In this digital era, online marketing has become the cornerstone of brand building. An integral part of any digital marketing effort will be its social media strategy. Given that there is no exact science to which marketing practices will produce the best results for any business, it can be frustrating to experiment with it. Resultantly, online social media interactions can be intimidating and even feel like traps waiting to be sprung. This article aims to offer some pointers on crafting a successful social media strategy.
Set out clear and specific goals beforehand
The first thing you should do before you start your social media marketing campaign is to establish your objectives and goals. Without goals, you have no way to measure your success and return on investment (ROI). Do you want more engagement, to spread brand awareness, push a new product launch or differentiate yourself from the competition? These are all important questions to answer before you start work on your social media marketing campaign.
These metrics should guide your marketing efforts and frame your actions. Once you have a vision for what you aim to accomplish, the next step would be to figure out your brand voice and the tone you plan on striking with your audience and where you would reach them. Before you make your decision about the “where”, it’s good to keep in view that your brand doesn’t have to be on every social media platform. For example, it may not make much sense for an accounting firm to be posting regularly on Instagram. By trying to remain active on platforms that are not necessarily useful to you, you run the risk of stretching yourself thin and maintaining coherency on the channels you need to communicate on. The effort is simply better spent on improving the quality of content you share on said platforms.
Try to share original content
While this may sound counter-intuitive, there are companies that are not afraid of establishing their social media presence by imitating or even copying content from their competition or other existing sources. While this can work for you in the short run, you should keep in mind that your audience is likely to assign different values to the content that is original and creative and content that is simply drawn from another source. While curating and sharing useful and educational content from other sources is valuable, your audience and existing followers will likely appreciate being given the useful information they may not have already found by themselves.
This is why your feed should not be solely dominated by content curated from other sources. Creating and sharing your own original content is a great way of differentiating yourself from other brands in your industry, showing your value to potential and interested customers, and is a great way to ensure loyalty and grow your following in the meantime.
Set aside a social media budget
Social media platforms are one of, if not the most important, channels for marketing. It may sound unappealing, but successful social media marketing is rarely free. There are paid social media advertisements and working with influencers rarely occurs without financial compensation either. As alluring as the idea of organically growing your social media following for free is, such a course of action is rarely feasible due to dense competition. Your social media rise to fame will need to be assisted financially in one way or another. As a result, allocating the right budget to your social media endeavors is crucial to your success.
Not only that, but leveraging your budget with the right strategy will be the most effective way for you to reach your chosen target audience. Depending on your product/service, some approaches will be more effective than others, so be sure to pick an approach that synergizes with your goals, as there’s no sense in paying influencers to talk about the benefits of a financial planning service if their audience isn’t even old enough to open their own bank account.
Consider using chatbots
Depending on the size of your company, you may not have the manpower to address all social media inquiries in a timely manner. Even if you do, hiring on additional manpower solely to answer questions on Facebook or LinkedIn is probably a hard sell. In that case, consider using chatbots. Chatbots are a digital tool that can communicate and resolve problems for your customers without the potential need for any human interruption. In addition to the above, chatbots integrate with the platforms that consumers now feel most comfortable interacting through, social media.
Platforms such as Chattypeople make integrating an AI-powered chatbot into your social media strategy easy. Tools like these allow you to create a chatbot that doesn't require any complex coding knowledge and can respond to and answer customer questions in a prompt and timely manner. Some chatbots are even able to take orders directly from Facebook Messenger and comments.
Put your brand front and center
Perhaps the most important part about your social media strategy is your brand. You need to let the world know who you are, and what makes you different from your competitors in your industry. A conversational brand voice can highlight the people behind your social accounts and likewise make you seem more approachable. Despite popular belief, a “professional” voice doesn’t have to be formal or detached.
Also remember to keep your content in easy to digest formats, social media channels like TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat are seeing increased engagement through short-form content. Consider exploring bite-sized content as a social media marketing strategy for brevity does help with virality. From dance videos to fast-paced Q&A’s and infographics designed for social channels, more digestible media content is here to stay. After all, more people than ever are now scrolling through their social media feeds, wanting to be entertained. Even if you aren’t creating short videos for casual consumers, try to keep your content clear and easily understood by even a layman, and consumed even with a short attention span.
In conclusion,
when creating your social media strategy, you should set out your goals clearly and early, putting some thought and effort into creating bite-sized original content. Leveraging powerful AI chatbot technology can help you optimize the resources spent on your marketing effort. If you need any help with your social media strategy, you can reach out to cmoCre8, a Singapore-based digital marketing consultancy with a strong track record in developing B2B marketing capabilities.