Top 8 Elements of a Social Media Marketing Strategy

How to build your Social Media Marketing Strategy for 2019

Now that we have entered in 2019, it’s time for you to start considering its social media strategy for the year ahead. Today, social media marketing is one of the most powerful marketing tools. It has entirely transformed the concept of marketing since the time it came into existence.

Given below is the abstract of various studies on social media statistics:

• Adults between 18-34 years of age are more likely to follow a brand via social media networking (95%)
• If a consumer has a great experience with a brand, they are more likely to recommend it to others (71%)
• Globally, there are about 2.56 billion users who use social media on mobile, which is equal to 34% penetration. That means 1 million new active users are added every day on social media.
• The ratio of consumers who do not follow the brand’s profile but discuss them is 96%
• Consumers like to share visual content 40 times more than any other type of content on social media

In today’s highly competitive world, no businesses can afford to ignore social media. Businesses with huge capital have a team of social media managers who are working day and night to maintain their social image on their behalf. But companies with a small budget do not have such a privilege because they do not have extra budget to invest in social media manager. But that doesn’t mean they can’t build their brand on social media platforms. This blog is aimed at helping small businesses to develop their social media marketing strategy right from scratch.

Let’s begin!

• Know your audience:

Any marketing starts with knowing the target audience. Therefore, before building your social media strategy, it is essential to collect information like age, gender, location, likes, dislikes, etc. of your ideal customers. The more information you have, the more accurate your plan will be. Not all social media platforms have a similar audience. Different people use social media in different ways. One of the best ways to know your audience is to create buyers persona. With the help of that, you will be able to have a deep understanding of all demographics as well as interests, behavior, etc of the target audience. Here is an example of creating a buyer’s persona:

According to the latest social media demographic statistics,

• 75% of male internet users are on Facebook
• Females more likely to use Instagram as compared to men

To know buyers persona, you can also use Facebook Insights, Twitter Analytics, Online forums, Google Analytics, etc.

• Goal-setting and objectives:

Once you are clear with your target audience, it’s time to identify your objectives for social media marketing strategy. For instance, if you are into B2B business, then your goal would probably be to increase brand awareness, lead generation or getting website traffic. Whatever is your goal, make sure it should always be aligned with your company’s broader goals. You can use S.M.A.R.T (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound) criteria to set benchmarks for success and figure out the contributing factors in achieving these goals.

• Budgeting:

So now that you are clear with your goals and know who will be your target audience, the next step is to determine how much money you are planning to invest in your social media strategy. The amount you want to spend on your social media will depend on a lot of factors.  If you need a big budget, you may try to find potential investors, or you may want to have a limited budget because you know you are a small business. The break-down will help you in identifying where your money goes. You would be required funds for your campaign content, community engagement efforts, paid social promotions, analytical tools, etc.

• Team building:

Studies have shown that while developing a social media strategy, it is difficult for small companies to secure internal resources to implement it. So it’s essential to have clarity on whether the internal staff will head the strategy or you will outsource the work. You can also go with the combination of both. These days, it’s easy to find freelancers for your work. You can get your social media banners and promotional items designed from Designhill—one of the world’s leading graphic design platform for all your designing needs. To simplify campaigns for your team, you may use tools such as Hootsuite, Feedly, Buffer, etc.

• Research:

Once you are clear with your resourcing and the tools they will, the next step is to research your campaign content and your positioning strategy. Your social media campaigns would probably have your content and the third party content. For that, you need to research relevant memes, blog posts, and other social media content. This can be achieved by following social groups related to your niche and or by using tools such as BuzzSumo. Talking about positioning strategy, research on how often you and on what platforms you should post.

• Producing content:

To make your campaign successful, you would be required to mix content. Content is what that encourages the audience to engage with the brand. In today’s social media landscape, sharing only blogs or links to a website will not help you in achieving objectives. You have to create inspirational videos, exciting pictures, discussion starters tailored to each platform. One of the significant advantages of producing great content is that it helps businesses in leaving a mark on the internet. Before you start developing content, it is vital to creating a content calendar. It will save you from missing out any seasonal occasion or holiday. It will also help you in maintaining consistency, which is essential for building brand identity.

Tip: To promote your campaign, you can add QR code to your business card and link it to your social media page or a website.

• Integrating with larger digital marketing strategy:

Social media marketing is not all about brand awareness. A lot of markers are using social media to improve sales. That is why it is essential to integrate your social media strategy with your overall digital marketing strategy.  Thanks to tracking tools like Google Analytics. By using this tool you, you can easily analyze web traffic and site behavior to different marketing channels. The data will help you in making different strategies work together.  Search engine marketing, email marketing, content marketing, PPC and display advertising, etc. are some of the marketing strategies you want to integrate.

• Tracking analysis:

The final area is analytics. Over the past few years, analytics has become one of the crucial things to improve social media marketing strategy.  Analytics will give you a detailed overview of all the content and promotions strategies that are helping you in achieving your objective. With the help of this data, you can modify your strategy at an early stage.

Conclusion:

There is no ‘perfect’ strategy that will work all through. It is always work-in-progress. What works today may not work tomorrow. Therefore, it is important to keep reviewing your strategies and make necessary changes.

Do you have any social media tips or tricks that have helped you in your business? Let’s chat about it in the comment section below.

Author Bio

Anne Carton is a small business consultant, designer and an enthusiast blogger working with Designhill, one of the fastest-growing custom design marketplace. She has authored several blogs, articles and editorials on various topics related to business card maker, book cover design, brochure design, interactive content, concerning design, social media strategies, growth hack strategies, digital marketing and e-commerce. Follow me twitter and linkedin