How To Create A Social Media Strategy That Wins
Social media is the glue that can stick together all of your marketing.
Nowadays, it is an incredibly effective tool, which can make it easy for you to build up a followership.
And that can be immense, as the people that you get to follow you aren’t just future customers, but can also be the occasional brand advocates to help you get your message in front of yet more people.
In this way, it is a gateway to future customers.
Of course, for it to work in that way you do need to have the right strategy in place.
What can you do to make sure that your social media strategy doesn’t just amount to you spinning your wheels in the air?
Well, you’ll need to do a few things, actually.
They aren’t really sure who their customers are and so substitute a different group for their audience – and that is who they want to impress.
And so, you have people who create social media content for entirely the wrong audience. Like a lawyer who writes content for other lawyers, a doctor who gets into complicated medical procedures his patients can’t understand and a writer who tells other writers how they can get more from their clients. In all three situations, those are not their audience. Instead, they are giving away insights to their competition.
Don’t be that person. Don’t answer the wrong question. Instead, find out who your audience actually is by doing a thorough analysis of the people that buy your product and then creating a profile of interests based on that.
This also includes figuring out where they hang out, as different audiences hang out on different platforms.
It is important to set a primary goal. This will help you to focus on efforts and will also let you figure out what strategies and ideas work better for one thing than another.
Note, that even though you have set a main primary goal, that does not mean that nothing else will happen. Having a good product launch can grow your followership.
It is more than if you set too many goals then you can lose sight of the forest for the trees.
The reason that you want to do this is that finding content to share is a lot easier than creating content to share.
That means that sharing other people’s content is a far better way of building up a following, which you can then expose to your own high-quality content that follows the best writing advice when it’s there.
The best thing to do is to use a curation tool like Feedly or something similar.
The great thing about a platform like this is that it makes it far easier to oversee all the blogs, sites and news sources and post content that is relevant to your audience. From there, you can then quickly select what you’re going to share across your networks.
For that reason, make a little post it with your post. This includes the actual post, takeaways that are in the post, and the different visuals associated with it.
In this way, you can throw your post out there a few times and hopefully get different people to engage with it each time.
Also, note the different times that you push content and which times are more effective. By not posting at the same time all the time, you will be able to reach different audiences in different parts of the world. In this way, you’ll be able to broaden your audience significantly.
For that reason, it’s important to remember to keep your eye on the ball. Hit the right audience segment with content they actually like.
Always remember that the only way to build audiences is to offer value.
And remember that these things take time – particularly when you are starting out.
Only then can you make sure that your social media grows and that it becomes a worthwhile portal for you to use to draw in your future customers instead of a sinkhole of effort and time.
Nowadays, it is an incredibly effective tool, which can make it easy for you to build up a followership.
And that can be immense, as the people that you get to follow you aren’t just future customers, but can also be the occasional brand advocates to help you get your message in front of yet more people.
In this way, it is a gateway to future customers.
Of course, for it to work in that way you do need to have the right strategy in place.
What can you do to make sure that your social media strategy doesn’t just amount to you spinning your wheels in the air?
Who are you trying to address?
The first thing that you need to do is to make sure that you know who your customers and by your audience is. A lot of people make a pretty serious mistake at this point of their strategy already.They aren’t really sure who their customers are and so substitute a different group for their audience – and that is who they want to impress.
And so, you have people who create social media content for entirely the wrong audience. Like a lawyer who writes content for other lawyers, a doctor who gets into complicated medical procedures his patients can’t understand and a writer who tells other writers how they can get more from their clients. In all three situations, those are not their audience. Instead, they are giving away insights to their competition.
Don’t be that person. Don’t answer the wrong question. Instead, find out who your audience actually is by doing a thorough analysis of the people that buy your product and then creating a profile of interests based on that.
This also includes figuring out where they hang out, as different audiences hang out on different platforms.
Have a clear goal
You can set a lot of different goals for your social media campaign. For example, you can make it about boosting your number of followers, create awareness of a new product that you’re launching, or add people to your newsletter.It is important to set a primary goal. This will help you to focus on efforts and will also let you figure out what strategies and ideas work better for one thing than another.
Note, that even though you have set a main primary goal, that does not mean that nothing else will happen. Having a good product launch can grow your followership.
It is more than if you set too many goals then you can lose sight of the forest for the trees.
What you’ll share
Of course, you would like to share your own content. But you shouldn’t be sharing only that. Instead, you want to make sure that you share both other people’s content as well as your own. In other words, you want to create and curate it.The reason that you want to do this is that finding content to share is a lot easier than creating content to share.
That means that sharing other people’s content is a far better way of building up a following, which you can then expose to your own high-quality content that follows the best writing advice when it’s there.
The best thing to do is to use a curation tool like Feedly or something similar.
The great thing about a platform like this is that it makes it far easier to oversee all the blogs, sites and news sources and post content that is relevant to your audience. From there, you can then quickly select what you’re going to share across your networks.
How you’ll share it
This is particularly important for your own posts. As has been covered ad nausea elsewhere, you don’t just want to plug a piece of content once. Instead, you’ll want to post it several times, in several different ways.For that reason, make a little post it with your post. This includes the actual post, takeaways that are in the post, and the different visuals associated with it.
In this way, you can throw your post out there a few times and hopefully get different people to engage with it each time.
Also, note the different times that you push content and which times are more effective. By not posting at the same time all the time, you will be able to reach different audiences in different parts of the world. In this way, you’ll be able to broaden your audience significantly.
Last words
Social media can be incredibly effective when used correctly. The operative phrase there, of course, is ‘used correctly’. It is just as easy to waste a lot of time achieving little to nothing.For that reason, it’s important to remember to keep your eye on the ball. Hit the right audience segment with content they actually like.
Always remember that the only way to build audiences is to offer value.
And remember that these things take time – particularly when you are starting out.
Only then can you make sure that your social media grows and that it becomes a worthwhile portal for you to use to draw in your future customers instead of a sinkhole of effort and time.
