13 Smart Tips To Supercharge Your Social Media Marketing Strategy
Social media.
It slowly crept into our lives, little by little. Until it was the focal point of our lives.
Today, 7 in 10 Americans use social media, compared with only 5% in 2005.
Businesses took notice, and social media has since revolutionized the way we do marketing.
The benefits are endless with a well-executed social media strategy.
A few benefits of a killer social media strategy:
Increased brand awareness
Grow a larger audience
Connect with your audience better
Increased website traffic
Generate more leads
Make more sales and money
There’s no doubt about it – social media should be a vital component of your overall marketing efforts.
Just look at some of these eye-opening statistics:
Facebook has 2.2 billion active users every month
Pinterest? 150 million people are using this popular platform every month
Instagram is the second biggest social media network
It’s a large pond to go fishing in for your target audience. Not participating in social media marketing would lead to an incomplete marketing strategy.
If you’re ready to jumpstart your social media strategy, keep reading.
We’re taking a deep dive into the best cutting-edge tactics around.
1. Lay out your goals and objectives
Having a solid plan, objectives, and goals are imperative if you want to jumpstart your social media strategy.
If you don’t know what you want, how are you supposed to achieve it?
Not to mention, you can’t measure or evolve your strategies over time if you don’t have strong goals to begin with.
Your social media goals should align with your overall marketing efforts.
Writing down your goals is paramount if you want to reach them.
According to a study, you’re 30% more likely to be successful if you write your goals down. In some studies that number is as high as 40%.
When you set your goals, make them attainable and break them down into smaller action steps.
How to set attainable goals to slay your social media marketing strategy:
Use numbers (such as: reach 5000 Instagram followers)
Always set a deadline
Be specific and make your goals “SMART”
Make your goals in line with your entire marketing strategy
Need more help with slaying your goals? Check out Christine’s goal setting post here on Blogging Wizard.
2. Research and learn about your audience
Connecting and engaging with your audience is crucial in today’s marketing if you want to turn a profit.
But, in order to do that, you need to understand your audience – inside and out.
You should be able to pinpoint their needs, wants, and desires -if you have a hope of creating a successful social media strategy.
How can you better understand your audience?
Survey your audience to better grasp their pain points
Look carefully at their demographics
Take part in conversations on forums filled with your target audience
Respond to comments on your blog, and comment on other blogs with the same target audience
Reply to all comments or questions on your social media channels
Collect feedback (using one of the many user feedback tools available)
Once you get a feel for who your target audience is, you’re better equipped to help them. They want to deal with businesses who care – not just a faceless brand.
Which makes this a vital step in creating any social media strategy.
3. Run contests to amp up your social media strategy
Crafting a successful social media contest is one of the most alluring tactics you can use. It’ll increase your online visibility, your followers, and your engagement.
There are a number of tools you can use to create an outstanding giveaway or sweepstakes.
The key to executing a successful contest is offering something of tremendous value.
Something that’ll be irresistible to your audience.
Here’s an example of a contest that had great results:
And another type of contest that did well:
How to run a contest on social media:
Figure out your goals (do you want more Facebook page likes? Instagram followers? How many?)
Decide what social media channel you’ll host the contest on
Come up with a deadline for when it’ll end and when the winner will receive their prize
Create the contest (look at different types and choose the right one for your audience)
Promote it with all your might!
To get mind-blowing results, aim to have your audience do some of the heavy lifting.
Set the contest up so they get extra entries for sharing the contest or completing similar tasks.
Such as: “Pin on Pinterest”, “Share on Facebook”, or “Like my Facebook page”. You can also give them a unique link to share for extra entries.
It’s genius. Your contest will basically run itself!
4. Craft your social media content carefully
Every piece of content you post on social media should be carefully thought-out. If you’re posting just to post something – you’re going about it all wrong.
Depending on the social network you’re posting on, you’ll need to learn the various purposes of each network.
Here are some examples:
LinkedIn – A professional network that is perfect for B2B audiences. Also includes LinkedIn Pulse, a content publishing and distribution platform.
Facebook – Almost everyone has a Facebook account. Particularly good for news/entertainment related content. While Facebook Pages struggle to perform, Facebook Groups can be a great way of connecting with your ideal audience.
Instagram – Perfect if your content is highly visual. Static images and short videos work incredibly well but it’s not as good at driving traffic back to your blog.
Pinterest – Similar to Instagram, Pinterest is highly visual. Although it’s limited to static images, it can be highly effective at driving traffic back to your blog.
Note: For more on how each social network can fit into your marketing strategy, check out our post on the psychology of social networks.
Once you learn about the varying networks, you can focus on which ones you think will mesh well with your business.
A major component of killing it at your social media strategy is using the right words. The way you get your message across will vary depending on the social network you’re posting content on.
But, in general, there are ways to improve your online visibility over all the platforms!
To craft captivating copy on social media:
Address your audience directly.
Use snappy, witty, or intriguing hooks to begin your social media posts.
Switch it up with different content types (Try linking to blog posts, videos, ask questions, etc).
Always write a description on every link you post. Never just put the headline of the post.
If you perfect your social media content, you’ll see higher engagement rates, more followers, and generate more leads and sales.
5. Keep the salesy tactics to a minimum
Intrusive, traditional marketing went out the window a long time ago, for good reason.
People don’t want to be sold too.
They want to establish real connections and relationships with you.
That’s the secret sauce to getting your audience or customers to trust you.
And, if they trust you – they’ll buy from you.
Consumers find it offputting when brands and businesses post too many promotions.
As you can see, 57.5% of people found it annoying in this study on Sprout Social:
Alternatively, you can craft helpful content that people actually want to consume. Content that leads buyers to your products or services – without being pushy or salesy.
Read the rest of the post here: 13 Smart Tips To Supercharge Your Social Media Marketing Strategy