Social Media Marketing Strategy
Businesses worldwide have shifted to reaching customers via various social media platforms rather than their websites. Social media marketing is crucial in promoting the company and its products in the digital world. Due to the stiff competition, social media marketing requires skills, creativity, and strategy. This article is a comprehensive guide to social media marketing strategy, social media marketing tools, and social media marketing agencies.
Social media marketing strategy
Your social media marketing plan is your roadmap to success. It is the way to connect with your target audience and promote your brand. Content is the key element of a successful social media marketing strategy. Here is how to create your social media marketing plan.
1. Choose your social media platforms
Choose your platform based on the products and services your company offers. For instance, if you are a fashion brand, Pinterest will be an excellent platform for promoting your products. On the other hand, LinkedIn and Twitter will be better for professionals such as lawyers and accountants. Having identified your target audience, you can narrow it down and know the social media platforms they like to use. Look for research studies that have analyzed what platforms your potential customers prefer. If you find it challenging to get the information, try to use your own experience to find out what platform your audience uses.
2. Set your goals and objectives
These should be based on what you have learned from your research. Your goals should be measurable and quantifiable. For instance, if your brand is a fashion brand, you may want to increase the number of followers. Or, if you are promoting a new product, you may want to increase the number of sales. There are three key goals of social media marketing.
- Build a community
Social media is all about building a community. A positive reputation in your niche will attract more customers. Ensure you have an informative blog that reviews and guides your products and services.
b. Drive traffic to your website
You will be able to drive traffic to your website if you are building up a reputation for yourself. Contribute positively to social media channels, and focus on having an informative blog and interacting with people. The more people like you, the more they will want to visit your website.
c. Increase sales
You can increase sales by linking your social media to your online shopping cart. When your customers make purchases, they can leave feedback and share their experiences with their followers.
3. Track, report, and adjust regularly
Track your progress to see what is working and what is not. You can use different tools to track your progress, like Hubspot and Hootsuite. Report the results regularly to your staff. Make adjustments so that you can reach your goals.
Social media marketing tools
You should check out the following tools to get your social media platforms in shape. They will make the job of managing your social media platforms easier, and they will help you reach your goals.
1. Buffer
This is an excellent tool for scheduling posts on various social media platforms. Buffer started a scheduling tool for Twitter, but it now supports all major platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, Google+, and LinkedIn. With buffer, you can set a schedule for posting your content and have it scheduled at a defined time. Buffer allows you to use the chrome extension to short-cut online, access complex analytics to track engagement on your posts, redo or undo scheduled tweets, add multiple social profiles to a single account, and more.
2. Biteable
With Biteable, you can track your social media performance and analyze your posts. You will have access to complete analysis of the performance of each post on all the social media channels you use. This tool has free video templates, animated scenes, music, and custom graphics to help you boost your marketing campaign. It also has tools such as a brief post builder for creating posts for Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn. If you want to create quality work without using expensive resources, Biteable is the tool you need.
3. Hootsuite
Hootsuite handles scheduling and posting of updates on popular social media sites. It has an impressive dashboard for monitoring your social media marketing activities. You can use Hootsuite to monitor Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and other platforms. This tool is not just for scheduling posts but also for tracking your competition in the market. This tool allows collaboration across your team members and helps you to enhance your marketing efforts.
4. Social Oomph
Social Oomph is the ultimate social media platform for a website, blog, and online business. It offers a powerful website creation tool, a blog platform, and a product reviews site. As a blogger, you can use this platform to manage all your social media accounts from one place. This tool is expensive, but the community is active, so it is worth spending the extra money for better results.
Social media marketing agency
Many businesses lack the time or the ideal skills to run their social media marketing campaigns and thus prefer hiring a marketing agency or consultant. Hiring a professional can be pretty expensive but worth the money you spend. Here are some of the best social media marketing agencies.
1. LYFE marketing
LYFE marketing is a marketing agency specializing in social media. They take your business to the next level by leading marketing campaigns. This agency has been performing successfully since 2008, and they have managed to handle major brands over the years. They offer website design services, email marketing, social media marketing, and many more. They manage top-performing campaigns for clients on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.
2. OCTO strategy
OCTO strategy is a social media agency specializing in online reputation management, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. They manage the presence of their clients on social media and help to boost their current activities. They have a team of social media experts who are always up to date on their knowledge about these platforms and are skilled in optimizing all kinds of content for successful marketing campaigns.
3. Sociallyin
This agency helps brands and corporations to optimize their social media marketing campaigns. Social media optimization and content creation are the top priorities of this agency. They manage a team of social media marketers with the skills and expertise to ensure your brand is present on all popular platforms. Their services are split into social paid advertising, creative and production, social media strategy, and community management.
Conclusion
Social media marketing is one of the best ways to promote your brand online. These platforms offer many benefits and reach a broad range of people. You can share your business’s message with many people and expand your audience. Just remember to have a plan for your social media marketing campaign, recognize the importance of timing of posting and have a long-term strategy for achieving desired results.
