The habit of consulting social channels, for one reason or another, is now part of everyone’s daily life. Therefore, investing in Social Media Marketing strategies is crucial for small and medium-sized enterprises that want to improve their brand visibility and promote their range of products and/or services by directly reaching potential buyers, influencing purchasing decisions even with a limited budget. The power of social media is well known and by planning the investment the company will immediately see the benefits of being present in the social world in a comprehensive way.
What is social media marketing
But what is Social Media Marketing? It is the set of strategies that companies, individuals, associations, public bodies can use to generate their visibility on social media and in communities in order to spread their image, make their products and services known, convey the mood and values of the company, and consequently expand their customer base. And that’s why it’s important to define what Social Media Marketing strategies to follow, what factors to take into account because they could influence the results to be achieved. In other words, there can be no Social Media Marketing strategy without first studying and analyzing the objectives to be achieved, which social media to use, what is the “ideal” target that might be interested in what the company can offer. In fact, depending on the type of core business, it is essential to evaluate whether to use all social channels, naturally differentiating communication according to the channel, or whether based on the potential buyer audience it is better to prefer only some.
For example, if it is a young company that wants to make itself known to a target audience aged between 20-40 years old, it will be more profitable to promote its brand on channels such as Instagram or Tik Tok while if the service is intended for an older audience Facebook and Linkedin may be more effective. First of all, however, it is necessary to plan personal branding actions if it is a single professional who has to promote his activity or brand awareness if it is an SME. It will also be important to establish in advance which and how many leads are aimed at generating from promotion so as to possibly create a specific landing page for conversion.
What are the marketing strategies
Social media marketing strategies can then be summarized in 6 steps:
- Define measurable, specific, achievable objectives in line with the business.
- Target the audience to whom the products/services offered are intended.
- Know the competitors, “study” them to understand what actions they have taken to promote their image.
- Create an editorial plan to develop valuable content.
- Establish a Social Advertising strategy, defining which editorial content to sponsor for a fee to exploit the learning, machine learning and artificial intelligence systems of advertising platforms.
- But above all, monitor performance and intervene from time to time, based on the result, where necessary to improve the strategy.
How to create a digital strategy
At this point, to create a digital strategy it will also be essential to select management platforms and publish continuously. Every action must complement the other. However, the main focus must be the target: without knowing the audience to address, it would not be possible to define objectives, devise an editorial plan and consequently develop content. To learn what potential customers expect from the brand in question, surveys could be useful, set up in such a way that they not only allow understanding of public behavior but also identifying the social channels they prefer. Once the audience has been segmented and the buyer personas have been defined, it will be possible to proceed with structuring a communication plan, starting with the use of HD images and videos to convey the message of maximum transparency (for example, “you are buying exactly what you see” in the case of an e-shop).
In addition, as mentioned in the previous paragraph, it is essential to study competitors and analyze the sector well to understand in which direction to move. The social world is saturated and standing out may not be easy. But by analyzing competitors’ content, you can understand what to focus on to distinguish your brand in the market and which levers to push to achieve your own “brand positioning” in the consumer’s mind. In this way, for example, you could structure a Social Media Marketing strategy focused on aspects where sector competitors have failed and consequently stand out as “the brand that made it”. In this sense, adopting a strategy based on user-generated content, i.e. social content that reflects customer opinions, could prove to be a winning card.
What should the media strategy consider
In considering the elements useful in defining a successful social media strategy, it will also be helpful to define an editorial plan to follow with days and times to publish, so as to create a sense of continuity. Each post to be shared must have already been predetermined, that is, it must have been established whether it should be a reel or a carousel etc. On social media, nothing can be left to chance, improvisation could in fact be a penalizing action. Defining the content strategy on social media therefore means establishing:
- the type of content to be published and on which channel
- how many times to post the post
- who will take care of the content
- who should read it, that is, what is the target audience how to promote each content
To better manage the planning of individual posts, you can use specific tools, such as Hootsuite.
In addition, to achieve the desired results it is also important:
- to take advantage of current themes to create engaging content
- learn to “listen” to what fans want
- interact with the fanbase, even in a humorous and original way if the brand communication allows it
- use the blog as an additional vehicle to reach the target with ad hoc content
The last phase of this strategic process ends with data monitoring, the only tool to measure how effective the strategy has actually been. To do this, you can use both analysis and monitoring tools (such as Google Analytics) and Insights provided by social platforms themselves.
Contact us to find out how we can help you define your Social Media Marketing strategy and make your business known!
