Social media is now a 'must-have' part of every businesses marketing. But before you get started it's good to have an idea, a 'map' if you will, as a guideline for you and your brand to navigate the social media landscape (or even if you have started, it's a good idea to see if you have gone through the steps below!)
Lets get started!
First up -
1. Define your goals
Do you want to increase brand awareness or do you want to drive traffic to your website? Do you want to generate new leads or build a community? 📊
The better you can define your goals, the easier for you to plan and do content later on. 🎯What about sales you ask? Of course at the end of the day, every brand wants marketing to lead to sales, but marketing is about promoting your brand, to make sure consumers are aware of your brand, sales will come later. Set your social media goals and objectives. This is also a good time to plan what you need to grow your page, who will help you do your content and other related planning.
2. Know your audience
Who is your target audience? What kind of content do they want from you? What do they like and dislike? Why did you choose this target audience? 🤔 Once you have define your goal, next is understanding your audience and who you want to appeal to.
Remember, you're not just publishing promotional or sales messages. You need to find out your audience wants and needs, so you can provide the kind of content they find useful and interesting. Keep it authentic and provide value wherever you can. Value is of course subjective and depends on your industry.
For example, if you are a men’s care product targeting working adult men, instead of just promoting your product, you can also provide tips on self care or inspirational stories about young dads and their family life and career, like what Dove Men is doing at their Instagram page (https://www.instagram.com/dovemencare/).
You might think this might not be related, but at the end of the day the product is about self care and having stories about how young adults are overcoming day-to-day challenges can provide a feel good factor for your brand and strengthens the connection in your audience that your product is THE product for self care. 😉
3. Select which social media platform your brand will focus on
Just a few years back, there were only a couple of social media platforms you might consider but now, there’s at least 7 to 8 big social media platforms and if you include messenger apps, that might number more than 10.
Jumping into more than four or five different platforms is not feasible, you will find your resources overstretched. Find out where most of your target audience are, and focus on it. 🎯
For example, if you are a consumer brand like skincare and cosmetics, then being on Instagram is a must. But if you are a B2B brand, then you may also want to consider LinkedIn or if you are in the media industry, then Youtube would be a good channel. This is where knowing your audience is important.
The biggest mistake is to launch on all platforms and not updating it. It’s better to invest in a couple of platforms, be good at it, grow and then if you want you can then start to consider other platforms. Or alternatively, you can also try and outsource your marketing.
4. Create a content plan
👉 What content can attract your target audience?
👉 What’s your message?
👉 What content do you want to create?
👉 Who is going to create the content?
👉 Research what other brands are doing
👉 Develop the necessary materials, build your team to help you execute or get the necessary help.
5. Engage
Don’t forget to engage with other pages and replying to comments. 📢
Find pages that have similar audiences that you want to attract and start engaging. Make it natural. The keyword in social media is ‘social’ so try and become an active part of the community. For example, your brand can create a Facebook group to help your community, say your business is a hardware store, maybe you can create a DIY Facebook group discussing how your consumers can do their own repairs at home. This will create a more engaged community.
6. Analyze
Monitor your insights. Track what content works and what does not. 📈
By tracking and measuring, you’ll know what is working and what needs improvement. Do more of what is working and test other types of content. Try the 80-20 rule, do 80% of the stuffs that works, and leave 20% to try and test something different!
7. Be consistent and have fun!
If you are not able to post once a day, that’s ok, as long as you are consistent. Don’t post once a month and then twice a week, disappear, then start posting again once every 3 or 4 weeks. Stick to a plan, if it’s once or twice a week, then that’s fine as a start.
And remember, at the end of the day, social media is also a creative channel, so have fun trying out different things, interacting with your community and seeing your page grow!
Photo credit - Photo - https://unsplash.com/photos/CNbRsQj8mHQ
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