Since we have started our blog, many readers have asked me to be specific on what we do when we develop a social media strategy for a client. And Enlyne Branding likes simplifying everything in 7 steps, if it is more steps, then it starts becoming complicated and too much or what we do is simplifying it to 7 tasks on every phase. On this article we are going to reveal 7 simple key strategy elements that make your social media strategy both valuable and profitable. From Enlyne Branding's perspective, it is easier to manage your social media status from a campaign to campaign perspective, than a long on-going, endless project. The campaign is focused and has specific deadline dates, similar to a television series with 20 episodes, and have a different focus on the next campaign. The strategy elements we are presenting are based on a campaign to campaign basis.What is most important is to remember that this exercise is a outcome-based project. If something is not working, be flexible enough to know that you need to change your offering to suit your target audience. Also to keep in mind that if it does not make money, it does not make sense, so profitability should be balanced with attracting the audience. And they are as follows:
1. Do Your Research
Doing your research is always a good idea. You are able to offer a solution that is directly focused to your target audience. Take a look at the services that you are offering, and determine how best to package them, and be packaged in such a way that your audience will be interested in them. If you don't know how to, then this will be part of your research. Depending on how extensive your offerings are, Google is always a good place to start, but as a professional, you would know who holds your industry stats, for instance, Adcorp is good place to start when you want to find information on the South African employment index. There are also research houses, that deal with industry standards of specific industries. What is also valuable is to find White Papers of released papers by several professionals in your industry, usually their papers are rich with information that is well researched and well written. Most of the time, when your product or service is unique or you want to have specific outcomes that are only unique to your business, you will have to conduct this research yourself. There are also several ways in which this could be done, you can have focus groups, you can send surveys to your customers and internally and you can use direct marketing and direct interactions with your customers.
2. Determine Who You Want To Target
Sometimes you might be running a business and you think you only have one set of people who are your target market. But most of the time, you have several people who are your target market. Take a toy store for instance, you might think that their target market is kids, but it often is not the case. Their target market are parents with kids between ages 3 to 10 years (as these are parents who purchase the most toys), and you need to know how to attract these parents, so that they can purchase the toys for their kids. And music stores are targeting ages 13 to 35, as this is the age group that purchases music the most. Also know that there are exceptions to the rule, example, a 40 year old DJ will purchase music far more than a regular person who enjoys music privately. Be very clear who you want your social media campaign to target and what you want them to do with the information, and start mapping out a clear road on how they are going to end up at your finish line.
3. Develop Content That Sells
Some business success is dependent on Location, Location, Location. In the case of social media, your campaign's success is Content, Content, Content. I cannot stress how important your social media content is, if you have to, you must hire a writer, someone who will take what you want to say, and put it in such a way that it is attractive and can sell. Please do not mistaken developing content that sells to acting too smart for your audience. Always keep it simple and straight to the point, and always be sincere and honest. People can sense when you are not sincere and when you are not honest. And your campaign will fall flat on its face, with not a single lead or success. Again, always keep in mind the goal of the campaign, it is to generate more leads and it is to have loyal customers, and other objectives you have set for the campaign, if it is going to be a series of campaigns, keep in mind what this specific campaign is going to achieve.
4. Choose Your Social Networks For Best Communication Effectiveness
There is enough information on the internet to tell you which tools to use when trying to communicate your campaign's objectives. If you are one of the people who follows Enlyne Branding on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn, you will know that this week was a week of social media stats. To be brief, I will give you a few, if your business is a B2B business, you should focus on LinkedIn, as it draws the best leads and conversion rates above all social networks. LinkedIn converts 61% compared to 55% from the company blog. Please also note that people on the same grouping have different tastes and different social media appetites. So, when LinkedIn is your best tool for attracting leads and converting them, it does not mean you must ignore, company blogs, Facebook and Twitter. After choosing which social media tools you are going to focus on, ensure that you are aware of what are the rules of engagement for each of the social networks. Know on how you can use each of the social media optimally, if you are not going to use it at least 70% of its capacity, you might as well not use it at all.
5. Optimize Your Content
Even today, SEO, AdWords, and PPC are still foreign concepts to most marketers, which is a skill that every marketer must possess, in my opinion. You don't need to know the various algorithmic formulas that are used, but you have to understand why your content needs to be keyword rich. Keyword rich content is content that has the necessary keywords that people type when searching for similar products and services. There is software that can help you with what keywords certain types of companies in a particular industry. The most important thing about this element is understanding what your research has given you and optimizing content that will attract them to your products and services.
6. Feedback
Content that is most effective is content that engages your customers, therefore you need to understand a tool and content that is the most effective in giving you the most effective feedback. Again there is software that will be able to help you with the most effective feedback strategy. There are several ways to get feedback, either through direct marketing, landing pages or through social networks. The most effective is Facebook, which is the most effective in sharing content. When your objective is just to share content, Facebook should be your main focus of that particular element of the campaign.
7. Measure And Continually Analyze
We have all heard of the saying that says, "if you can't measure it, you can't manage it". And we are so fortunate that social media has got all the stats that are necessary for us to make informed decisions. All the main social networks have got their own kind of stats, from geographical areas, the number of hits, stats from live, daily, to weekly and monthly. You will be able to make any type of analysis from the information. I would suggest that for even your website, you need to have stats that will determine its ROI. Also use your stats to determine your customers' favorite product or service, and have an emphasis on the particular subject, because it is clear that they want to hear or learn more about what you are giving them. Set yourself a schedule and only for 15 minutes daily, where you read the feedback and the stats and continue to give your customers what they want to hear.
If you follow these simple steps after you have done your research on your audience and a particular social network tool. You will enjoy success beyond your imagination. Cold calling will be a thing of the past, and you will enjoy more qualified leads and more conversions. Remember, what your brand promises them, it must deliver. Do not promise them Milk and Honey, and give them Lemons and Salt Water.
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