Building a Successful Social Media Strategy

In order to connect with your audience cross-platform, your social media engagement strategy is essential. Social media management helps you build your brand and manage your community. Wondering how you can get started? Let’s jump right in! Listed below are some tips to develop a successful social media strategy.

1. Set Business Goals

Knowing and defining your social media goals is an important step in developing a marketing strategy, as it will affect the rest. Do you wish to generate more leads, learn more about your market, expand your audience or enhance brand awareness in the marketplace? Regardless of whether you want to achieve all of these objectives, you need to note that each will entail a different marketing strategy.

Set your goals by considering your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and determine what social media metrics you'll need.

You need metrics for each social media channel you use in order to succeed. When it comes to Facebook, engagement, reach, and impressions are key, while on Instagram, interaction and discovery are paramount. Apart from basic metrics, you can also monitor audience growth rates, amplification rates and virality rates. You can measure success with many metrics, but focus on those that matter to your business.

2. Conduct Audience Research

Understanding who your audience is and what they want is the first step in creating personalized messaging and content. You can do this by conducting online surveys or interviews with your customers. Social listening is another way. You can use BuzzSumo or Followerwonk to do this on social networks. Then you can create Buyers Personas to serve your customers better.

3. Conduct a Competitor Analysis

Researching your competitors is essential to your social marketing strategy. Knowing the social platforms and campaigns your competitors use helps you understand what they are doing and how they are competing.

Additionally, you can see the message they are sending, their content, and the frequency of their posts. Once you understand how they interact with their customers and how they succeed, you can either emulate their engagement or go a different route to capture their attention.

4. Select your Social Media Platforms

There are many options to choose from, so it can be confusing at first. However, don't try to appear on every social media platform. Some won't be right for your content or business. Which social network should you choose and how can you optimize your content for each?

• Facebook: In addition to being the industry's largest and oldest social media platform, Facebook allows you to reach prospects and customers in a targeted manner. You can use Facebook Live to connect with customers via video. Several types of content work on this platform.
• LinkedIn: B2B companies and B2C companies alike use LinkedIn for business networking. Businesses can connect organically and through paid advertising in the B2B space. These platforms are best used for blogging, whitepapers, eBooks, and other content relevant to the industry.
• Twitter: Since Twitter uses real-time content, your posts need to be timely and relevant. Besides allowing quick replies, its hashtags allow brands to discover trending content and new content. It makes for a great customer service channel. Using hashtags correctly across social networks requires some practice, so take your time to figure it out.
• Instagram: A visual platform that has seen huge growth over the past few years, Instagram continues to be a hit among younger audiences. This platform is great for showcasing products and building connections with influencers. Additionally, Instagram will soon allow customers to purchase in-app through shoppable posts.
• TikTok: With a fast-growing audience and a great place for video content, TikTok is one of the best social media channels. The platform, which is known for its humorous and short-form videos, is gaining traction as a platform for marketing and can be effectively used. TikTok is the best place to find user-generated content and collaborate with influencers.
• Pinterest: It's a social network for discovering things. People come here for images and videos that inspire them. This pinboard has millions of pins ranging from DIY crafts to seasonal recipes, making it good for curation of content as a social mood board.
• YouTube: As a marketing tool, YouTube provides a way for marketers to reach customers in a way that is both informative, as well as entertaining. You may find this platform useful if you create a lot of how-to or tutorial videos.

5. Develop your Content Plan

Now that you've chosen the right social media platform and done your research, it's time to decide what to post and how to post. Here are some tips to plan your content:

• Make your pages stand out with a consistent tone.
• Utilize categories or themes for your content.
• Prepare a content calendar.
• Schedule your posts.

Conclusion

With all these tips and steps in mind, you are well equipped to create and maintain a successful social media presence. If you've got too much on your plate though, it is best to leave the social media marketing to experienced professionals. Not only does this save time, but it ensures you get more leads and engagement as well. At Fondalo, we combine strategy, content, and customer experience across multiple platforms to make a strong impression on your target customer that inspires action. We're one of the best digital marketing agencies in Florida, reach out to us today!