What is Social Media Marketing?
As the name implies, social media marketing encompasses all marketing actions that can be undertaken on social networks. Its stakes have risen steadily along with the audience of these media and the considerable time devoted to them.
The marketing of social networks essentially takes the form of communication actions, but it also includes monitoring / studies and CRM.
In the field of advertising communication actions the marketing of social networks includes in particular:
the use of Facebook Ads social advertising
community management actions
news jacking practices
influence marketing
In the field of intelligence and studies, the marketing applications of social networks essentially pass through social listening practices. In terms of CRM and customer support, social networks are used as new channels of contact to respond to customer requests or sometimes more proactively by responding to certain brand-related terms. Social accounts dedicated to support or even social chatbots can then be used.
How to create a social media strategy in 8 simple steps .
A marketing strategy for social media is a summary of everything you plan to do and hope to accomplish on social media. It guides your actions and lets you know if you are successful or not. Every publication, answer, comment or comment must have a purpose.
The more specific your strategy is, the more effective it will be. Stay concise. Do not make a plan too big or too ambitious: it will be hard to reach and measure.
In this article, we will guide you through an eight-step plan to create your own social media strategy.
Find social media goals that fit your business goals.
Set goals S.M.A.R.T
The first step in creating your marketing strategy for social media is to set your goals and goals. Without a goal, you will have no way to measure your success rate or ROI.
Each of your goals must be
Specific
Measurable
attainable
Realistic and relevant (in English: Relevant)
Temporarily defined
This is called the SMART approach and it is an important method to ensure that your goals can be converted into business results and not just ambitious ideals.
Take significant steps
Keep in mind that even though vanity metrics such as retweets and likes are rewarding and easy to quantify, they can hardly demonstrate real value to your business. It is best to focus on targets such as lead generation, web referencing and conversion rate.
You may want to set different goals on different platforms, or make different use of each platform. For example, the company Benefit Cosmetics focuses on brand awareness through its paid social campaigns, but measures the acquisition and engagement rate for organic publications on social media.
It will be easier to demonstrate the value of your work and receive financial support from your managers or even the investment.
Start developing your social media marketing plan by developing at least three goals for your social media.
Learn as much as possible about your audience
Create audience personas .
Knowing your audience and what they would like to see on social media is crucial to creating content that they will like, comment on and share. It's also essential for planning how you'll turn your social media fans into customers of your business.
Try to create audience personas. They will allow you to think of your fans, subscribers and potential customers as real people with desires and needs. And you will know more clearly what to offer them.
Real information’s
Do not make assumptions. For example, you might think instinctively that Facebook is a better network to join Baby Boomers than millennial, but the numbers show that this group is present in larger numbers than the Boomers on the platform.
Social media analytics can also provide valuable insights into who your subscribers are, where they live, what language they speak, and how they interact with your brand on social media. This relevant information will help you refine your strategy and better target your ads on social media.
Jugnoo, an Uber style service for Tuk-tuk in India, used Facebook Analytics and learned that 90% of their users are between 18 and 34 years old, and 65% of that same group used Android. They used this information to target their ads, resulting in a 40% cost reduction by referral.
Learn about your competitors
It is likely that your competitors are already using social media, and this is a great opportunity for you to learn in the students.
Make a competitive analysis
Competitive analysis helps you understand who your competitors are and what they are doing well (and less well). This will give you a good idea of the standards of your industry, which will be useful for establishing your targets on social media.
This analysis also allows you to spot good opportunities. For example, one of your competitors may be very present on Facebook, but invest little effort on Twitter or Instagram. So you may want to focus on platforms where your audience is little used rather than trying to conquer the fans of a competitor.
Be actively listening.
Social listening is another way of having competition with the eye. Here's how to use Hoot suite search feeds for social listening and watch your competitors.
By tracking your competitors' accounts as well as some relevant keywords in your industry, you may notice strategic changes in the way your competitors use their social media accounts. You could also spot a specific publication or campaign that works well, or fails completely. Have this kind of information in the eye and use it to evaluate your goals and plan.
Audit your social media
Evaluate your current efforts
If you're already using tools for your social media, take a step back and evaluate what you've done and done. Ask yourself the following questions:
What works and does not work?
Who wants to get in touch with you on social media?
Which social media is mainly used in your field?
How does your presence on social media compare to that of your competitors?
Once you have all of this information in one place, you will have your starting point to improve the performance of your social media.
Your audit should give you a clear picture of the function of each of your accounts. If the function of one of your accounts is not clear, ask yourself if it is worth keeping it. It may be a relevant account, but it only needs a strategic redirect, or perhaps the account is now obsolete, and no longer deserves to invest time.
To help you in your decisions, ask yourself the following questions:
Is my audience here?
If so, how do they use this platform?
Can I use this account to achieve certain business goals?
While these are difficult questions, asking them now will help keep your social media strategy on track as you grow your social media presence.
Look for fraudulent accounts
During your audit, you may discover fraudulent accounts that use the name of your company or one of your products, accounts that do not belong to you or your company.
These fraudulent accounts can be harmful to your brand (in addition to recruiting subscribers who might be yours), so be sure to report them. You'll also check your Facebook and Twitter accounts to make sure your fans and subscribers know that your account is true.
Create accounts and improve your current profiles
Determine which media to use, and how
When choosing which social media to use, you will also need to define a strategy for each.
For reference, here's how other small and medium-sized businesses use social media to communicate with their customers. Notice how the use of Facebook and Instagram exceeds that of emails for this kind of service.
It is relevant to create a mission statement for each platform. These one-sentence statements will help you focus on a specific goal for each of your social media accounts.
If you can not create a strong mission statement for any of your social media, consider reconsidering the value of it.
Create (and optimize) your accounts
Once you have decided the scope of each network, it's time to create your profiles or improve existing ones, so that they align with your strategic plan.
In general, be sure to complete all the fields in your profiles, using keywords that people would use to search for your business, and use images of the right size for each platform.
Here's a preview so that all your social media profiles are flawless.
Remember that it is better to use fewer platforms than to run out of maintaining a presence on all social media.
Find inspiration
While it's important for your brand to stand out and be unique, you can still inspire companies that are successful on social media.
Success stories on social media
All social media promote successful stories that illustrate how brands are using the tools at their disposal. You will usually find them in the business section of the social network website. For example, check out the company's success stories. These case studies can offer interesting insights that you can apply to reach your own goals on each of your social media.
Accounts and campaigns awarded
You can also check out the winners of the Facebook Awards or Shorty Awards for examples of brands that stand out with their social media strategies.
Our favorite social media
We've compiled a list of companies that we think are doing great work on social media. Get inspired by:
The best retail accounts on social media
Amazing Instagram accounts
Brands that excel in customer service with Twitter
Brands that know how to converse on Twitter .
Notice how each of these accounts has a consistent voice, tone and style. Consistency is the key to ensuring your subscribers know what to expect with your brand, so they know why they need to keep following you and what they can get away with following you on social media.
Ask your subscribers .
Consumers can also provide you with inspiration for social media. What do your target customers talk to online? What can you learn from their desires and needs? If you already have social platforms, you can also ask your current subscribers what they want from you. Just make sure you can deliver the goods.
Create a social media content calendar
Sharing good content is essential, of course, but it's also important to have a plan to ensure that the content has maximum impact. Your social media content calendar should also consider when you interact with your audience (although time should also be allowed for spontaneous interactions).
Create a publication schedule
Your social media calendar shows the dates and times you publish your content on each platform This is the perfect place to plan all your social media activities, images and links you share to blog posts and videos. It understands both your daily publications and the content of your social media campaigns. Your calendar helps ensure that your publications are well spaced and published at the best times.
Create your content mix
Make sure your calendar reflects the mission statement you have created for each social media profile so that all your publications contribute to achieving your goals. For example, you could use the following formula:
50% of the content will direct traffic to your blog
25% of the content will come from other sources .
20% of the content will contribute to your business objectives (sales, lead generation, etc.)
5% of the content will speak about your employees and your company culture.
Putting these different types of publications into your content calendar will help you maintain the planned ratio. If you are starting from scratch and are unsure of the type of content to publish, use the 80-20 rule
20% of them should directly promote your brand.
You can also try the rule of thirds for social media:
One-third of your content should promote your business, convert readers, and generate profits.
One-third of your content must share ideas and stories through thought leaders in your industry or similar industries.
One-third of your content must involve interactions with your audience.
Once your schedule is done, use publishing tools to prepare your messages, rather than updating your content on a daily basis. This technique allows you to apply in the text and format rather than composing your content on the fly, when you have the time.
Test, evaluate and adjust your strategy
Your social media strategy is an extremely important document for your business and you can not plan to aim just right away. From the moment you put your plan into action and measure your results, you may realize that some strategies are not working as well as expected, while others have unexpected success.
Monitor your data
In addition to the analytics for each social media (see Step 2), you can use the UTM settings to track the trajectory of each person who visits your website, to see exactly which publications generate the most traffic on your website.
Reassess, test and then try again
Once the data is available, use it to re-evaluate your strategy regularly. You can also use this information to test different publications, campaigns, and strategies. Regular assessments help you understand what's working and what's not working, to refine your strategy in real time.
Polls
Polls can be a good way to know how well your strategies work. Ask your subscribers on social media, your mailing lists and your website visitors if you meet their needs and expectations on social media and if there are things they would like to see more. Then make sure you can meet their expectations.
In the social media sphere, things are changing fast. New media appear while others see their demographics change. Your business will also experience changes. All of this means that your social media strategy needs to be a document that you consult regularly and adjust as needed. Refer to this one often to be on the right track, but feel free to make the necessary changes to always reflect your new goals, tools or plans.
When you update your social media strategy, be sure to let your entire social media team know that it can work in unison to help your business maximize the success of your social media accounts.
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