” is a plan like any other, only it plans out the use of different social networks to achieve the best outcomes. This plan contains specific, ongoing goals and align with your brand. When these deliverables are documented in writing, they can always be referred to as your brand develops. It clarifies the company’s priorities, help to plan campaigns and encourages collaboration. For example, you could start your brand’s goal by setting a specific conversion percentage from social media – let’s say 60%. Once that goal is achieved, you could tweak your plan, analyze your environment, and make necessary changes. Your new goal has now become, for example, 75%.
Another critical point to take note of is to define your audience. y getting to know your buyers, you can develop a personal connection to determine what they want from you. Understanding what type of customers are drawn to your brand is vital. Consider the following:
- What is the appropriate age group?
- Do they identify as a specific group?
- Any other distinctive demographic factors? Gender, occupation, etc.
The most successful brands understand their customers and listen to them. Conducting surveys and gathering customer feedback is an excellent way of getting to know your customer needs and wants, as well as building their trust.
Choosing the Right Channel
A very common and inaccurate assumption is that spreading out across all social media platforms allows you to obtain the largest customer base, but that’s simply a myth. Developing social media channels take time and effort – it’s better to have 4 channels with your proper focus, than 10 channels with subpar content.
The largest and most popular social media channels, which allow you to post different kinds of information and cater to different audiences are Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. There are also certain niche platforms which allow you to cater to a more specific demographic, such as TikTok, Reddit, and LinkedIn.
Publishing on Social Media
It’s crucial to remember that viewers will only typically spend a few seconds on you content, and decide whether they want to engage with the content or not. Topics of your content should also always be entertaining, relevant, and complimentary. Keep in mind – customers will always be attracted to great-looking content, so the posts must also be aesthetically pleasing.
You must also remember to stay fairly active on social media to stay relevant. One of the best ways to structure your approach more strategically is to develop an editorial calendar to manage all the timing of your social media publishing. Doing so allows you to have your posts laid out and organized. For example, creating a command in a calendar platform to automatically release Halloween-themed content on October 31, eliminating the risk of missing an opportunity to catch customers.
Interacting with Customers
One of the most important aspects of marketing is making your customers feel heard. A great way to achieve this is through customer feedback, which allows customers to provide their experiences with your content – positive or negative. This feedback can be used to further optimize your content, as well as build trust. You can also create a “conversational flow” through interactive content, such as comments on an Instagram post, or a poll on a Tweet.
One must also remember that negative reviews by customers are visible to all, including potential customers. As this is inevitable, the best course of action depends on how you respond to it. For example, if a customer leaves a negative review, which heavily criticizes your content, the perfect counter should be to respond to them in a professionals and respectful manner. Showing accountability shows that you care about the customer, and encourages them to engage with your content.
Selling on Social Media
There are 2 types of sales which can take place on social media: Direct and Assisted. Direct sales are a result of a customer purchasing directly from you after having engaged with your promotional content on social media. For example, as I engage with this Levi’s post on Instagram, I immediately feel the need to purchase the product at such a great price, and directly visit Levi’s website to make the purchase.
Assisted sales are a result of customer purchasing after having engaged with your content, but it is NOT the final touchpoint in their decision. For example, a very appealing advertisement from True Classic promotes “the perfect shirt”, but I decide to check their reviews, reliability, and a potential discount before I finalize my purchase.
Another stream to successfully sell on social media is to collaborate with and use influencers at your advantage. Influencers have a large number of prospective customers due to their high number of followers, due to their likeability and credibility. Many influencers and brand ambassadors are paid to promote a product in a way where their followers believe that they use the product as well, leading to a higher trust in the product.
Measuring Social Media Activity
The most vital component of assessing social media activity is to utilize the use of metrics. There are numerous analytical tools to calculate metrics, both in-built and third-party. Third-party technology such as Google analytics provides valuable insight for content advertised on Google, such as traffic, leads, conversions, etc. Native technology, as built into applications such as Instagram, provides analytics related to engagements with posts, such as views, likes, comments, demographics (if available), etc. Continuously reviewing these analytics and testing new tools can help your brand and its content advance and progress.
Innovating with Social Media
As the real world continuously changes, so does the social media world. Majority of the users have slowly but surely transitioned from publicly visible posts to private messaging and posting. As a result, content creators are constantly being pushed to their limits to engage as much as they can with these users. The answer? Personalized content. Bold and unique content significantly increases the visibility of your content. Going above and beyond the “best polices” will boost your market share and attract new customers. Additionally, through practice, you can discover the likes and dislikes of your target audience, and you will become more experienced in creating and publishing more suitable content.
Conclusion
Social media can be tricky – especially when you first try to dip your feet in these great oceans. Building a strong foundation for your brand, engaging with customers, and analyzing your analytics may sound like an extremely tedious and time-consuming task, which it is; however, there are no shortcuts in building trust amongst a large audience. That being said, it is always, ALWAYS advantageous to gather, analyze, and implement customer feedback, as even a single person can represent the thought of the masses.
Digital Strat Guru 
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