Building the right strategies for social media marketing

Unsure of where to start?

The first step is to start with what you already know. You know your business inside and out; what’s important for growth, brand awareness and the overall “feel” of your company.

Imagine a pyramid. To build it, you’d assume that you start from the bottom. With a strategy, it’s from the top down.

Clearly defined goals and objectives are at the top and the information becomes less important as you go down the pyramid.

Strategies in social media marketing differ depending on your industry, your goals and your company mission. This is why utilising a competitors strategy doesn’t guarantee the same results as them.

What is a social media marketing strategy?

The ultimate “why” of your overall marketing efforts; your strategies for social media marketing hinge on knowing why you’re doing it. This also ensures a targeted focus on your audience, message and how it’ll be delivered. A good strategy will also outline the points of differentiation between your solution and your competitors, giving you the power to really stand out.

One of the main reasons that you can also use to quantify the need for a strategy is ROI. It ensures you get the most out of your investment by being hyper-targeted on your audience.

How does a marketing strategy differ from a marketing plan?

There’s a lot of information surrounding this and most use these terms interchangeably. They may be linked but there is a huge difference between the two; the most concise way I can think of how to describe it is this:

a strategy as the ‘how’ (how you’ll get there).

A strategy will define how your marketing efforts will help achieve your company’s targets and mission. Before diving into a marketing plan, a strategy must be put in place first. Think of this as the top-level version.

a plan as the ‘what’ (what you’ll do).

A marketing plan is only as good as your marketing strategy, this should outline what tools & channels you’ll use to achieve your targets. Think of this as the day-to-day of what needs to be done. 

 

How to develop strategies for social media marketing;

Set reasonable goals that are right for your business

 

It’s okay to modify a strategy used by another company and tailor it to suit your business but in doing so, make sure that it’s possible.

Many think that creating content for viral marketing may sound like a quick win with lots of engagement; it’s no easy task. A lot of time can get chewed up in the creative part and in 2021, it’s super difficult to gain engagement through organic content also. that means that you’d need a budget for creative work and advertising to really push out viral content, with zero guarantees it’ll even go viral.

Unless you have a huge marketing budget, it’s not the best route for most small businesses.

Know your customer (KYC)

 

Business owners assume that because they know their customers personally, this means they understand their target market. This isn’t necessarily the case.

Your product/solution may work for everyone but that doesn’t mean everyone will buy it.

Imagine asking in a massive online community “Hey, everyone!” vs.  “Any London based experts in finance here?”. Which one seems more personal?

The steps to achieve this are; hone in on your target audience & identify pain points/problems that your solution solves.

Asking your current customers why they’ve selected your solution is the best way to get feedback that can be used for product & service development as well as your messaging. If you’re still getting to know your audience, start with the basics;

• Age range
• Gender(s)
• Location
• Interests
• Job Title / Industry (B2B)

With any of your marketing efforts, make sure you focus on clarity over quantity. You can use Google Trends to find topics or phrases that are currently trending, this can be quite valuable in getting content out that’s highly relevant, either through blog posting or social media.

Know your competitors

 

Carry out an analysis of your competitors to know who’s doing well (or not), why and how. Learning your competitor’s strategies for social media marketing is one of the fastest ways to gather intel to build your own strategies, rather than spending time on working this out from scratch.

Are they leaving untapped growth on the table? There may be channels that they’re not utilising that you can leverage where the target audience could be; it’s much easier than trying to win an audience from a channel that’s dominated by large players or saturated with lots of competition.

Once you know who and where your audience is through market research, you’ll know exactly where to find them.

Check their reviews & ratings. What are people saying about them? This can give you a powerful insight into what to do and what not to do.

For startups with new product/service offerings, it may seem like there aren’t any competitors in your field. This may well be the case but that doesn’t mean you have to start from ground zero. Finding indirect competitors with a similar target market can also help you build out a potential audience.

Tools such as UberSuggest or SEMRush can help you carry out a competitive analysis into your competitor’s strategies for social media marketing as well as position ranking on search engines.

 

Be responsive

 

Out of all the strategies for social media marketing, this is the most potent. It’s also the one that requires the least amount of budget and purely time & effort; becoming super responsive always pay dividends, in the short term with your customers and in the long term with potential customers as well as your branding.

Effective strategies for social media marketing;

 

Respond fast to new trends and use them as marketing collateral.

Respond quickly and professionally to customer/user comments and complaints.

Show your appreciation and thank your customers.

Ensure your customer service is responsive and helpful.

add an FAQ & a no-code chatbot such as Landbot to your site.