6 Steps to the Perfect Social Media Marketing Strategy

Are you in the 10%?

The 10% of businesses that have figured out how to use social media to market their brand? Or does the thought of tweeting terrify you?

Social media isn’t going anywhere; ignoring it is costing you thousands. Just look at the traffic you are not reaching:-

• 270 million active monthly Twitter users;
• Facebook’s 1.32 billion active users;
• Pinterest with 70 million users.

Granted it can get confusing, but digital advertising agencies, such as Shout Agency , in Melbourne have developed a six point checklist to help you grow your tribe.

Review your Position

start by identifying who your ideal customer is. How well have previous marketing efforts worked? Use tools to analyse your available data, going back at least six months. Evaluate metrics like engagement, sales, bounce rate etc. Some of our preferred tools include:-

• Google Analytics: – allows you track what pages get visited, how visitors exit your site, which pages they stayed on etc.
• Twtrland shows you in-depth Twitter user activity insights, helps you track important keywords and monitor your brand.
• Pinalerts allows you to track repins from your site, increase your followers and connect with other users.

All– in-one software solutions that can track metrics across multiple social include Cyfe, Hootsuite, Sumall.

Spy Hard

your business doesn’t exist in a vacuum. You will always have more successful competitors; study them and figure out what’s working for them. You can do an audit of their sites and social media accounts to help you find best practices that you can replicate. Use tools like:-

• The Google Keyword Planner and UberSuggest to find keywords to optimize your site for;
• CrazyEgg to track visitor activity.

An in-depth competitor audit can give you the extra fire power needed to grow your following.

Pick your Battles

let’s face it, your marketing message will never reach everyone all the time. A Face book report found that ‘the average user sees 1,500 news feed items every time they log on’. Your latest post is only one of those. Good luck competing with Grumpy Cat pictures and ALS challenge memes.

The quantity of your Facebook Likes doesn’t count; if people are not actively engaging with you, it’s pointless. The SEO experts at Shout, who can implement a social media strategy, are all about finding reliable and engaged followers,who really want to hear from you about your brand. Choose channels where you can find engaged customers to generate a better ROI.

Your Blueprint To Success

with all the data you’ve collected, it’s time to create a targeted social media marketing plan. Many experts say ‘content is king’, but what kind of content? Who is it targeted to? Experts also claim you should always create buyer personas. That’s fine for some products, but what happens if your product has many users?

It isn’t enough to simply know your audience; you have to know how your product satisfies their needs. Let’s say you sell Blundstone shoes and the market data says they’re worn by 35-55 year old men. Deeper research shows that many young mums also like to wear Blundstones in winter. If your campaigns targeted only men, you would be missing out on sales.

Knowing your customer profile is just as important as having a buyer persona. Your marketing plan should take both elements into consideration.

Execute Steadily

With your blueprint created, follow through consistently for thirty days. Track everything; which tweets get retweeted, which headlines got shared on LinkedIn, which types of posts got Likes on Facebook etc. The tools used in the audit will allow you to track important metrics.

Use this time to deploy more strategies, such as email marketing, Facebook giveaways, using Pinterest etc.          

Shout SEO tip: Find social platforms specifically in your niche. These smaller but targeted communities of people are interested enough to meet up and discuss. Connect with them and be helpful.

Measure

Using any of the all-in-one tools, you can measure improvements in your vital metrics. While you may have a fixed notion about one strategy, if it doesn’t work, analyse it and move on.

For example, many people think LinkedIn is only for recruiting staff, but LinkedIn can be used to drive traffic too, through the LinkedIn Influencer program.

Like all things, change is inevitable. Nobody saw Google Authorship going away. Your business should have the flexibility to change tactics when necessary. Using social media marketing is a low cost yet effective method of connecting with customers and prospects.

At Shout Agency they believe that SEO is essential to every businesses success. Priding themselves on being Australia’s leading digital marketing agency, they can help grow your business by delivering more targeted traffic to your website. For more information visit www.shoutagency.com.au.