Having a social media strategy in place can be extremely beneficial to any business. Posting randomly on your social media accounts because you feel you have to keep it updated, or because you feel guilty for not posting in a while can effect the impact you’re trying to make.
Just like if you are really busy and don’t have time to update your social media, this can have a negative effect on your stats and you’ll have to work extra hard to re-coup from going quiet.
Social media is becoming more crucial for business owners to use in order to market their business and get out in front of the right people.
I personally try to keep my social media up to date by posting regularly and consistently, even during busy periods where I have a lot of design projects to work on.
With a social media strategy in place, you will feel less overwhelmed, focused and more organised. But, make sure to keep it fun and light hearted so you enjoy doing it at the same time.
I know some business owners who don’t update their Facebook pages that often because they’re not that active themselves Facebook. That is good in one sense because it means they’re not living their life through social media on a daily basis, but it’s not so good in terms of your business.
Brand Awareness
Showing up constantly, on a regular basis will highly benefit you and your business. It will help you build up a rapport with your customers and will get your business out there even more resulting in brand awareness and recognition.
Community
Raising your social media profile will help you create a community around your business. You’ll develop real fans who will look forward to your future posts and want to engage with them too.This is particularly important if you are a personal brand. You want to create relationships with your followers, really listen to them and resonate with them too.
Low Cost
Social media is a low cost way of marketing your business compared to other more traditional methods, but this all depends on your business and who you are targeting. If your target audience is more the older generation, you will need to look at alternative methods of marketing your business such as newspaper adverts, leaflet drops etc. Think about where your customers go, what do they do, the places they visit. Can you market your business in those places and if so, how?
If your audience is younger and does hang out online looking at marketing avenues such as Facebook adverts is going to make a difference and will put your out in from the right people. Facebook adverts and audience insights now allow you to get really specific about who it is you want your advert to go out in front of. This can be really cost effective and can drive better results too.
Creating a social media strategy
You can have a social media strategy at any point and they’re not difficult to create either.
So here are some top tips for you when it comes to creating a social media strategy for your business:
Concentrate on the platforms where your dream customers hang out the most.
You don’t have to be on ALL the social media platforms. It doesn’t make sense to have your business on twitter if your dream client prefers using Facebook.
Think about the message you are trying to get across.
Marketing is all about getting the right message across to the right people. Make sure your message is clear and concise.
Think about your end goal.
Are you using social media to create brand awareness? Or are you using it to create more product sales? Or it could be you want to draw people back to your website more. Decide on an end goal first and then think about how you can use social media to reach that end goal.
So if you want to make 10 new product sales in one month, what do you need to do in order to make that happen? And how can you use your social media platforms to your advantage?
Make sure your posts encourage engagement.
You want to encourage engagement on social media so why not ask questions, challenge your customers to do something, but make it fun. Ask them if they prefer A over B. The more engagement you get the better reach you’ll get, especially with the likes of Facebook.
Think about upcoming events.
Whether you’re wanting to promote an event yourself or market something really specific and seasonal, forward planning can really help with this and having that social media strategy in place can work wonders too. Rather than picking something out of the sky to post, you will have a real plan in place and know the goal you are working towards, the message you are trying to get across and the benefit it will have on your business.
Be different and stand out from your competitors.
What can you do differently? This is your opportunity to think differently about how you market yourself on social media. What are your competitors doing and what can you do that will make your business stand out more for all the right reasons. A lot of people say they don’t believe in competition, but collaboration. I understand this completely, but you still need to make sure you’re making yourself stand out more.
I’d love to know the results you’ve achieved with having a social media strategy in place for your business so do let me know.