The new year means a fresh start for everyone, including your business strategies. You can take what worked for your business last year and get rid of what didn’t. This 2021, make sure that you are armed with the right information and data you need to be able to make a winning social media strategy for your business.
Social media is definitely part of the scheme to market your brand. And it will surely stay that way for a long time. According to Statista, in 2020 alone, there are about 3.96 billion active social media users around the world. Imagine the number of people who can get to know your brand through these social media platforms. If you really want to be on top of your game and be ahead of your competitor, you need to tap into social media marketing’s power and reap the benefits it has to offer such as generating awareness, leads, engagement, boosting retention, traffic, ROI, and more. Social media should definitely be part of your digital marketing strategy.
Follow these pointers below to create a killer social media strategy this 2021:
Set SMART Goals
For those who don’t know, SMART stands for:
- S – specific: your goals should be specific and identify a tangible outcome
- M – Measurable: you must be able to identify a component for success
- A – Attainable: the goal should challenge you, but still be achievable
- R- Relevant: what you want to achieve is relevant to your business
- T- Time-bound: you need to set a deadline to avoid procrastination
This methodology is effective in creating a winning strategy. When it comes to digital marketing, you must establish your goals. Don’t just post for the sake of it. It will only bring zero value to your business. Make sure that you follow the SMART methodology for a clearly defined goal.
Research Your Target Audience
It is important that you know your target audience, and you don’t just assume that you know them. Making assumptions that you know your audience will not give you the results you need, and will just lead to frustration and wasted resources. Hence, it is important to research deeper about your audience. You can use different digital marketing tools to know more about your target audience. Google Analytics can provide you with demographic statistics, which can be broken into traffic sources, conversion rates, and so on. These tools can provide you real-life numbers that you can use to figure out whom you should be targeting in your strategy. You also need to use social media analytic tools to get a good deal of information about your audience such as how they interact with your business, their likes, dislikes, needs, thought process, etc.
Once you’re done with your research, you can categorize your audience into groups that correspond to a different buyer persona, based on age, interests, profession, etc. The more information you have, the better understanding you will have about your audience, and the stronger your strategy will be.
Examine Closely Your Competition
You have to know your competitors well. By simply monitoring them, you can get valuable data about their campaigns, audience interaction levels, what they’re posting, tactics, and more. You can also get an idea of how they move.
If you don’t know who your competitors are, you can just search for your most valuable keywords in Google and it will show up. Once you have identified your competitors, you can take a closer look at their main focus, their target audience, key phrases used, and if the audience is resonating with what they’re sharing. You can also check if they are running a paid ad campaign.
This is another strategy to know how you can adjust your own strategy to maximize the effectiveness of the campaign. You can also figure out what their strategy lacks, and you can use that to your advantage.
Select the Social Media Channels
Part of your strategy should be to find out which social media channels will work for your brand. You don’t just use Facebook because it’s popular. You need to select the platforms that your target audience uses and one that is aligned with your goals. Each platform has its own distinctive characteristics. Some are more appropriate for B2B while some maybe more inclined with B2C. Just make sure that you’re choosing the platform based on what you are selling or promoting.
Create Engaging Contents
Once you get to know your target audience, and you know which time to schedule your posts, you can now start creating contents. Don’t just create content for the sake of having something to post. Make sure that it is creatively done and engaging enough to attract attention. Keep in mind that your content must be consistent with your branding and its voice should be according to what you want to project as a brand.
When creating contents, follow the 80-20 rule. It means that 80% of your posts should be informative and educational while the remaining 20% should focus on the promotion of your brand.
Manage Your Online Reputation
Take control of your reputation to counteract misleading trends so that you can always put your best foot forward. Your online reputation is important for you and your brand. Make sure that you make time to monitor your social media channels for any positive and negative comments and respond to them accordingly. Remember to always be polite and honest when responding to comments and to personalize your responses. Never ever delete negative comments. Always take time to say thank you and show your gratitude to your clients.
Now that you know the key points on how to make a killer social media strategy this year, it won’t be long till you see the results of your hard work. Digital marketing is not easy but it is worth it.
If you’re thinking about venturing into digital marketing for your business, you can contact New Win Productions. They specialize in video production, search engine optimization, digital marketing, and branding. You can email them at [email protected]. You can also visit their website https://newwinproductions.com/ to check out some of their works and other services.