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DIGITAL MARKETING

What is SEO Marketing? and What is a common issue with social media marketing plans

In this article we will explain what Social Media Marketing is, and we will also explain What is a common issue with social media marketing plans

What is social media marketing?

Social Media Marketing is a straggly that use Social Media to market a business online.

With Social Media Marketing you use different social channels to communicate to your target audience. You can also promote your products and services. You can also drive brand awareness, and increase website traffic, and sales.

How does social media Marketing help your business?

The basic concept of marketing is to target specific individuals that is looking for the products and services you are selling and present it to them. When asked where to find those individuals, a good start is social media. As stated in smartinsights.com More than half of the world now uses social media (59%), and 4.70 billion people around the world now use social media. It is a safe bet you will find the clients that you are looking for there. But before you advertising your product to every, and everyone that is on Social Media remember that best practices is that you only present what you are selling to individuals that are looking for you

Building a social media marketing strategy

As stated on Hootsuite.com A social media marketing strategy is a summary of everything you plan to do and hope to achieve on social media. It guides your actions and lets you know whether you’re succeeding or failing.

Just like anything else the more work you put into your Social Media Marketing strategy the more effective it will be. Below will outline 9 steps for an effective Social media marketing strategy. Everyone should have a social media marketing strategy. When you ask the question What is a common issue with social media marketing plans, not having a Social media marketing strategy is a major issue.

Step 1 Choose goals that match your business

First things first

Establish clear objectives. Create a list of what you are trying to accomplish. Example: Increase brand awareness, Increase traffic to your website, etc. You should know coming in what you are trying to do so your actions will follow.

Understanding marketing trends.

You should have a clear understanding of the market trends based on your niche. Make sure you have a good understanding of things like Audience growth rate, Engagement rate, Check out this blog post on the most important Social Media Metrics 

Step 2 Get to know your audience  

You should have an idea of your client buyer persona. A buyer Persona is details about buyers of your products, and services, such as their age, where they are located, their average income, their job industry, and their interest. This is another metric that will help influence the decision-making process.

Social Media platforms come with analytics that you can use to measure information about your followers. It gives you valuable information that you can use to help properly target your protentional clients

Step 3 Understanding your competition

Most people don’t understand the need for knowing your competition. When we refer to your competition we are talking about other companies that do what you do, that are more successful. This is important because No one can predict the best actions to take for your business type. It is different, and this keeps changing. If your competition is in a better position than you, it stands to reason that they figured it out. Having an understanding of what they did to get to where they are can go a long way to help you get to where you are going.

A good way to get to know your competition is to do a Competitive Analysis. For starters get a good idea of what your competition is posting, and where they are posting on social media. Try to note the time, date, and frequency of their post. There are tools that you can use that will make this task less time-consuming. Hootsuite.com has a great tool that can help you. The name is the tool is Hootsuite Streams

There is a tool that is good for Competitive Analysis is Simularweb.com. With this tool, you can get vital info about your competition and what they are doing. For an example if you do a search for one of your competitors, and if you go down to marketing channels you can see what Social media marketing channels they are using. You will be surprised to see what social media channels are being successfully used by other businesses just like yours.

Step 4 Social Media Audit

Based on your competitive analysis You should get a clear idea of what social media marketing channels you should be using and focus on them.

You should get an idea of what content your competition is posting and if it is valuable it will give you a good idea of what you should be posting.

Have a good understanding of why your audience is on social media. This information will aid you later on.

Look out for a fake account. Sometimes other individuals may use your name and brand to create your account. This can be harmful to your business, and they may be capturing followers that should be yours.

Get your account verified! There is a verification process for each Social Media channel. Below are links to articles that explain how to get verified for each Social Media channel.

Here’s how to get verified on:

Step 5 Optimize Social media accounts  

Set up your profiles

Give as much useful information about your business as possible. Think about what questions your clients will like to know before they contact you. This is important because it can make the difference between them contacting you or contacting your competition.

Remember every decision to choose a service provider is emotional. They will never know you are good at what you do until they are one of your clients. Put your best foot forward and ask yourself would I work with a company if this is how they displayed their info?

When posting always uses high-quality images, and make sure you use royalty-free stock photos. As explained in an article in copyrightuse.org You cannot download or use images from Google without seeking permission from the copyright holder, unless your use falls within one of the exceptions or the work is distributed under an open license such as Creative Commons. A good place to get high-quality stock images is Envato Elements. For a small fee, you could download unlimited royal free images.

For every social media marketing channel if they have a business, or fan page you should create one.

Step 6 Post Planning

While it is important to understand your competition, it is also important to make your post to be unique. That way they can be a direct reflection of you. Use the content from your competition for inspiration.

Have an understanding of how often you plan to post. You should not post on social media too much or your efforts may have the opposite effect.

Here are some recommendations for post frequency

  • Instagram (feed): 3-7 times per week
  • Facebook: 1-2 times per day
  • Twitter: 1-5 times per day
  • LinkedIn: 1-5 times per day

Step 7 Use social media calendars  

You can make your post ahead of time! There is a tool called a social media calendar. You can create content in advance, and you can schedule them to post in advance. Constant Contact has a great tool that you can use for this.

Step 8 Content creation planning   

Make sure the information you are feeding to others is beneficial. Focus on what you can contribute to your clients, don’t just post products, and services. You want content that grabs attention and encourages social sharing.

In a video marketing guide on Hubspot.com  people are spending an average of 19 hours a week watching videos online. At this point, Video Marketing for businesses is impossible to ignore.

Content should be a mix of educational, or entertaining content types. Try to think about what I can offer my audience.

Step 9 Plan to track performance and adjust    

As time goes by and you post consistently on social media you should monitor the social media analytics. If you see post content is not doing as well as others then that is a good indicator that you should focus your efforts on posting other content types.

Take your time and see what content works best for your business, or brand

Keep your strategy updated

What is a common issue with social media marketing plans

Failure to establish a clear goal

Most people do not establish a clear goal for their marketing efforts, and as a result it makes it hard to get on track and maintain a working plan. For example, each goal has its processes and task. One task always lead to another. If you are going to introduce a new product tomorrow, you don’t want to create a posting about brand awareness. It takes the attention from the direction you really need to go in.

Failure to understand your competition

Sometime people don’t take the time to get to know their competition. They guess what the best content to post and they waste valuable time learning the hard way.

Failure to optimize social media accounts

Sometime businesses do not take the time out to give all relevant info about their business. People often have in mind what they are looking for. It increases the likelihood that they will reach out to you if most of the answers they may have is answered when they read your post

Social media post planning

Keep in mind how much you are posting. Some business post too often, which leads to people unfollowing you, or even blocking you.

 

Listening, engaging, and responding to users

Communication is key!

A message or phone call is a clear indicator that someone is interested in your service. You want to make sure you respond to your clients.

Set up mobile alerts

You can set up alerts on your phone so you can respond to your clients in real time.

Pay attention to the comments on your post. You will always have that one or two people that may enjoy your content as others, but if most of those individuals have a negative response to your content then you may want to consider exploring a new route.

For more info about Social Media Marketing please feel free to contact us at any time. Someone will get right back to you 

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