(Newswire.net — February 16, 2022) — All roads lead to Rome. There is no one way to be successful on social media. On the contrary. You can often observe very different approaches to expanding your reach, increasing your awareness, or winning new customers.
All paths have one thing in common, however: they must be pursued over the long term. That’s why a social media strategy needs to be well thought out and based on measurable parameters, without which you might get lost on your way and never reach your goal. In this article, you’ll get four ways to find the right social media strategy for you.
Use common marketing methods
Although social media marketing is a relatively young discipline, it is playing an increasingly important role within the marketing mix. Methods and concepts that were already established can easily be applied to your social media campaign. Probably, the best example is the SMART formula.
SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Relevant, and Timely. Applied to social media goals, it might look like this:
- Specific: You want to address your posts to people who are active in sports clubs.
- Measurable: e.g. likes or comments under your posts.
- Doable: You want to share at least four posts a week, so you enlist the help of guest writers.
- Relevant: You create added value by allowing amateur athletes to network with like-minded people in your posts.
- Time-bound: You want to achieve this goal by a specific point in time.
The SMART formula is just one of many concepts that will help you structure your thoughts and follow a clear and consistent strategy.
Identify your target audience
Good teachers know how to explain topics to different students. They know how to talk to a fifth grader and how to talk to a ninth-grader.
All the expertise in the world is useless if you don’t understand your audience, just as the best products are of no use if you don’t understand your buyers. The more precisely you know who your posts on social media are intended for, the better. It is therefore essential that you create a persona, a kind of model of your customer, at the beginning of your campaign and ask yourself questions such as what hobbies and interests you pursue, how old you are, what your preferences and expectations are, etc.
Once these questions are answered, you can always create your content with this persona in mind and ask yourself: Would you like this post?
Use strategic planning tools
The SWOT analysis is one of the best-known instruments and is used to determine your own position and develop a strategy. SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.
Then, when planning your social media strategy, you can:
- Strengths, e.g. already established brand or affinity to social media
- Weaknesses, e.g. too little staff or time
- Opportunities, e.g. opening up new target groups or better retaining young customers
- Risks, e.g. political trends or new competitors
Use social media marketing advice
Meanwhile, all companies have become aware of the importance of social media. Yet, planning a strategy independently and successfully implementing it requires more than just the will to do so. In most cases, as a small or medium-sized company, you are not able to take on all social media marketing tasks. And often the necessary know-how or human resources are missing.
There are people who specialize in helping companies expand their presence on social networks. Hiring an agency in the field of social media strategy consulting can make a lot of sense. It saves you valuable time and you have set the optimal framework for your successful campaign right from the start.
The important thing here is to find a consultant who is actively trying to understand your business goals in order to convert them into social media goals. A consultant who cannot develop a basic understanding of your individual circumstances will not help you in the long term.
All roads lead to Rome. There is no one way to be successful on social media. On the contrary. You can often observe very different approaches to expanding your reach, increasing your awareness or winning new customers. All paths have one thing in common, however: they must be pursued over the long term. That's why a social media strategy needs to be well thought out and based on measurable parameters, without which you might get lost on your way and never reach your goal. In this post, you'll get four ways to find the right social media strategy for you.