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| Jumpstarting Your Social Media Strategy |
3 Tips To Jumpstart Your Social Media Strategy
42% of marketers say Facebook is critical or important to their business. - State of Inbound Marketing, 2012
It has been 6 months, with no results. Now, what?
Are you asking yourself this question, right about now? Find comfort knowing that you are not alone. We started well. As is the most important thing to do. Tweaking, however, is something we continuously do. For any strategy must lend itself to tweaking.
Many times, after we have launched our ‘air-tight’ strategies, we sit back and deploy tactic after tactic. With the hopes that when we wake up the next morning, we will be a step closer to our set objective.
More often than not, this is usually the case. But for you reading this, I have a feeling that things did not pan out as planned. It has been 6 months, but still, you have not given your client that 6,000 page likes you promised. Or, increased website traffic by 57% according to your statistics. Now, what? Well, read on.
Like any other good car, whose battery dies out when you least expect. You do not go on buying a new battery instantly. Unless of course, it is time. Otherwise, get your jumper cables and flag down oncoming vehicles. Do what is needed: jumpstart your strategy. Resuscitate it for another 6 months and be on the lookout.
According to Social Media Examiner: 83% of marketers indicate that social media is important for their business. Knowing this, you cannot afford not to jumpstart your strategy.
Here is how you go about it.
1. Do Your Research
This is where you need to spend the bulk of your time. Mostly, look at where you were. Where you are and where you needed to be, Better yet, where you need to be (objectives).
‘Look for communities, influencers, and discussions that relate to your brand, products, competitors, and industry. Look into how you could potentially target key audiences through different media. Do not just limit yourself to Facebook pages/groups and Twitter users. Look into bloggers in your industry (or outside your industry) that have an audience you want to reach.’ Andrew Krebs-Smith
The more you delve into research your will find gems hidden in online forums. These are all potential areas to generate content, seed content, find ambassadors, and get online placements.
Look into your competitors, and industry at large: what is happening and what have they been doing that you aren’t. Answering these questions is a step closer to refining your strategy to achieve the set objective.
2. First, Build Relationships
Most of the times, we get it wrong. We set up social media page and handles with the sole intention of selling, selling…stop it. You might have pegged the whole strategy on selling your services and products. Adapting the grandiose mentality. Caring less, about the most important person in that fragile relationship-your target audience.
If this is you, revise that agenda. Go in, but do so with the idea that you will first before all else invest time and resources in building relationships. Reach out to other influencers; build relationships before asking them to use their digital properties to push your agenda going forward.
Once you build these relationships (influencers) when you go back to them and ask them to promote your campaign they will be happy to help. It is key to start by building relationships. You can achieve this by sharing valuable information at all times.
3. Create a Content Calendar
Content is what feeds the digital beast. In 2014, the infographics titled Data Never Sleeps 2.0: Facebook users share nearly 2.5 million pieces of content. Twitter users tweet nearly 300,000 times. YouTube users upload 72 hours of new video content. Try to wrap your brain around those figures. 2 years later, you expect this data to increase.
Begging the question: where is your content calendar? Better yet, show me your content strategy and I will show you a brand that is succeeding in the social realm.
Echoing Andrew Krebs-Smith sentiments, ‘There is nothing worse than a Facebook page or Twitter account that is filled entirely with self-promoting updates.’
Andrew Krebs-Smith adds, ‘It is not always easy to come up with awesome, engaging content every day, but tweeting another link to your website is not the answer. That is why it helps to create a weekly or monthly content calendar in advance to help you think strategically about what to post and when being sure to schedule promotional updates at a maximum of one time per week.’
Final Thoughts…
Is marketing and art or a science? Well, Seth Godin advises that we look at it as both an art and science. Because there comes a time when you are all into measuring ROI and other key statistics.
Some other times, you are keen to creatively formulate a stellar campaign. With the goal of driving traffic to your website, like never before. What we should know is, choose between the two hats wisely. Depending on the day, don one of the hats (science or art) and get to work.
These tips allow for designing a social media strategy that leverages brand assets and social media tools to get your brand in front of the right people and ultimately, grow your business. Which is the ultimate ROI (Look at me wearing my science hat.)
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