That means new media marketers need to actually be social. It’s not enough to put on a veneer while posting thinly veiled marketing materials. Instead, it’s about content marketing, link curating, and other valuable content sharing. It’s about defining your business plan. And it’s about understanding and targeting your audience with precision. Here’s how’
Clarify Your Business Goals
Social media marketing can’t work well if it isn’t in context. In other words, every marketing effort should further business goals in clear, defined ways. Start with a mission statement. What is your business about and how do you want prospects to relate to it? How should they feel about the business? Where do you (realistically but optimistically) hope your business will be in a year, five years, and ten years?
Evaluate and Overhaul Your Current Social Media Presence
Are you already doing a good job making your business known on social media? Or have you been neglecting your social media properties? Take stock of what needs to be done. Do you need new profile pictures and descriptions? New social content? Should you take some time to reach out to new friends and followers before you launch your first social media campaign?
Learn About Your Audience
Who are you marketing to? Are they young women, old men, tweens, or middle-aged parents? Where do the spend time online and what do they talk about? The better you understand your audience, the better able you will be to create social media content that appeals to them.
Develop a Content Strategy
How are you going to reel in prospects? Content marketing is often an effective way to do this on social media. Once you know who you’re talking to (see above) you can develop a content strategy by conceptualizing content those people might respond to. Remember that social media is dynamic so a single video, article, or infographic probably won’t do much to build your presence over time. Instead, consider a drip campaign with multiple pieces of content that all work together to build brand sentiment. If you have the resources, consider several simultaneous drip campaigns, each catered to a different social platform. For example, post a series of how-to videos on YouTube, insightful articles from industry experts on Facebook, and micro-content on Twitter. Cross-link to drive traffic from one platform to another, and back to your website too. You could also consider doing what Old Spice did. They created custom videos that responded to comments on social media platforms: the ultimate in interactive content.
Be Flexible
The Internet is always changing. Trends, new products, news, opinion’ It’s all in flux all the time. So, be ready to adjust your strategy as your PR campaign unfolds. Are you seeing a strong response to your Facebook campaign while your Twitter micro-content is falling flat? Shift your focus to Facebook and use Twitter to funnel people in that direction. Always evaluate, re-evaluate, and don’t be afraid to act on what you learn.
If you need help crafting a social media strategy, contact us. We offer a satisfaction guarantee for our services.
