Social media marketing has matured over the last decade to become an integral part of the marketing mix for both large and small businesses. It can have a significant and measurable impact on your bottom line and – when done well – can be a powerful marketing tool.
Whether you are trying to reach a local audience or launching a brand nationwide, social
media marketing should be considered as part of your marketing activity. The steps needed to build a social marketing strategy that is appropriate to your audience and achieves your business goals.
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Estimate Your Position in this Marketing World: The first step in creating a successful and robust social media strategy is to assess your existing social media efforts and that of your competitors.
To assess your presence you must look at the size of your existing audience (if you have one) and how engaged that audience is. Check Yourself by asking following questions:
WHICH PLATFORMS ARE YOU ON?
Where do you have a company profile? Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn
HOW MANY FOLLOWERS DO YOU HAVE ON EACH?
Overall, how many people follow your Twitter account, like your Facebook page?
HOW ENGAGED ARE YOUR FOLLOWERS?
Look at your last few posts on each platform and see how many people liked it, commented, retweeted, etc.
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HOW ACTIVE ARE YOU?
How frequently do you post on each platform? Rarely,monthly, weekly, daily?
WHAT TYPE OF CONTENT WORKS WELL?
Do you notice that you get more engagement (likes, comments, retweets, etc) on a certain type of post? Do images get a high engagement, or video content? See if you can determine any trends with top performing content.
HOW MANY LEADS HAS THIS ACTIVITY GENERATED?
How many customers you have gained from your social accounts? Has any new business come via social?
ASSESSING YOUR COMPETITORS
Now you must assess how your presence compares to that of your competitors. Have a look at your top three competitors and see how their presence and activity differs to your own. This will help you determine how large a role social media plays in their strategy and will also give you ideas on what
platforms you should use and what content seems to resonate with the audience.