Both large and small businesses are getting in on the social media game. This means that social media strategies are getting integrated into their marketing schemes. In order to form a good social media strategy, a business needs to consider this type of marketing from several different standpoints. The following are some strategic elements that go into a good social media marketing campaign.
Good Planning
The first step to a successful social media campaign is to plan it out well. The plan can be something that is outlined by a small business on a single handwritten sheet of paper or a large formal outline put together by a large corporation. The point is to outline a series of steps beforehand and get a general sense of what the approach will be. These steps can be modified as the campaign progresses but it is important to get a general sense of how to proceed. Budgetary concerns such as paying employees that are designated to manage social media should also be part of the plan. Many of the items below will factor into the strategy that is arrived at.
Identifying Who Customers Are
One of the most important initial steps is to identify who the customer base is. Social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are hugely popular, so targeting all the users on them is not even realistic. The business using the social media strategy should identify the demographic they would like to reach using elements such as interests, age group, occupation, online communities, and so on. There are many tools on the social media sites as well as third party utilities that can help a business zero in on the right groups, and the savvy social media marketer makes good use of these.
Get Involved in Communities
Social media is all about communities. The sites themselves are large communities and often consist of subcommunities of users that may share the same interests. While there are simple demographically defined groups of users, there are also more intentionally created communities that all have a specific focus. The business using social media should try to get involved in these communities and the conversations that occur in them. This is basically a dialogue or discussion taking place within a certain community.
Social Media Spanning the Sales Cycle
Social media can be integrated into the entire sales cycle at various points. It can play a part in market research, brand awareness, engaging customers, making a sales pitch, negotiating or following up on a sale, final closing, doing product research, customer feedback, and so on. Thus there is no reason to think of it solely as a platform for marketing messages and lead generation.
Setting up Future Campaigns
Preparing for future social media campaigns can be a part of the sales strategy. People can be given information or hints as to upcoming offers and social media based marketing events. A great way to foster this kind of engagement is to emphasize fun activities such as contests, giveaways, and sales events. This can be briefly mentioned along with current social media content to keep customers interesting in the page.
Use these and other techniques to put together a great social media strategy. Taking into account several different dimensions of social media marketing strategies helps businesses create successful ones. Thinking about social media in the right way will help marketers to create effective strategies that work well for the business and lead to future social media success.
Derek loves anything related to oil technology, eagle ford shale, natural gas and other related technology. Derek is a mechanical engineer and when free you can find him playing with kids.
