How do you use social media in your marketing, and do it the right way?
Why do you need social media to market your business, and how do you know if you’re doing it “right?”
Social Media can feel confounding, frustrating, trifling, or even fickle to master, and this frustration can often cause many business owners and companies to abandon their strategies or continue to struggle with it. They may find it difficult to justify the time investment or expense of hiring on or hiring out, so what can social media marketing do for your business when it’s done correctly, and how can you make sure it can actually get done?
First things first, let’s clear the air and discuss what social media can and can’t do for your business or organization.
Social media CAN:
- Help you with social vetting (prospective customers can check out your social media, and make a decision to engage further based upon what they find)
- Help you reach new customers (with the proper investment in boosts, ads, and engagement, you can reach your target audience)
- Engage with current customers (your regulars and fans can keep up with your company, share, and stay engaged)
- Establish and maintain your brand and company culture (with consistent content, imagery, storytelling, updates, and more)
Social media CAN’T:
- Be a golden goose that starts generating revenue as soon as you make a post
- Replace your website–they work better together, in conjunction with your other marketing activities
- Quickly grow without an ad/boost investment (1-3% organic reach is normal these days and plummeting, and this trend isn’t going to turn around).
- Set you apart if you are playing it too safe or being too conservative with content/videos/imagery
Now that we understand what social media can and can’t do, what can you do to get the kind of results you’re looking for?
Effective social media strategies include:
- Identifying the right platforms for your business, and understanding how to leverage their unique attributes, quirks, and features to your benefit.
- Content that is on-brand, engaging, visually appealing, and includes the right mix of video, imagery, and copy.
- Posting that is consistent, and up to date, because the only thing worse than no social media, is neglected social media
- Engagement with followers, responding to comments, likes, messages, etc
- A robust mix of paid and organic reach; organic content is evergreen and maintains your brand, while paid reaches your new fans/customers.
- People: people buy from those they know and trust, and the more real humans and their experiences you can include in your content, the better.
This list may feel a little daunting, and rest assured, effective social media marketing strategies do require an investment of both time and money, but the rewards can be very generous when it’s done the right way and your expectations are in alignment with reality.
In order to whittle it down to some actionable steps, let’s simplify it this way:
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Pick your platforms
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Create targeted content
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Post consistently
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Boost or run ads
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Engage and react
What if I don’t have TIME for all this?
You may have noticed that social media takes time to grow. We’ve mentioned that several times for a very good reason and that reason is because it’s true! If anyone says otherwise, be cautious.
So now that you understand the hours that may be potentially needed weekly in order to create, manage and maintain an effective social media marketing campaign, you may be feeling like you’re back to square one, and just want to forget about it, or hope it just goes away.
But successful companies both large and small have either an entire position, department, or business unit dedicated only to social media, and that’s because of how important it is to the growth of their business. We can be your outsourced social media marketing team, and either do this with you or for you!
If you need help developing your social media strategy and carrying it out, take advantage of our experience and start building your brand and bottom line, today.
