How to Develop a Social Media Strategy

When done right, social media can almost a lot of work for you. So how do you create a social media strategy to make these platforms actually work? Well, it is a process. It doesn’t happen overnight, but with some of these steps, you can get your social media to be a huge part of your marketing plan.

Social media has truly changed our entire world. Some use it to find their favorite dog memes while others can use it as a major business platform. Regardless of what you plan to use it for, you are on it, often and always learning about different people, places, and things. Social media can be a driving force to getting phones to ring and bringing in a lot more business than expected.

 

Focus Groups

As you build your business, focus groups can come in handy to give you feedback on the overall process or product that you are selling. They can explain what they liked, what they didn’t and give you knowledge and feedback from the general public.

The first bit of advice if you plan to create a social media strategy is to get social! Talk to people. Figure out what they want and how you can adjust your page to keep bringing people back.

By going through this process, you will learn a lot about yourself and your own company. You will start to dissect things and figure out exactly how you want it to be portrayed. Which brings us to the next point of *finding your voice*. Social media and content, in general, has a voice and an overall personality. When people go to your page, what does it “feel” like and what does it sound like? Is it serious, informational, funny, relatable etc? When you figure this out, your posts can have a creative yet expectant feel that consumers may look forward to.

You should focus on the positivity. Even if you are shedding light on a serious situation, this is an opportunity to explain how you feel about it, how you can change it, or why your company is stepping in. At the same time, this allows you to be REAL! People love other genuine people. Explaining things that are real while finding a positive light can really make you stand out.

 

Know Your Audience

Your focus groups will give you a good idea as to who you are going to target. Let’s say that your company sells toys or products for children… In that case, you may target mothers ages 28-42. If you are a company specializing in hand made tools, you may want to target men ages 35-65. Understanding your audience comes in the way before you hit the social media platforms, but this comes from your original branding concepts as well. Everything from the colors, the logo, the tagline etc… it all goes into who you want to see your page and buy your products.

Get familiar with some form of analytics or tracking software when you are using social media or any platform for that matter. Analytics allows you to track your progress. As you start to incorporate boosted posts on Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and others into your daily marketing plan, your phone may start to ring quite a bit more. Don’t you want to know where those calls are coming from? From before you ever put together your strategy, take a look at your current analytics so you can begin tracking the amazing progress that this journey can provide.

 

Social Media Platforms

Over the last few years, social media has evolved. We went from creating a Myspace to our own Facebook page real quick! Before you start to strategize how you will increase your profits tenfold, you have to understand how these platforms work! They all have their pros and cons and have the potential to help your business thrive if done properly.

Facebook is the most popular platform if you want your business to be seen by people all over the world. It allows you to update your pictures frequently and is a great way to not only showcase your business but showcase the personality behind that computer. It allows you to boost your posts where you can actually pick a targeted audience.  You can choose the city, the mile parameter, gender, even down to their ages. This is a way to attract a specific type of person for that particular post.

Instagram is perfect for your business if you focus mostly on imagery and photography. A lot of companies don’t work with a lot of content, or things are a bit more self-explanatory. For example, If you are a nonprofit, working in a 3rd world country and want to hone in on emotions of people by showing them what you are doing, Instagram can be a great platform for that.

Twitter can be a fun way to keep your audience intrigued on a daily basis. If you want to tweet out fun comments, contests, pictures, or just FYI moments, twitter is good for that. People tend to aimlessly scroll through twitter and if you have a captivated audience, they may see your tweets regularly. This is a great addition to a larger platform that you can use.

LinkedIn has continued to grow and be used over the years. It allows you to learn about potential employees/employers while not having to have direct contact. On your LinkedIn page, you can explain your business for those who may want to be a part of it or could be a good fit for your growing business. Although a lot of companies find this unnecessary, this could open a lot of doors into additional deals or people who can continue to help your business grow.

Protect yourself

Did you know that Facebook and other platforms can create wrong or duplicate accounts for you? You may have 2, 5, or even 10 Facebook accounts out there for your business that you did not know about! So how does that figure into your strategy with figuring out the concept of social media? Getting educated on these platforms allows you to protect yourself and your company. If you know what to look for, you know what to fix. This can help with your overall online presence as well as your reliability to potential customers. Nothing is worse than people trying to call you, but your number is wrong online.

You can also utilize your analytics to see who is going on your site and where they are coming from. Did you know that you have the capabilities to block spammers from other countries that you don’t want on your site? Because social media is world-wide, your posts can reach people thousands of miles away; Which in some situations is great! While other situations could be detrimental. Learn what to look for and do some research on how you can protect yourself.

If at First, You Don’t Succeed, Try, Try Again!

Social media can be a trial and error process. Just because your first boosted post only gets 100 views does not mean that you aren’t doing it right. Maybe that specific demographic was more in tune with another event, page or interest during that time. Perhaps your company appeals to different people in specific seasons and you have to constantly adjust your target audience.

Don’t discount your strategy just yet, but first, ask yourself some of these questions…

-Are you getting the results you want? Why or why not?

-What can you change?

-What do you need to go back and alter?

-Who is connecting with you and why?

-Who are your competitors and what are they doing?

And remember to give yourself some time! Before you get tons of likes, comments, and shares on your posts, you have to focus on building a great social media page and start to increase your following. Give people a reason to come back to the page and then figure out what they want.

When you begin your plan of boosted posts, professional photography and witty content, you may be expecting your page to double in likes overnight… not always the case. People like consistency. Although you may have to alter things frequently throughout the year, there is still an overall consistency you can show your loyal followers.

 

Figure Out Your Budget—Use It Wisely

It is no surprise to any company that marketing takes some funds! Although you never know what kind of return it is going to bring in, the wise old saying, it takes money to make money, is still true today. But figuring out exactly where you want to spend that money within your marketing budget is the tricky part!

Print ads aren’t necessarily dead, but digital has definitely stepped up as the leading marketing pathway these days. You have Facebook, AdWords, Instagram Ads, as well as several directories. So, what do you do and how do you know what works? If you have little to no experience, your best bet is to start smaller and gradually increase your weekly and monthly budget. Facebook boosts are a great way to target a specific audience and know who is looking at your posts, where, when, and what they do with it. Ad word campaigns, if done correctly, can also be a huge way to help grow your business. Working closely with our company, we can help to create a useful and effective ad word campaign that can be a great partner with your social media marketing.

Are you ready to start your journey down the social media marketing road? Remember these few things… Be genuine to yourself and your company, be patient, it isn’t as hard as it seems when done right and know that it has been proven to work for so many companies out there.

Seek help, ask questions and know that there is a right and wrong way to do this! Start writing things down, begin focus groups and get social! Learn what people want and need from your page in order to trust you and how you plan to get your point across. Welcome to the fun, fast-paced, and complex world of social media marketing.

Are you ready to take your marketing to the next level? Our social media experts are here to help. At NetSource, we are an award-winning team of graphic designers, web developers, programmers, marketers, and social media experts who will take your business to the next level! Want to see what we can do for you? Get a FREE QUOTE today.