Ways to implement an effective SMM Strategy
It is impossible to win the social media game without a purposeful strategy. A strategy can help you with summarizing your plan and goals for your social media success. It serves as guidance and lets you measure the results. This is important when it comes to online brand building and brand awareness.
A specific strategy results in a specific execution. Therefore, keep in mind to craft a strategy that is precise and attainable. We have compiled a list of key steps involved in implementing an effective social media marketing strategy.
- Set goals and objectives for your brand
For a brand’s visibility online, it is ideal to have a set of goals toward your brand. This will help you measure results. Write down the things that you are trying to achieve for that particular month. Keep your objectives specific and realistic. When your goals are set towards a detailed strategy, it can help evaluate the pros and cons of that particular social media campaign.
For example, set your goals on a monthly basis for increasing brand awareness or achieving better sales for your brand.
- Perform a competitor analysis
This is one of the important steps in your social media strategy. Being aware of your competitors’ online strategies for their brands, gives you the means of staying ahead of the competition. The most effective way is to categorize your competitors into primary, secondary and tertiary.
Your primary competitors include the brands that sell products or services similar to yours. Secondary competitors are brands that may not sell the same services that you do, but are still related to the industry. Tertiary competitors are purely based on their good marketing techniques and how they strategize their brand online. You can use their methods for inspiration.
The first step is to analyze and compare the type of content they post on social media channels. Take into account the customer engagement online for these brands. With information from social media audit, you can craft your strategy for your own brand.
- Find your audience
For digital marketers, it can be risky to take decisions based on assumptions. This rule applies to when you are locating an audience online as well. Social media demographics data can help you identify your audience. With specific numbers, you will be able to determine the networks that are perfect for your brand and the type of content to publish.
For example, Facebook is a prime place where ads perform better. LinkedIn is the knowledge center for industry based content.
- Create engaging content
Based on your goals and audience, it should be clear on what type of content needs to be published for your brand. Content is an important step in a social media strategy. It paves the way for an audience to get familiar with your brand and start engaging with it. When it comes to content, the right captions along with eye-catching creatives help promote your brand’s identity across social media channels. This can be in the form of videos, infographics, text, GIFs, etc.
One of the important things in publishing content on social media channels is to note the best time engage with the audience. Posting content during prime viewership time on these channels will increase your chance of brand visibility and awareness.
- Measure and assess
Lastly, it is recommended that you keep a record of everything you do, so that you can measure the results on each channels. Continuous analysis of social media performance will give you insights on how one campaign did better than the other. This can help you decide on what type of strategy to follow for the next month. Analyzing your efforts can help fine-tune your campaigns and help your brand perform better on a digital scale.