Social media has been critical to the marketing strategies of many companies today. You no longer have to pay tons of money to make your brand known. If you create great content, you can get attention on social media sites.
And when 58.4% of the world’s population now use social media, it’s the perfect place to find any type of customer you can imagine.
Building social media campaigns isn’t easy, so you must understand what it takes to create a great social presence. Keep reading to learn how to use social media platforms when marketing businesses online.
Learn About Your Audience
The first step to any great marketing campaign is to determine your target audience. Your products and services won’t appeal to everyone. If you act as such, it will be hard to create marketing material that convinces your target customers to buy.
You can learn about your customers by creating audience personas. Consider your audience’s demographics, interests, problems, and other information. The more you can detail in a persona, the easier time you’ll have creating targeted messaging.
Of course, you may also have several different types of customers. Create a persona for each type of customer you have and use that information for separate campaigns.
Find the Right Platform
Not all social media platforms are created the same. Each one has a unique audience. If you pick a platform that doesn’t have your target customer, you won’t get results from your social media campaign.
Facebook, for instance, is now used by almost everyone. It’s hard to find someone who doesn’t have an account, but that doesn’t mean everyone uses it regularly. It’s now used mainly by older people who don’t know about new platforms.
Instagram and TikTok, on the other hand, are used by younger people. They’re different content platforms and require a different type of marketing message. The right targeted message on these platforms will significantly outperform a general platform like Facebook.
Examine Your Competitors
While you can start a social media campaign with limited information, doing so makes things harder for yourself. If you want to get a leg-up, it pays to see what your current competition does on social media.
Research your top competitors and find their social media accounts. Here are a few things to look for during your search:
- Type of content
- Engagement
- Paid ad usage
- Entertainment to promotional content ratio
- Post frequency
- Posting times
Your goal is to see what your competitors regularly post. The type of material you regularly see will be the best for you to focus on. If you see something new, wait to see if your competitors do it again.
If you don’t see a marketing message regularly, the chances are it was a test that didn’t work.
Determine Your Goals
Once you understand the social media landscape, you can start creating your marketing campaign. The first step in beginning this process is to determine your marketing goals.
Take a product business, for instance. Your overall goal will be to drive more sales to your business. You’ll create engaging content that helps people understand what your company offers and convinces them that you have the best option.
A services business will be a little different. The sales cycle is longer in this situation. Your goal will be to push feedback to your store that talks about your services and get people on the phone to learn what they need.
Of course, there are other scenarios. Consider what will provide the most value for your company and focus on that.
Pick the Right Content
The content you post on social media platforms plays a vital role in your success. Take Instagram, for instance.
This is an image-focused website. If you don’t put enough work into posting the correct images, you won’t be able to convey your company’s message and get new customers.
You may not know this in the beginning, so you’ll need to run tests to see what kind of engagement you get with your content. Try posting video, text, and infographics to see what gets the most people to respond.
If you did any competitor research, you should know more about the types of content that resonate with people. Of course, you may need to make some modifications to align more with your business goals.
Find the Right Posting Times
Believe it or not, there’s a right time to post content on social media. It isn’t like paid ads or SEO, where you can get new customers any time of the day. People browse social media based on the time they have in the day to relax.
Take a consumer product, for instance. Many workers won’t be browsing Facebook during the day when they’re at work. They’ll spend more time in the evening when they start relaxing.
That means your posts will likely get picked up more if you schedule them when people get off work.
The same is true for the day of the week. People browse social media more and are more willing to read company messaging on specific days. Try to research the best times for your industry and stick to them when posting content online.
Create Communication Channels
You don’t only have to use social media to push content to your fans. You can also use it to offer customer service and engage directly with your customers.
The first place to start engaging with customers is through public comments. People can tag your brand on many platforms. You’ll get notifications when this happens and can respond to customer issues.
This means you can show in public that you respond well to issues and are willing to take action to satisfy customers.
You can also handle customer problems in private messages. Keep your direct messaging open and assign a customer support specialist to keep tabs on the inbox and respond quickly to issues.
Examine Paid Options
You can do a lot for free on social media. You can greatly improve your brand’s visibility if you’re good at getting followers on your page and creating engaging content.
However, those results won’t be immediate. It will take time for you to build a following and build your presence.
That’s where paid social media ads come into play. You can boost your content on many platforms to get instant traction on your content. You can use these paid features to test content faster and see what resonates best with your audience.
Track Your Results
You can only get so far when creating a social media campaign with the steps above. You won’t get everything right the first time. Because of that, you need to track what works and doesn’t work to optimize your social media work.
Track as many metrics as you can when you start on social media. Here are a few common ones for you to consider:
- Click-through rate
- Engagement rate
- Number of comments
- Product conversions
- Best post formats
- New followers
There are many other metrics to follow. You’ll need to determine which ones make the most sense for your company and specific campaigns. Whatever metrics you track, ensure they align with your social media goals and can help you optimize your strategy to get results.
Get a Professional Consultant
You can get far on social media when handling things on your own. However, the chances are good that you aren’t an expert. There may be limits to the results you can achieve when you work independently.
In many cases, getting help from a good social media marketing agency makes sense. An expert can help you optimize your campaign to get results faster.
They’ll help you post at the right time, create fantastic content, and better connect with your audience. On top of that, you’ll get better results without needing to spend much time yourself dealing with social media issues.
Yes, you’ll pay money to get help from experts. However, you’ll probably make your money back in extra business with the help you receive.
Now You Know What Building Social Media Campaigns Takes
There is a lot of competition on social media, so you can’t just sign up for all the social media platforms and expect success. You need to put some effort into building social media campaigns if you want to see results from your hard work.
The above guide is a great first start at building your social media profile. Keep it in mind when you start your campaign to maximize your chance of getting new customers.
Head back to the blog to find more tips that will help you build a great digital marketing strategy.
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