Social media marketing is one of the most effective forms of advertising to earn money. When done correctly, a business will generate more sales as it can reach more audience in a cost-effective way.
With over 243 million social media users in the United States, and still growing as of this moment, it just shows that businesses should take advantage of social media and its tools to remain relevant. And this is done by creating and establishing a social media presence. With the help of social media, you can engage with and target customers, create brand loyalty, and convert leads into sales.
One way of setting up effective social media marketing is through social media campaigns. This is the strategic execution of planned marketing strategies to help a business grow by using one or more social media platforms.
Planning, designing, and creating social media campaigns may seem like a daunting task. To achieve social media marketing success, be sure to keep the following 5 core elements in mind.
1. Research your competition
Whether you like it or not, you have competition. There are businesses out there that offer somewhat the same products or services that you have. Knowing your competitors is a crucial step to make your marketing campaign stand out. You can use the insights and information you have gathered from your competitive analysis to improve your marketing strategies.
By finding out what your competitors’ marketing strategies are, you are able to recognize your strengths and weaknesses. Below are some ways on how you can perform research on your competitors:
- List your top 10 competitors.
- Analyze what content they are publishing.
- Check out their SEO structure and performance.
- Sign up for their newsletter.
- Pay attention to their website.
- View their analytics data.
- Assess areas for improvement.
2. Choose an effective marketing platform for your business
According to a report published by statista, as of January 2020, the number of Facebook active users reached 180 million in the United States. However, you should not assume that your target audience prefers Facebook. Do your research on your target’s demographics and what particular social media they are using. For example, based on sproutsocial, the key demographics of Facebook users are women, with 75% users, and those who are within 25-30 years old bracket as 84% of them use Facebook.
To help you determine your target audience, here are some steps that you can follow:
- Consider your business type, e.g., best social media platforms for B2B, B2C, and so on.
- Identify the demographics of your target audience.
- Know what social media platform your target audience spends their time the most.
- Research your competitors to see what social media platform they are using and the content they are publishing.
- Define your goals for your target audience.
- Match your products/services to the different platforms available.
3. Plan your social media campaign theme
It is essential that you publish content that resonates with and reflects your brand’s values and voice. To know your values and voice of your business, you should establish a clear mission statement and use this as your “North Star” to guide you from your content creation. It will also help to determine your business’ direction, contribute to your decision-making and with the creation of your strategies. When planning your theme, it is important to keep in mind what you can do for your followers or subscribers, and not followers or subscribers can do for you. Other things that you should remember in planning your social media campaigns theme are:
- Develop a “big idea” that is impactful and will get the attention of your target audience. This approach will put you in a stronger position.
- You should have clear and realistic goals.
- Your strategies should outshine your competition.
- Set a marketing plan or action steps on how you will achieve your goals.
- Track your progress towards your goals.
4. Create an editorial calendar
Planning and strategizing content are important especially when you need to create and publish a huge amount of content for your social media marketing, blog, email marketing, and other marketing campaigns. Establishing an editorial calendar will help you save time and become more organized. Other benefits of an editorial calendar include:
- Plan targeted content that will convert your target audience into paying customers.
- Properly research the keywords you are going to use for SEO purposes and the information you will use to create compelling content.
- Have a consistent posting schedule.
- Give you a “bird’s-eye” perspective of your online communication.
The editorial calendar is different from a content calendar. The content calendar focuses on the daily planning and management of content. On the other hand, an editorial calendar is a high-level calendar that outlines broad themes that are prepared in advance and should be scheduled yearly, quarterly, or monthly. A free social media scheduler can be a useful tool to help manage and execute the content planned in the editorial calendar.
5. Implement your creative campaigns
There is no one-size-fits-all solution to launch a successful creative campaign. Different industries require different approaches, but there are some strategies that generally work well.
One of these is influencer marketing. Offering affiliate partnerships to influencers is a cost-efficient way to increase brand awareness, establish trust and ultimately, increase your sales.
Another is video marketing. People always lean towards interactive content. It gets your message across in a clear, fast and visually-appealing manner. This is why 90% of marketers use videos to augment their marketing strategy.
If you want to use videos to drive more results, the fastest way to learn the best video marketing strategy for social media is to study various resources online and to deep dive into successful campaigns launched by businesses similar to yours.
Social Media Marketing Strategies For Entrepreneurship is an online course that can help you learn more about social media campaign strategies. If you still can’t make up your mind on what platform you will be using for your business, this online course will give you an introduction to the social media marketing strategies of different platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and Reddit.
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