How to Build Your Social Media Marketing Strategy

Getting Started with Social Media

Your company probably has social media accounts on a few different platforms. But are you using them properly to grow your company? We often come across business accounts that have so much potential but are struggling to take advantage of the amazing benefits that social media marketing provides. It’s important to figure out what works best for your company when developing a social media strategy, so we’ve broken down some factors of a social media marketing plan to help you get started:

Set Measurable Goals

When you start any big project, you want to make sure that you have defined goals that will help you determine if you are doing a good job. An increase in sales is probably the first thing that your mind jumps to. Afterall, that is a clear metric that has an obvious benefit for your company. Sales conversions is a great goal, but you may also want to focus on increased followers, link clicks, engagement, reach, or brand awareness. Additionally, make sure that the goals you set are realistic. If you are just starting to build up your social media presence, you might want to start small and see how your campaign plays out. Then, you can go back and have a better understanding of what you should be aiming for.

Evaluate Your Target Audience

You probably have a pretty good understanding of your ideal customer already. From age, gender, socioeconomic class, interests etc. you know who is looking to engage with your product. Once you recognize this group as your main audience, dive into other groups of people that you want to try and target. If you’re just getting started, you will want to focus the majority of your attention on your target audience, but as you move forward this research will help you reach new users.

Once you have run a few campaigns and built up your social media presence, you can take advantage of the many social analytic platforms to help you measure your progress. You will be able to see demographic information about your users, as well as how many people are being reached, engaging with your page, clicking your links, and even converting from a user to a customer. This information will help you shape your social media marketing moving forward so that you set appropriate goals and audiences. Hard data takes the guesswork out of your marketing campaigns.

Pick Your Platforms

Decide where you want to focus the majority of your effort and potentially budget. A general rule of thumb is to make sure you are posting Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and Pinterest. Of course, depending on your target audience you may want to be posting and engaging with people on other platforms. For example, TikTok has become increasingly popular with teenagers and might be the perfect place for you to get their attention. Your best bet is to post where your audience is. If you cater primarily to other businesses, you may want to spend more time interacting with people on LinkedIn. If your products involve crafting, cooking, or

DIY of any form, Pinterest might be a great option to focus on. Essentially you want to go where your audience is likely to be. Check out this article for more information about the platforms that specific demographics engage with.

Pick Your Posting Times

Did you know that the times that you decide to post have an impact on who sees and engages with your posts? People use their social media accounts different times during the day. For example, you’ll probably see a spike in engagement around lunch time and in the evenings for people who work a standard 8am-5pm job, while a stay-at-home parent might hop on their Facebook page multiple times throughout their day. You want to post out your content when your target audience is on social media so that they are more likely to see your post before it gets buried under the rest of the content in their feeds. This article breaks down the best time for a company to post on specific platforms based on their industry!

Create Content

Now that you’ve done all the research you can get to the fun part – creating your content! Make sure to pick a general theme or aesthetic that you will implement across all of your platforms. It will likely be based off your company colors and fonts, but feel free to add in other aspects to make your profile stand out. Besides posting just images, create videos that will grab attention when people are mindlessly scrolling through their feeds. When you plan out your posts, make sure to follow the 80/20 rule. Only 20% of your posts should be trying to sell your products or services, the other 80% should be more general and focus on building your brand image and engaging with users. People will get sick of you and will likely stop following your account if you just keep trying to sell your product.

Whatever you end up posting, make sure to push it out across all of your platforms (when appropriate). Create a routine posting schedule to make sure that you are actively promoting your brand’s presence. People won’t trust a company that goes months without posting something, and once you stick to something you need to commit! It will only help improve your business.

Organic vs. Paid

After you’ve figured out everything above, you will want to decide if you are going to aim for organic results or if you have some money to put behind your campaigns. Depending on your strategy you may want to see the traffic that your profiles get before you start throwing money at it. On the other hand, ads are a great way to get yourself in front of users who are likely to engage with your brand. Take the time to think about your spending capabilities as well as if paid ads align with your marketing goals.

Once you’ve gone through and created your social media marketing strategy, you’re ready to start your first campaign and measure your results! Make sure to remember that you probably won’t see drastic changes overnight, but that over time your presence will grow, and you will be closer to meeting your goals. We hope that this has been a helpful guide to getting started with your social media marketing strategy. If you have any other questions, feel free to contact us here!