There are numerous small and large businesses who feel the urge to join the ‘Social Media Revolution’. However, most of them don’t create a clear strategy and set of goals they aim to achieve from their social media activities. There is often a random approach when posting social media updates and very little if any tracking of the results.
So how can businesses get the most out of the time they spend on social marketing? Check out these five handy tips to boost your social media marketing strategy:
1. Determine Realistic Goals
Set a set of reachable goals, including:
- Increased Brand Exposure
- Dialogue with Stakeholders
- Customer Service Experience
- Finding New Prospects and Customers
- Spreading of company messages/ PR
2. Be Social and Personal
Among all forms of digital media and advertising, consumers now expect to see beyond a brands advertisement, they want to understand the culture of the company and hear a humanised message. Your company should be more sociable. Treat your social media accounts as the fusion of “Customer Service” and “Ads Department” at the same time and try to maintain both roles equally.
3. Focus on your strengths as a business
Social Media Marketing is competitive and consumers and seeing so many generic messages everyday these will often go ignored. Focus on your businesses strengths and submit niche information that is more likely to be fresh content for your readers.
4. Schedule Your Updates
Once you are ready to commence marketing on social media channels, create a schedule that gives you a weekly and monthly snapshot of all the updates you wish to post. Initially you may only post 3 or 4 updates per week, and as your social profiles gain fans and followers, then you will be able to decide how much content your audience is happy to receive and the best times of the day to post.
Once you have completed your first week or month from the schedule, look back at what posts were most successful and see if you can learn why and replicate moving forward.
5. Judge Your Social Media Success by Tracking the Key Metrics
If your business runs a Facebook Page, Twitter account or even a blog, what metrics should you initially be tracking?
- Facebook has a sophisticated analytics platform built into the site for business owners. You will be able to see how much interaction from each post, the reach achieved and if people share your updates to their own friends. On Twitter you will be able to see who else is sharing and retweeting your content fairly easily.
- If your company has a dedicated blog then your website administrator should be able to tell you how many views each article is getting. If you use your blog as an inbound marketing tool you may also measure other key actions such as email signups, contact requests and even sales if you sell goods and products online.
- If you have never using social media before, your first goals should be on building your audience and some initial interaction.