FaithMcGregor
There are so many reasons why you would want to increase your brand’s presence on social networks. First of all, this is one of the simplest and most effective ways for you to boost your brand awareness. Second, it helps drive traffic to your website, generates new leads and boosts brand engagement. All of these things combined usually result in the growth of revenue by increasing both signups and sales. In the end, your social media accounts can help with your customer service, which is also one of the positive side-effects you need to bear in mind. Still, for all of this to work, you need an effective social media strategy and there are several tips on how you can make one.
Prioritizing networks according to a target audience
This is a fairly simple procedure. First of all, you need to do some research on social networks by the target demographic and check where your target audience spends the most time. Then, you need to make sure you dedicate the most attention to these networks, as well. For instance, Facebook’s demographic is predominantly female and about 75 percent of its users come from urban environments (compared to only 58 percent of rural and 67 percent of suburban users). This gives you a basic idea of who’s most likely to receive a message that you send via this medium.
Knowing the habits of your target audience
It’s not enough to just know which platform your target audience is using; you also need to know how they are using them. In other words, if you want to use video format for your content, you need to figure out what is the ideal length of video for the network in question. Second, you need to consider what is the ideal time for sharing your content. Different networks have different optimal sharing time. For instance, on Facebook, the best time to post is between 11 AM and 1 PM on Wednesday, while Sunday has the least amount of engagement. On the other hand, when it comes to Instagram, Friday between 10 AM and 11 AM is a great time for you to share.
Offline marketing can boost your online presence
One major mistake that a lot of people make when it comes to their social media strategy is looking at it like it’s a standalone measure. This is simply not true and in order for it to work, it needs to have support from all sides. First of all, it needs to be supported by your content marketing. Second, you might even want to consider going for offline marketing in order to give it a boost. The first method that comes to mind is guerilla marketing, which can provide you with a lot of social media tags. Finally, you can also consider using branded merchandise like promotional notepads with logos and social media handles printed on them, to remind people of your social media presence.
Avoid getting tricked by vanity metrics
The single biggest danger of your social media strategy is the problem of getting tricked by vanity metrics into believing that you’re doing better/worse (usually better) than you really are. This is why you need to be aware of the metrics that really matter. The number of fans, followers and friends, as well as blog post page views, aren’t nearly as relevant as you want them to be. Metrics that are really actionable are active users and the number of conversions. Previously, we’ve mentioned the fact that the number of followers doesn’t really matter that much, however, you can use it as a potent comparison tool and measure it against those of your competitors.
Focus on the quality of content
The last piece of advice is definitely the idea that the quality of content that you publish makes all the difference when it comes to the efficiency of your social media marketing (and digital marketing in general). First of all, you need to understand the fact that people nowadays look for a higher quality of content than before, which is why more and more content creators invest on average more than 6 hours of work per post. Also, keep in mind that hiring professionals definitely makes a difference, regardless of the format (blog post, video, infographic, podcast, etc.).
Conclusion
With these four simple tips on your side, you’ll have much better odds at creating an efficient social media strategy, regardless of your industry. The key thing, however, is for you to set realistic goals beforehand, seeing as how there’s no easier way for you to get disappointed than to expect something unrealistic.
