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Asking this today may seem silly. However, one of the most common mistakes companies often make is to confuse having social media profiles with having a social media marketing strategy.
This difference is key to growing the reputation of the brand.
Although posting content frequently is part of any social media strategy, it is not enough to impact a company’s clientele.
For this, it is necessary to know who the audience is, what is the type of content attracts them, and in which social network they move, among other things.
Like any strategy, setting clear and measurable objectives is key to focusing the strategy.
If we do not know what we want to achieve with the presence in social networks, resources will likely be wasted or the different actions that are carried out from the company will be dispersed.
Even if efforts are concentrated on social media, it is important to complement them with other tactics to ensure that the digital reputation of the brand is maintained. Throughout this article, we will be learning what are the elements that a social media marketing strategy must have to be successful.
We will also give you some tips on how to define the most important aspects of the strategy so that you can get the most out of your social networks.
Set achievable and measurable goals
The first question to ask you when designing your social media marketing strategy is: What do I want to achieve with this?
This step will allow you to think about what are the best actions to reach the goal and control the budget dedicated to social networks.
Nine types of objectives for the social media strategy:
- Brand recognition
- Drive traffic to the web
- Generate leads
- Increase profits
- Boost engagement
- Build a community around the brand
- Provide customer service
- Increase mentions in the press
- Listen to conversations about the brand
It is possible to have more than one goal with your social media marketing strategy. For this you might utilize various methods. For example, social media video production companies can create highly effective videos. Or you can use plain posts.
It is recommended that they are not too many to prevent the shares from being diluted. In the case of having several teams, different goals can be attacked at the same time.
For example, the marketing team may set a goal to drive traffic to the web and generate leads while support provides customer service.
These objectives have an important peculiarity: they can be quantified.
With the native tools of the platforms or third parties, you will have the possibility to monitor the actions day by day.
Likewise, since they are quantifiable, specific objectives can be set: Increase profits by X%, gain X number of followers, obtain a higher percentage of interactions, etc.
For that same reason, it is necessary that when setting goals, expectations are kept as realistic as possible.
Doubling sales, reaching a million followers in one year, or building a community in two months are not achievable goals for most brands.
Know your audience
Once you know what you want to achieve with your social media marketing strategy, the next step is to get to know your audience.
Thanks to the demographic data available in the analytical tools, you can avoid having to guess who to direct your brand messages too.
In addition to demographic data, it is necessary to create a profile of our ideal client. This will allow us to design specific content for the target.
Some of the questions we must answer about our audience are: Who are they? What might interest you about our products or services? What social networks do they use? Where do they consume the type of content that the brand offers? Why and how do they consume them?
Build your client’s profile
It is likely that if your company has been in the market for a long time, you already have enough data to answer these questions.
Otherwise, there are different types of market studies that you can carry out to complete your client’s profile.
Additionally, the same social media platforms usually publish statistics of their users as do some marketing companies.
With this data, a precise profile of who are the people interested in the brand’s products or services are built.
In this way, you can design the type of content that your audience wants to consume and on the platforms where they usually live online. The success of any marketing strategy depends on knowing the target audience.
What type of content are you going to share?
Creating attractive content that is capable of generating reactions and improving brand recognition is the focus of this brand.
By knowing our audience you will be able to design the type of content that connects with your audience.
When we talk about the type of content we are not only referring to whether it is video or images. It is more effective to think about the theme of our publications.
For example, if your brand is for sporting goods, your audience may be interested in content related to wellness, active lifestyle, and sports.
It is possible to work with different topics in social networks, as long as they are related to the objectives of the company and the interests of the audience.
However, it is important to find a balance between only publishing promotional content and informational content.
Where to share the content?
An important fact that we must take into account is which social media platforms your potential clients are on.
Depending on age, socioeconomic status, and other demographic details, the audience may be on Facebook or Instagram.
In this way, you can focus your strategy on the networks that use the most. Although for the SEO of the company it is important at least to have profiles in all networks.
Following these steps will help you be successful with your social media marketing strategy and get the most out of every action possible.
