Overview
Social media marketing takes a lot of components to succeed. It is not something you suddenly turn on and expect a steady flow of clients.
Instead, the key is to have the right vision to see your social media marketing succeed. In order to understand this vision, we want to go through what you need to do in order to succeed with your social media marketing.
5 Things You Need to Succeed in Social Media Marketing
1. Planning & Budget
Social media costs money just like marketing your business on other marketing platforms. Therefore, you need to start with a social media budget. Understand how much you can spend on what, so you can put together a comprehensive plan.
Generally, your plan should be something simple you can do repeatedly on social media that generates interest and referrals towards your business.
This means you need to focus. Do not work on marketing your business on every social network. Instead, figure out the best place to put your money. As we talk about target market research later in this in article, you can begin to see where to find the best social networks to use.
When it comes to budgeting, the biggest expense are usually social media ads. However, the good news is that the expenses on social media ads are not as expensive as traditional ad budgets.
For example, Vast Interiors, Australia and New Zealand’s largest recycled furniture retailer used a Facebook ad campaign to generate over 2,300 Facebook fans for their business.
Unlike traditional ads which cost around $2.50 per customer, they were able to spend $.21 per like. Now, the fans are the first step in generating business.
Once you do that, you need to create solid content on a regular basis.
2. Be different
Having a social media plan is no longer revolutionary. Businesses understand the value of social media and are adopting social media on a mass level. However, what they do not understand is how to create dynamic content that generates leads for their business.
The best way to execute your social media campaign is to think outside the box with your promotion strategy. As we discussed in the Top 10 Social Media Stories of 2015, the best ad campaigns were unique.
Take the Vauxhall Astra’s Union Jack video. The British car maker celebrated their 36th year anniversary by lining up 128 Astra’s in the shape of the Union Jack.
Instead of just creating a post saying they are a British car maker, they demonstrated how proud they are of their British staff. By doing so, they also got free press in British papers and additional media attention.
Did it take them longer to create the video versus a simple post? If you consider the post garnered 196K views, 1500 comments, and 400 shares not worthwhile, then it would probably be considered a success. Especially, since they only have 153K fans.
3. Target market research
As a social media marketing agency we repeatedly say on Shout, understanding your target market is the beginning of any good digital marketing strategy.
This is especially true on social media. You need to know where your social network hangs out to ensure you have the best content on the best sites for them to see that content.
Test your assumptions until you have a clear picture of your target market.
Using tools like Followerwonk and Hootsuite, you can determine their interests, as well as the best time to send them targeted content.
4. ROI
The bigger question when determining social media however goes beyond shares and likes. The big question is what is your ROI on social media? Even more important, is how long will it take to accomplish a positive ROI on social media?
Unfortunately, the answer is that it depends. For example, what if your business has 10,000 active followers? Would you get different results compared to a page with 100 rabid fans? Some pages get more shares even with less followers, because their target market is more engaged.
Furthermore, the depends upon your business model. Consider how quickly people purchase your products. Maybe it makes a difference if you offer B2B versus to B2C services.
How large are your sales? Are they small $5-10 products or large, one-time $1 million sales? The more you know about your business and followers, the more you can determine your social media ROI.
5. Communication strategy
Great social media marketing strategy requires determining the best forms of media based on your target market.
As we discussed in Social Media Strategy, you need to “create a good communication strategy on the appropriate social networks. This starts by identifying the different types of media you can use on social media.
For example, do you use photo posts or white papers? Maybe you see video as a great way to communicate with your network? Perhaps blogging is a better strategy.
Understanding the right communication strategy for your social network is tremendously important. Review your target market research, and determine how your market can quickly and easily digest your social media content. Â
Final Thoughts
Social media strategy is not something you create one day, and having running smoothly the next. You need to spend time developing the right strategy for your target market based on the right mix of communication strategy.
This ensures you stay within your budget and receive a positive ROI from your efforts.
If it all sounds too much for you to do by yourself, then schedule a free consultation with our team at Shout.
1300 122 110
