Every brand, small or large business needs to have a social media marketing strategy when it comes to releasing a new product or service. It serves as a guide for the brands succeeding and failing actions. Every like, follower, reply, comment, and post should be an essential element to the marketing plan. I will be mentioning a couple of steps that companies need to follow to have a successful social media marketing strategy. First, brands need to set S.M.A.R.T. goals, which will set a path for the actions and ensure the business will receive accurate results. Most importantly, they want the goals to lead to a return on investment (R.O.I.).
Second, tracking valuable metrics can provide companies with necessary information like conversion rates and web referrals. Every different social media channel should have a different goal. For example, many makeup brands pay for social campaigns to create brand awareness. (Links to an external site.) The paid campaigns measure engagement for original social media posts. Another factor is knowing their target market, and who is their audience. Seeing what social media posts they like, comment, and engage with the most. Social media followers can turn into customers by just seeing one post. Creating buyer personas can provide a brand with a better perspective of who their potential followers are, and consumers can be, and also what they expect and want from the product. Brands also need to know their competition and know what trends and tactics they are using on their consumers. Knowing about their competitors can lead a company to create their own goals and get them a better understanding of the market share they are in. Conducting a social media audit helps businesses gather all this information in one place, and plan on how they can improve their results. It provides information like what’s working and what’s not, who are the ones connecting on your social media, and what network does the target market use.
Companies also need to find inspiration, meaning they need to make their brand stand out on social media, creating unique posts, and being consistent. Always engaging with customers on channels, even if it’s a useful comment or complaint. Creating a social media calendar is important because they get to plan their posts and see how much time they are taking to interact with consumers online. (Links to an external site.) Placing different post types on businesses’ content calendars will help ensure a ratio for them to follow. How much content they are getting from H.R. and showing the company’s culture, the content that is supporting their goals, and the content that is driving people back to the brand’s website.
Lastly, tracking data will allow them to see what visitors are seeing, and what posts are driving them into the website. (Links to an external site.) Constant testing will allow them to test different posts, campaigns, and strategies against each other. Creating surveys is also a way to see if the strategy is working, like asking the followers of the brand is meeting their expectations for their wants and needs. All of these elements can make a company’s social media marketing strategy stand out from their competitors and shine bright to all of their followers.