A little planning can go a long way when it comes to success in social media. A strong social media marketing strategy will help you eliminate the guesswork and maximize the return on your time and resources.
Social media marketing’s effectiveness is unquestionable. The problem is how to prioritize it with limited budgets and resources. To establish a strong presence on social media for your small company you need to understand who you are talking to, set goals, concentrate on the right platforms and analyse your competitors.
1. Set smart goals
SMART goals are incredibly popular and one of the best social media marketing strategies to use for small business. If you’re not familiar with SMART, it stands for:
- Your goals must be specific, clear and simple.
- Analytics can help you make your goals measurable. You need a goal with one or more metrics.
- What is the difference between achievable and not achievable?
- Realistic: Can you achieve your goals with your current time and financial resources?
- Time-sensitive goals: Each goal should have a deadline, whether that’s a year or ten months.
2. Identify social media goals metrics
It’s now time to determine the metrics that you would like to apply to your goals. Your team will use the business objectives that are defined by specific and measurable outcomes as a guide to achieve your larger goals.
You can track the following social media metrics
- Engagements: This is the number of interactions that an individual has had with your message. It includes actions like Likes, Favorites, Shares and Retweets.
- Impressions: This is the number of times a person has seen your message.Followers: The number of users who follow you on social networks, which is usually displayed as increasing or decreasing.
3. Branding your business : Define the look and feel
It’s the way you communicate with customers. It may vary slightly from platform to platform. As you refine the tone of your brand, think about how you would talk to a friend about your company, your products or your services.
4. Set KPIs and Benchmarks
You will never achieve your social media marketing objectives if you do not know how to measure them. You need to know which metrics you should be looking at, how to interpret the data, and what action to take with it.
It’s important to benchmark the performance of your social media accounts if your small business has them. This will help you understand what your past efforts have resulted in. You can also compare your future strategies with previous results to see if you are improving.
Keyword research tools are another way of optimizing your content to attract highly targeted visitors.
5. Do your research
Competitive analysis is the study of your competitors to find out their strengths and weaknesses as well as compare them to yours.
This is a way to compare your results with those of the industry’s biggest players so that you can identify areas of improvement and strategies which aren’t working as well as they could.
- You can use a social media competitive analysis to:
- Determine who your competitors are on social media.
- Find out which social media platforms and how they are used.
- How effective is their social media strategy?
- Compare the results of your social media campaigns with those of your competitors.
- Recognize social threats that may affect your business.
- Look for any flaws within your own social media marketing strategy.
Social media analysis of competitors is not just about finding out about your competition. You will also learn more about your business and target market.
6. Social media platforms: choose the best ones
Select the best social media platforms to use for your company: By starting with the platforms that are most appropriate for your company, you will save time and prevent your content calendar becoming too overwhelming. To create a successful small business social media strategy, it is important to understand how each platform works and the type of content that should be used on each. Here is a quick overview on how to make the most of each social media platform:
- Instagram: Instagram’s visual nature makes it the ideal platform to showcase your products and services with video and engaging posts.
- Facebook: Facebook is a platform that allows you to share videos, photos, updates, and company information. It also provides educational content.
- Twitter: Twitter allows you to share media and send short messages. It is ideal for customer service, company announcements and blog posts.
- LinkedIn: LinkedIn can be a powerful tool for growing your network, promoting your brand, and attracting talent to your business.
- Pinterest: Pinterest is a visual platform that allows you to “scrapbook” by “pinning” images or videos onto a virtual bulletinboard. Ideal for showcasing the look and feel of your brand.
- YouTube: A great social media platform to share more educational and in-depth content such as interviews, tutorials and style tips.
- It is not necessary for your small business to actively post on all networks. It may seem like a good idea to be active on every social media platform, but if you manage too many, you will end up being spread too thin.
7. Determine your social media posting frequency
Choose a few social media platforms where your audience engages most and update them regularly. Hopper HQ is a social media management tool that helps you to schedule posts, respond to comments and engage your audience often.
Many business owners are concerned about the frequency of publishing when creating a social media strategy for their small business. It depends on which social media platform you use to communicate with your target audience.
Here are the recommendations of experts based on a 2021 study by Statista Research Department on the frequency with which you should update your social media accounts:
- Instagram: Sharing daily stories and creating daily stories will increase engagement and connection.
- Facebook: Aim to publish at least once per day if you use this platform.
- Twitter: If you are aware of an online audience, you should plan to tweet a lot each day.
- LinkedIn: LinkedIn has become a powerful tool for business networking, so it’s important to contribute meaningful content at least once per week.
Set a goal for how frequently you will post, and then monitor your progress. You should check in regularly to see the feedback and engagement that your audience is giving you.
8. Create a social media content calendar
A social media schedule is a list that shows your future posts on social media. Calendar planner is available if you use Hopper HQ, or any other social media management software. You can also organize your posts using a Google Calendar, interactive dashboard, or spreadsheet.