Social media is a powerful marketing tool for small businesses. 54% of social media users will browse for products on social media platforms – that is more than half! If you want your business to be successful on social media, you need the right tools and strategies.
In this blog, we will share a few tips and hacks that will help you develop a social media marketing plan that is effective and actionable for your business.
Introduction to Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing is a process of developing a marketing campaign that uses social media platforms to promote a product or service. This form of marketing can be done through two methods:
Organic Marketing – which is the free promotion of a product or service using social media platforms, where the business has to make posts, videos and other content without paying for it. These are your individual page posts, stories, Facebook and/or Instagram Shop etc.
PPC Marketing – which is the paid promotion of a product or service through social media, where the business pays for posts, ads and other content. You might have seen this already on your business page with ‘Boosted Content’ or ‘Ads.’
What is a Social Media Strategy?
A company should always have a strategy in place before they start marketing their products on social media. Having a plan will help them know what their priorities are going to be and what they need to do at every stage.
Social media strategies can be as simple or as complicated as you like. However, a successful social media marketing strategy is always one with goals, steps and an implementation timeline that you can follow. A social media marketing strategy needs to be based on objectives that are clear, achievable and measurable.
Your strategy also needs to take into account not just your company but your customers as well. In fact, that is the wonderful power of social media – you are interacting as a business in a consumer-focused space. That’s what makes it so different from any other type of marketing in the sense that you need to make sure you are always listening and responding when they comment or send in feedback about your product or services, or when they tag you on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter with their complaints.
Tip: Be mindful of the recent shift in social media. Many platforms were created with the intent of being very personal and all about people connecting. Despite the recent years of social platform monetisation through ads and increased business presence, many consumers still use social media with this purpose. Businesses and brands that are successful on social media are mindful of ‘spamming’ in these spaces, and also lean into having a human element to engage with their customers.
5 Crucial Elements of a Social Media Marketing Campaign
Social media marketing is not a new concept anymore. It has been around for a while now and it has seen a drastic change over the years. In the past, people only used social media as a platform to connect with friends and family. But now, people use it as a business tool for advertising and promoting their product or service.
In order to have an effective social media campaign, there are certain elements that should be present in your marketing campaigns. We have listed 5 crucial elements of a successful marketing campaign below:
1. Establishing Goals:
Define what you want to achieve from your social media marketing campaign before beginning it. There are various ways to do this, such as creating a mission statement or conducting research into what your target audience is interested in. You can then use these goals when setting up your strategy and when making decisions about the content you post.
2. Creating Content:
It’s not enough just to reshare others content on social media; you also need to create it and know how it should look, feel, and sound like. This means looking at different types of content, such as blogs, videos, infographics, images, and interactive content. There are some excellent free and affordable content creation tools out there, as well lots of free templates and inspiration. Whilst being inspired by other content is valuable, make sure your content you are putting out on social media as your own is unique, identifiable and eye-catching.
3. Having Quality Visuals:
Visuals are among the most important things when it comes to social media campaigns. You need high-quality visuals so that your audience can relate to what you are trying to promote without even reading anything about your product or service. Good quality images that are clear and not blurry look much more professional and trustworthy on your social media than pixelated images, so make sure your visuals are the right size.
4. Knowing your Targeted Audience:
It’s important to know who your audience is. You can use analytics data from social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook to identify key demographics and interests of the target audience. Knowing your target audience will help you create content that they will find interesting and want to share with their peers.
5. Having a Clear Message or Call To Action:
The messaging should be simple, concise, and direct. You need to have a clearly defined goal and entice people to take action with simple but clear language on your buttons and in the text accompanying your visual assets. Think about always having a destination for your customers to go. If they engage with a post, you want to keep their attention and get them to click through to where you want them to end up – ideally submitting an enquiry or adding your product or service to their shopping cart!
The Dos and Don’ts of Running a Successful Social Media Campaign
In order to get a successful marketing campaign up and going, it is important to be aware of the dos and don’ts for running your campaign.
Do:
- Do create a strategy for each post about what you want to achieve with it and be sure to measure your results, so that you can improve your following in the future.
- Do stay up-to-date on new features or products that have been released by your company or industry competitors. This way, you can get creative and find new ways to share content that is relevant to what your followers want from your company.
- Conduct research on your target demographic to know what they want from your company.
- Develop a clear call-to-action that your customer can understand.
- Know the best time and day of the week to post on social media.
Don’t:
- Post too many things in a row without giving some space in between posts as you may overwhelm your audience. Posting too often can lead to people unfollowing you because they feel overwhelmed with all the content you are publishing.
- Don’t make the customer journey to your desired destination too complicated. Remove barriers where you can and make it as easy as possible for customers to get where you want them to go.
- Don’t post confusing visual content. Remember that social media is all about the visuals as it’s the first thing that will catch the attention of your audience. You want to make sure your images or graphics are good quality, make sense to the content and can be easily connected to your brand.
Take Advantage of These Powerful Strategies Today
Social media marketing is not just about posting content on different social networks. It’s also about creating an effective strategy around your social media presence that works for YOU and for YOUR business – not someone else’s!
The social media marketers with the most success are those who understand that their strategies need to be specific and tailored for their respective audiences. They create a content plan, set specific goals, and ultimately measure success by analysing data from social media analytics platforms.
How to find the right social media marketing strategy for your business
The best way to find the right social media marketing strategy for your business is… asking for a bit of help! EmpowerUp Marketing can help you navigate social media marketing and more with solutions that are actually tailored to your business and unique opportunities.
But most of all, we pride ourselves on being flexible to your business needs. If you have a different idea of how we can help, whether that be ongoing work or project-based requirements – shoot us a message below with what you need, or book in a free Discovery Call.
