Social media marketing (SMM) is something that’s talked about a lot in digital marketing and small business circles. However, very few companies do it right. It must be understood that social media was never meant to be a place for businesses to just talk about themselves. Despite this, many businesses treat their own social media profiles this way without regard for their target audience.
The question remains: how do you create an effective social media marketing strategy? We’re going to discuss a few key elements that your business needs in order to be effective on social media.
3 Tips On How To Create A Social Media Strategy
Know your target audience.
Before you start on social media, you need to have a general idea of who your target audience is. Your target audience is defined as the group of people who would benefit most from doing business with you. It’s not quite the same as a target market, as you’re not directly selling to your social media followers (at least, not all of the time).
Depending on your business, your target audience could be very different. Not only that, but your target audience might exist on certain platforms and be absent on others. Your target audience could also depend on what aspect of their lives your business helps them with.
Local businesses, for the most part, can define their target audience as a specific demographic in their area. If you’re a plumber, you’re focusing primarily on homeowners in your service area. If you’re a dog walker, you’re focusing on dog owners in your service area.
When choosing platforms to use, make sure the platforms you choose are relevant to your target audience. Most of the time, you’ll be focusing on Facebook and Instagram; however, some markets don’t spend much time on either platform (for example, Gen Z notably spends little time on Facebook, some time on Instagram, and a great deal of time on platforms like TikTok).
Set meaningful goals.
What gets measured gets done, as they say, and what you measure will be determined on what you set as your goal.
Many people go into social media marketing with the goal of getting as many followers as possible. But is that really what you want? You don’t want to be sharing your message to people who don’t care about it. This is why you don’t want to ever buy followers or likes!
We recommend focusing your social media goals on your target market, and aim to use social media to grow your business’s revenue or market share. So instead of saying “I want 5,000 followers this month”, you might want to say “I want to generate at least 10 quality leads from my social media accounts this month”.
Make and share interesting and relevant content.
Content is king on social media, and without good original content to post, people aren’t going to want to follow you or share what you put out. Good social media content gets people’s interest, is relevant to them, and gets them to like, comment, or share.
Of course, original content isn’t the only thing you should be making. You should feel free (nay, empowered) to share fun, relevant, and thought-provoking content that others have created. Sharing memes, stories, and local news are excellent ways to get people more interested in following you. Thanks to social media’s sharing features, it’s easy to give credit to the original creator of the work.
