Social media is another platform that can be used by companies and enterprises to advertise their products and get more sales. Social media marketing is simply the use of a public network like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to make brand awareness and reach more customers through the use of pictures, videos, and articles. Although this method seems simple because virtually all human beings in both developing and developed countries are familiar with the use of social media. However, you have to be more strategic in launching or managing your business social network presence to get an effective result. This article is to point out the seven steps in building a productive social media marketing strategy for your business.

1. Set business goal

The first step in building your social media strategy is to write down your goals. These are things that you desired to achieve in the course of creating a public network presence for your small business. You don’t have to worry yourself too much about what to put down as your social media ambitions. The goal of any business on these platforms may either be to get more sales, create more buzz around their products, or relate better with customers. Selecting any of these will enable your business to determine the social network to use and the kinds of posts to create. You can exercise more seriousness into this by converting this goal into smart, measurable, actionable, reliable, and time-based mission statements. The statements will guide and keep your mind focused on whatever you set to achieve.

2. Research your targeted audience

The next thing on the line is to determine the categories of people that demand your products. This step takes a significant role in assisting you in selecting the best social network for your business. As it is well known that launching a marketing strategy on a wrong social media is a waste of time and resources; in fact, it is not strategic. For example, it is a great mistake to advertise adult diapers on Instagram, a social network in which 90% of its users are under 65 years of age. Each public media houses audiences with different race, career, age bracket, and location. Therefore it is up to you to decide which one will be effective for your campaign. I recommend that a business undergo the following procedure to identify its potential customers on social media;

  • Make a list of different personality that can be your perfect customers
  • Research on notable social media like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to know which one they are using.
  • Search for groups and posts to evaluate their engagement level on each public network

3. Identify key success metrics

Success metric is those parameters that define your achievement in a system. A business owner has to note the key things that will determine their success on social media. Remember that your goal is not meant to get likes or comments, but sales and awareness. The metrics to be identified include reach, clicks, sentiments, and engagements. The reach tells if your desired audience is getting your post, clicks define the number of people clicking on the links on your posts, while sentiments express their feelings towards your content, and engagement shows their level of interaction.
Business people should grade their performance on social media with these metrics. It will reveal their successes and failures.

4. Note your competitors

You cannot just jump into social media marketing without having an idea of who your competitors on the network. This is not to create fear, but for you to know what they are doing to be successful on social media. Don’t get it wrong, and you are not to copy what they are doing, but fashioning out your model from theirs. And to add more improvement, so that your business will be ahead of them. There is no way you can beat them without employing something different, exceptional, and captivating. This step also prepares you for what lies ahead and the battle you are about to face. Business success depends on how much you can convert people to your side, or let’s say how much you can play politics in business. The question now is, “how can I discover my competitors on social media?”

You can search for keywords related to your products on Google to get a list of competitors that are in your niche. After which you proceed on various social media to seek their presence and note their success metrics. You can also skip the stress by using social media analytics tools such as SEMrush or Brand24 directly. These are tools that will continually notify you of every action and achievement of your competitors on popular social networks.

5. Creating engaging contents

It is all about different strokes for different beats when it comes to the issue of contents because a business post on public communication media depends on her goals. The contents of your post may address solutions to the problem faced by customers in the course of using your products and related ones, answers to FAQs, discounts, promotions, and contests. Moreover, a small business should endeavor always to add their address to every post because none can tell some people can use social media to search for your services. Also, the links to your website or ordering page are very compulsory.

The contents on your public business network can be either a video, image, or articles. But videos and pictures are highly recommended because it receives more engagement and people longs for a fast answer to their request.

6. Prepare your content schedule

Consistency is the fundamental trait of success on social media. People will be disappointed if they are not updated with fresh content regularly. Therefore, the key to winning their hearts is by feeding them with information, if possible, daily. Moreover, if your goal is to create awareness. Do not let a day pass by without your followers sighting your business name on their newsfeeds. The best way to come about this task is by creating a content schedule. This content schedule will serve as a guide to what you post on your page in a week, and it won’t ever make you run out of content.

7. Analyze and seek for improvement

It’s not how far but how well your business has thrived on the social network. The number of years spent, and followers accumulated is not what matters to your business, but your grades in all the metrics mentioned above. At this stage, you evaluate all you have realized in the course of launching a social media marketing and create room for improvement. You can also simplify this step by running the social media analytic tools and your business name.