What Is Social Media Marketing Strategy & How To Create?

Today, social media is an infinitely powerful tool that brands and businesses can leverage to establish themselves and widen their horizons. But how many businesses are effectively using it is the question. Having a presence on popular social media channels and posting content is not enough. Social media is insanely vast and dynamic.

So having a streamlined strategy is vital. Interestingly, at least 90% of marketers say that social media marketing has boosted their brand’s exposure. So it is not difficult to imagine the sheer value you can drive when there is an effective social media marketing strategy. A concrete social media marketing strategy is your key to achieving success on different online publishing channels.

What is social media marketing?

Social media marketing is an act of utilising social media platforms in order to promote one’s business, brand, etc.  With the advent of social media, social media marketing is seeing a rapid rise in the world of marketing.

Brands aim to establish their visibility on social media platforms, as strong visibility would result in better credibility now. In order to market themselves, the brands indulge in various digital marketing strategies.

Before beginning their journey into the world of social media marketing, the brands identify their customer base and accordingly choose the platform they wish to target. The utilisation of resources, setting goals and budget follow later. 

With the right strategy and goal, the brands are able to promote themselves and grow their business and reach a wider audience which helps in higher revenue generation. This is what social media marketing do to promote any business.

What is a social media marketing strategy?

Marketing on social media involves connecting with your customers and potential customers worldwide, boosting sales, generating more leads for business, and enhancing your brand’s recognition. A social media strategy is like a blueprint that covers everything you need to do to achieve your business goals through social media. It is a result-oriented plan that charts out actions and helps you measure success categorically so that your business attains maximum advantage from social media marketing.

Social media marketing allows you to advance your business on digital media using the tools of digital marketing. Some of the social media marketing strategies are mentioned below-

1. Identification of the target audience
2. Appropriate Content Selection 
3. Time Analysis of the website

Channels of social media marketing –

1.  Facebook 
2. LinkedIn 
3. Instagram 
4. Twitter 

These social media channels have a huge user base that becomes a potential for social media marketers to utilise the huge user base. The types of users differ according to these social media; the marketers can identify and choose the channel they wish to promote on.

Strategy to choose the right social media marketing platform

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Why do you need a social media marketing strategy?

The right social media marketing strategy helps you connect instantly with your target audience, offering them a better understanding of your brand. Because your first impression can be your last impression, you need to understand exactly how to project it on social media in the shortest time. 

While this seems to be an overwhelming task, it becomes streamlined once you have a social media marketing strategy in place. It not only benefits your business by generating more leads but also opens up avenues for innovation, content creation, optimization of marketing expenses, better engagement with your target audience, and finally, boosts revenues. And with an effective social media strategy, you can also stay ahead of your competition.

How to create a strategy for social media marketing?

Step 1: Set your goals and metrics clearly

Unless you exactly understand what you wish to achieve by being active on social media, you will never know which direction to move. Whether it is to earn more revenues or expand your customer base, you must clearly set out your targets and metrics.

You can define your goals using the SMART framework, which is –

• Specific – The more precise your goals are, the better and clearer your social media strategy will be. Consequently, your expectations will also be clear and proportionate. 
• Measurable – With measurable goals in view, you will be able to appraise your success better. For instance, if you aim to gain 200 new Instagram followers every month, but that is not happening, you can modify your strategy to achieve better results.
• Attainable – Quite obviously, you should set realistic goals in sync with your business resources. Keeping unattainable targets that are disproportionate to your resources will never lead you anywhere.
• Relevant – Your goals must be relevant, i.e., closely aligned with your objectives. You need to have a clear picture of how your marketing goals will influence your business objectives.
• Time-bound – There must be realistic deadlines set for every stage.

Step 2: Study your target market or audience

If your business has been there for some time, you already know your target market. However, if you are not too sure, you need to segment your audience based on common behaviours and demographics. And then research and learn more about them. Detailed specifics about your targeted audience base help in shaping an effective social media content strategy.

You can create audience personas to devise a more specific social media strategy for each segment. Consider parameters like interests, age, location, language, spending potentials, and preferences to create these personas and choose appropriate social media platforms. 

Proper research of your target audience will help you make informed decisions. You will better understand what your audience expects to see and what you need to share with them on social media.  

Step 3: Study your competitors

Competitor analysis is vital for understanding the whereabouts and performance of your competitors on social media. Researching your competitors will help you gain insightful data like which social media strategy is proving beneficial for them and which is not. You can identify competitive keywords and which competitors are gaining the highest SEO rankings for those keywords. You can even identify all the other brands in your niche that your target audience follows.

After analyzing your competitors, performing a SWOT analysis will offer a clear picture of your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. But make sure not to copy your competitors. Instead, you can monitor user comments and reviews on their pages to identify customers’ pain points and try to bridge those gaps through your services and products.

Step 4: Choose your platforms to advertise on

While creating a social media marketing strategy, you must remember that each platform comes with its own dynamics and nuances. Not all of your target audience will be present on all the channels. Also, it might not be possible to include each and every social media channel in your strategy out of the hundreds available today. Besides, one kind of content might not be suitable for all platforms.

For instance, not all who are present on Facebook are active on LinkedIn. And both of these channels serve different purposes and encompass different niches of audiences. So it is crucial to choose the right ones for maximum engagement. Try to be specific when you target your social media strategy for different social media channels – it should ideally be a balance of audience demographics and your business objectives. 

Step 5: Develop relevant and engaging content

When you know which social media platforms to focus on, creating appropriate content becomes easier. You need to develop content that is not only compelling but also enjoyable. Also, your followers must be able to share them easily with others in their network. Whether it is a Facebook post or a tweet, or an image, ‘shares’ and ‘likes’ can reveal a lot about the psychology and preferences of your target audience. You will understand what makes them happy and what they are looking for.

Brands like Oreo, Dove, Mercedes, Nutella, Airbnb, etc. keep their audience engaged through different types of campaigns either to promote a new product or leverage a big festival to offer sweet discounts and make more sales. 

Make sure to create relevant and high-quality content to make your social media marketing more effective.

Step 6: Advertise your posts

With over 4.5 billion active users on social media across the globe, you need to advertise your posts to get noticed. The golden rule is to reserve 20% of the time for content creation and the remaining 80% to promote it.

The best way to boost visibility and engagement is through paid advertising on social media. In fact, 68% of marketers consider paid to advertise a highly crucial part of the overall marketing strategy. 

Frequent evaluation of the performance of your social media marketing strategy, based on the steps discussed here, will help you fine-tune it for better outcomes. Analyzing your results regularly will help you identify and improve your strategy and drive improved results in the long run. 

What is a social influencer?

A social media influencer is a person who has built a reputation for themselves in the digital industry. These people have a significant impact on social media. Their influence is measured by the number of followers they have; a higher number of followers is equivalent to a stronger influence.

These social media influencers have established credibility for themselves on the platforms. There is no age group attached to becoming a social media influencer. Any person from any age group can be a social media influencer.  Brands reach these influencers to promote them on social media. Having wide reach and social credibility, they are able to influence their followers.

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