We’re currently living in a special time for businesses, one in which the gap between social networks and search engines is becoming much narrower.
What does this mean exactly?
Where people once used to use Google alone to seek information on products and services they want to purchase – now, social media is taking over search engines.
And with that, the question for most businesses has shifted from “why should our business use social media?”, to “how can we grow our business with social media marketing?”.
The truth is, all it takes is the right social media marketing strategy for your small business to turn those social media scrollers into paying, loyal customers or clients.
Think about it, with most young people endlessly scrolling on their screens each day, the best way to command their attention is to engage them digitally. That’s exactly what we do – we command that shift. Gone are the old days of the radio or TV advertisements – the new generations live in the digital world, and that’s where you’ll find them.
In this blog post, we’ll demystify what it means to develop a social media strategy. More than that, we’ll show you just how simple it is to put one together in a way that establishes your brand as the authority in your industry or niche.
1. Defining Laser-Focused Objectives
It seems simple enough – you should know why you want to deploy a social media strategy.
But it’s not that simple.
Before any blueprint can be made, you have to ask yourself: is my marketing objective to increase sales, leads, or awareness?
Naturally, most businesses we talk to say “sales”.
But here’s the kicker…
How many sales can you actually make if people don’t know you exist?
While you might have success with existing customers/clients – does this necessarily translate to the digital world?
That’s where you want to start. Once you have a solid objective in mind, you can start to flesh out a plan.
All good plans are founded on facts – like the number of people you want to target, or how many leads you want.
And remember, you can develop your social media strategy as time goes on. Once you’ve gained enough awareness for your brand, you can then change your objective and build on your existing plan.
We do this by looking at your analytics to determine which direction your marketing plan should go in.
2. Building Your Marketing Funnel
If you don’t already have a marketing funnel or understand its importance – don’t worry. We’ll explain.
A marketing funnel is simply a blueprint that guides your cold leads all the way to checkout (and keeps them loyal).
It takes them through 4 critical states under the AIDA principle:
A – Awareness. This is when people become aware of your business offerings by coming across your social channels. Make sure you give them a great first impression.
I – Interest: Since the lead is already on your page, chances are they are looking for one of your services/products.
D – Desire. At this stage, your prospects will think about what you offer before comparing you with your competitors.
A – Action. If they like what they see, your lead will become your customer by buying from you.
When building your funnel, make sure you align each stage with the acronym.
3. Defining Your Target
With any marketing funnel, you have to know who you’re targeting. After all, how will you build each step without an idea of who your ideal customer is?
Ask questions such as:
- Who are they? (age, gender, etc.)
- Why would they want our product?
- How can our product help them?
This information will help you craft content that will engage your prospects.
4. Outline Your Message
Using your brand tone, start to carve out messages and hooks that will entice your leads to take action.
We call this a “call-to-action”. These are phrases that use power words to invoke emotions, with crisp and clear copy.
It also gives them a real sense of urgency – so they can register their interest quickly.
Put yourself in your prospect’s shoes: if you came across your marketing material, would you be interested?
5. Choose Your Channels
This one’s easy: choose which social media channels you want to disseminate your strategy through.
This decision is based on where your customers might be.
If you’re a contractor, you’ll have the best chances on Facebook. But if you’re a beauty brand, then Instagram is your best friend.
6. Create Your Content
This is the fun part. You get to exercise your creativity and brand messaging.
Your content can be in the form of photos, videos, blog posts, adverts, and more. It depends entirely what kind of content is most popular on the platform you’re using.
For example, TikTok is becoming huge for viral content, and it relies on videos.
7. Launch Your Content
Are you ready to finally execute your social media strategy? You’ve outlined all the steps above, and now it’s time to put them to action.
Launch your content, and then analyze your success through analytics and more.
If your content isn’t quite cutting it, then you’ll need to make some tweaks and changes until you see more engagement.
The sooner you start, the sooner you’ll see tangible results.
Used strategically, social media marketing is among the most cost-effective and dynamic approach to brand marketing. It allows businesses to increase customer engagement and sales while simultaneously gaining meaningful visibility and attracting new leads.
By now, you know all about how to build a plan and command attention.
But if you’d rather rely on the experts to do it in no time, then we at CommandShift can help.
Our tried-and-tested strategies, laser-focused copywriting, and understanding of your brand vision can make your social media channels the very best to follow.
Plus, with our automation services, we can turn your cold leads into loyal paying customers.
All you have to do is sit back and enjoy the results.