Unlike traditional marketing programs where you follow a certain path to achieve your goal, social media marketing involves building a relationship and credibility with your ideal clients before anything else. This type of marketing method is made up of various activities that must be carried out effectively before you can achieve your objective. The problem is, without a strategic plan of action, this system can be discouraging.
Fortunately, with an effective social media strategy, you’ll be able to achieve your marketing goals without much fuss. Below are six important keys to build an effective social media marketing strategy for your business.
1. Search out Your Target Audience
There are a lot of social networking sites on the internet. These platforms are used by different groups of people based on gender, age, interests and other factors. To find your target audience, you’ll have to search for them where they hang out most. This might take a bit of time but it is well worth the effort as far as your marketing goal is concerned.
To find your target group, visit various social networking sites. Start with the most popular and widely used ones such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. On these sites, you’ll find a small search box where you can type in your keyword phrases and hit the search button. Use these search boxes on various social media sites to find your target audience. If your audience seems to gravitate towards certain sites, then those sites are ideal for your social media marketing initiative.
2. Pay Attention
After discovering where your potential customers hang out most, don’t rush in there and start marketing your product or service to them. That is an incorrect social media marketing practice.
Instead, listen to the conversations in various groups. Pay attention to how people interact with each other and the sort of language they use in their conversations. Also, find out what they talk about most in their discussions. Take note of anything worthwhile at this stage of your marketing strategy development.
3. Identify Their Preferred Content Format
People have preferences when it comes to the type of content they consume on social networking sites. Some prefer to read blog posts, others like video, podcasts, infographics, articles, or ebooks. It’s very important that you figure out what content format your target audience prefers most.
To find out, follow every link on your ideal networking sites to their root sources. This way, you’ll be able to determine which content type your potential audience enjoys consuming.
4. Build Rapport in Your Chosen Groups
After achieving the above tips, the next thing is to get on board by joining the conversation in all your chosen platforms. Participate actively in every discussion that takes place on these sites and showcase your expertise by providing useful and helpful advice that can help solve their pressing problems. Don’t make the mistake of marketing your business right away. Take your time.
Allow your target audience to find this out for themselves by following the link on your profile to your website where they can get more information about you, your product or your service. On social networking sites, people are very good at figuring out marketing and self-promotional messages and they’ll quickly shun you once they detect them in your conversations.
5. Tailor Your Marketing Strategy to Your Audience
Now you’ve detected where your target group likes hanging out, what they like talking about and the type of content they like consuming. It’s now time for you to start developing your plan of action. Your strategy should be congruent with your audience’s attitude on your chosen networking platforms.
6. Build an Editorial Calendar for Your Social Media Marketing Plan
Obviously, social media marketing involves lots of different tasks that must be carried out in order to be effective. Trying to perform all these tasks can be challenging. For this reason, it’s very important that you develop an editorial calendar for your marketing program. This way, you’ll be able to allot the appropriate amount of time to the right task over a given time period.
Social media marketing can be a very effective component of your overall content marketing strategy if you thoughtfully develop your plan of action. To start with, scour various social networking sites to find out where your target audience hangs out most. Pay attention to their activities and how they interact with each other. Find out the content format they enjoy consuming and tailor your plan to that. Join in their conversations and participate actively in the discussions. Finally, to make your marketing strategy feasible, develop an editorial calendar to keep track of everything.
Do you need help developing and implementing a targeted social media plan that produces measurable results? Contact us to find out how our internet marketing company can help drive traffic to your website and increase your brand awareness. Whether you are looking for a focused social media marketing plan or need full service marketing solutions, our web marketing experts have the insight and expertise to meet your needs.
