When it comes down to Social Media Marketing and goal setting, many believe that social media are just a minor friction of a complete marketing plan. But let’s be honest, we can see this every day: branding, building a trusting community, even increasing sales are results of a brand consistently socializing through Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube etc.
Here are some basic but important tips for creating a successful Social Media strategy and presence:
- Set a clear goal. Do you want your brand to become more well-known or trusted? Do you want to increase your sales? To open a dialogue between your brand and your customers (actually you’ll want most of the above, so try to prioritize!). A fair social media presence will get your website more traffic and vice versa.
- Be consistent with interesting, captivating content that will attract your audience – Social Media is not an announcement board; it doesn’t serve the purpose of a product catalogue. You’ll have to be alert, trust your instincts, check on your competitors and share information that will engage people.
- Know your target audience. Don’t waste your time, effort and (sometimes) money on people that will have no interest in your product or services. It is better to narrow down the audiences than (even today, in 2014) try to get more likes from people who won’t engage in any way in the future.
- Choose the social media platforms you will use. Depending on the product/services you provide, the nature of your business (B2B or B2C) and audience you target to, there is no reason for your brand to have a presence on every social media platform available.
- Don’t let this be a one-man-show. Get insights, ideas, inspiration, and info from other colleagues, in different departments of your brand.
- Keep it simple and smart – if you want to share your new technical handbook, drive your audience to your website through social media platforms.
- Please your audience. Feed them. Make them feel that they have something to gain by reading your posts, tweets, etc. Tell them something new, something funny – something worth reading!
- Don’t let internet and social media “suck you up”!!! Some people find it extremely hard to keep concentrated on a project, when instead of posting content they get carried away and lose track of time. Of course this happens when spending hours on the internet and social media. Try to plan ahead and if necessary set an alarm every 15’ to “wake you up”!
- Get help from the experts – if you are the business owner you have three choices: a) hire a social media manager, b) outsource your social media presence to a social media marketing company or if you strongly believe you and you alone should be responsible for handling your company’s social media presence, get properly trained!
- Love what you do!