Why is it important for you to have a social media marketing strategy?

Why is it important for you to have a social media marketing strategy?  

Social Media is a vast and growing potential market. Everyone wants a slice of the pie and so they should. What all this mean though is that it is easy to get lost in the crowd and to accidentally break some well known but often unspoken Social Media Netiquette rules.

Having a strategy is how you can avoid wasting time or worse generating negative feedback on Social Media sites. When creating a social media strategy there are a few things you really need to consider but the overall consideration you keep at the top of your mind should be what you are hoping to achieve using your chosen media. If you don't have a solid strategy it doesn't matter if you are smart, hardworking and creative your social marketing may well still fall flat on its face.

So what can you do?

1.  Set a solid goal:

If you are not really sure what you want to achieve then you will mostly likely not achieve anything. It is very important before starting your social media marketing that you know what you want to get out of it. You create a strategy to match your goals, not a goal to match your strategy.

2. Choose a specific audience:

The more targeted you are about who you reach out to the more effective you will find yourself becoming at putting yourself in a position to connect with people ready to hear your message. You need to be very focused on finding the audience you want by engaging the social media platforms they use and aligning your message to their interests. You need to put yourself where they are rather than trying to make them come to you.

If your content doesn't resonate with your audience it will fall on deaf ears. People overwhelmingly go to Social Media sites as a safe haven where they are surrounded by like thinkers. This means it can be quite easy to target a set interest group but also that it is crucial they are interested in your message. Consider your content carefully and tailor it to suit your audience. If your target don't like reading try making your blog a video diary instead of a written one for example. Also never forget you should be aiming to fill a need that your audience has not selling them something they have no interest in.

3. Listen to your clients:

Don't waste time and effort trying to guess what your targeted client group will find interesting. Listen to what type of content is being consumed by the group and aim your own content creation towards similar themes and patterns. It is also very important to gather as much information as you can by using a wide range of social media platforms and keeping track of key words and current trends.

To get the best understanding of your audience it is important to consider who the competition is, how your audience is likely to react to current events and other stimuli. Also if your audience has anyone who is a strong motivator consider using information, quotes and references to those influencers in your content.

4.  Create high value content:

The first thing you need to be sure of when creating content is that you are creating content that provides a high value to your audience. This means not spamming your social media feeds with sales pitches and random content. You also need to be sure you are choosing the right social media sites for your content.

Don't spread yourself too thin. It isn't necessary to be on every social media platform. It is far more important to be on the same social media platforms as the people that you are trying to reach use. This is where doing your research comes into play.

To make sure you are providing value set yourself an editorial goal. Decide what you want to cover and make sure you are producing content that reaches your audience on a regular and dependable basis. You don't have to be creating new content every day but you do need to create new content often enough to keep your audience listening and on track. One great way of doing this is to start publishing or creating content of a given type once a week and making sure your audience knows they will get the next installment soon. The key point here is to be as consistent as possible.

Content that engages and is seen as being valuable includes images, information and a call to some sort of action. It is important to keep your audience interested in your message. It is also important to give your audience an easy way to share your content with their friends and followers. The whole point of using social media as a marketing platform is to reach a wider audience and people will not take more than a few seconds to share your content. If it is harder for them to do so than clicking a button many simply wont bother.

Not all of your content has to be new or unique. If you come across something that you think will improve your audiences life in some way then be sure to share that too. Even if you are setting yourself up as a guru having credible outside sources supporrting your message can only make it stronger.

5.  Amplify:

Another key reason for sharing other peoples content is that it helps build relationships. One of the ultimate ways of creating a loyal follower is to congratulate them on their excellent content and to share it with your own audience. This is a step that many people leave out as they worry they are helping the competition out. If the content is of high value though it makes your audience far more likely to trust you and to have faith in the fact that you really do want good things for them by sharing it.

It can be a big step to pay for advertising or for boosting of content but if you are sure your content is good and you have done your research well then it can be a great way of quickly increasing your audience. Don't rush into it though make sure you really are marketing the right thing to the right people or it will be money down the drain.

 6. Stay up to date with your stats:

Use analytics. No matter what form of social media you choose to use there is always great data to be gained from either inbuilt or third party analytics. It can be easy to forget about checking who is listening to you and whether they are taking action but if you are not keeping an eye on your ROI you are doomed to fail. Make sure you also keep an eye on the traffic and action data from your website and/or blog. Even when people like what you say they may not be leaving social media sites to come and find out more and all your content may be going to waste.

All of this extra research helps you to keep doing more of what is working and less of what is not.

7. Results are not instant:

Good results don't come instantly. It can be very hard to keep plugging away when you just don't seem to be getting anywhere, but if you have made a good strategy and are sticking to good content on appropriate platforms you will make it. Keep pushing and keep putting out great stuff for your potential clients to see and you will build the audience you need.