How to Build a Social-Media Strategy That Works

Social media is one of the most powerful tools in your marketing arsenal. social media marketing los angeles If you use it correctly, you can create a strong personal connection with your prospective customers. However, marketers often make the mistake of diving into social media without a clear plan. At best, this is a waste of time – and at worst, it can lead to a PR disaster. To benefit from social media, you need to build a clear strategy that takes into account what you’re trying to achieve, who your customers are and what your competition is doing.As with any journey, the first step in creating a social-media marketing strategy is to understand where you want to go. What is the purpose of your social media marketing efforts? Do you want to create or raise awareness of your brand? Are you looking to increase sales, or website traffic, or both? Is your goal to build customer loyalty and increase retention? These goals aren’t mutually exclusive, but you should focus on one or two: If you spread yourself too thin, you’re not going to accomplish anything.
Now you have a handle on your ideal customers and your competition, social media marketing strategy template it’s time to start building your messages. This isn’t detailed content; rather it's the top level set of key messages that you think will resonate with your customers based on the personas you have created. Choose two or three messages, then break each one down another level creating a simple messaging hierarchy.There’s nothing wrong with adopting some of your competitors’ successful messaging ideas but also try to create original messages that set you apart -- this will help you to create a unique brand voice. Don’t be afraid to get creative as your social media presence should be exciting, not boring. In the 20th century, nearly every marketing problem had one solution—the 30 second TV ad. If you had a product to sell, you could reach everybody you needed to with a powerful, highly polished message in a very short period of time.Yet marketing in the digital age is different. Building awareness is no longer sufficient.

Link building for traffic and SEO

Creating linkbait and promoting it to social media news and bookmarking sites can attract a slew of links from bloggers that read them. social media marketing resume However, sustaining high levels of promotion to the same site or with the same user accounts will quickly be outed as social media spam. Creating value for the community is not the only rule, creating value and behaving according to formal and unwritten rules is what sustains social media sourced link building. So the basic function of marketing promotion has changed. It is no longer enough to simply grab attention, you need to be able to hold attention and that’s where social strategy comes in. The age of catchy slogans and massive ad campaigns is over. Brands in the 21st century need to become more like publishers and strategy needs to follow from that.Content strategy has become a popular specialty in marketing lately. The problem is that very few content strategists actually know what they’re talking about.In truth, a publisher’s first loyalty is not to the consumer, but to the editorial mission.
Not all social-media platforms are the same. You need to choose the right ones for the products or services you’re selling. social media marketing campaigns For example, LinkedIn is a good platform to target for business-to-business sales while Pinterest may be better if you’re in the fashion business. Some of these channels will become obvious when you look at your competitors but see if any relevant channels were overlooked.You should also identify influencers who can reach your target audience. Good bloggers command high levels of trust in their readers and are indispensable in creating buzz around your brand. Take the time to target the most appropriate bloggers – sites such as mine, Tomoson, can help you to do this. They tend to approach content as if it was just a longer version of an ad and therefore double the usual amount of psychobabble about the consumer mindset. That doesn’t mean you should ignore consumers, trends or anything else that’s going on. What it does mean is that great publications stand for something.

Drive traffic for ad revenue models

Becoming a power user of several social communities involves consistently contributing quality content, social media marketing service rewarding those who vote positively on that content as well as growing a large base followers. That base of like-minded connections can serve as an effective distribution channel for unique and interesting content which drives traffic to ad supported blogs that host the content. The linkbait suggestion above not only attracts links, but also attracts traffic. However, many ad supported sites report that traffic from social media sites is notorious for not clicking on ads. It’s the bloggers that write about linkbait content first viewed on social media sites that drive the kind of traffic which results in ad clickthroughs.The mechanisms for putting these strategies into action vary depending on the resources and time allocations a company can make on its own, or when working with an agency. In fact, it is most often due to internal resource constraints that companies outsource social media strategy and tactics in the first place.
Finally, you need to develop a strong content plan that will deliver engaging material. social media marketing conference The content needs to align with your overall messaging and be appropriate for the channels you’re using. This is more than just product information – think about how you can deliver real value to your audience. Don’t just stick to one type of media – a mix of videos, guides, infographics and other styles will engage your potential customers more effectively. Also, don’t think of content as something you post once. You need to have an ongoing presence on social media, and that includes delivering fresh content on a regular basis. There is probably no greater peril in marketing than the misplaced compulsion to be original. Originality, after all, is not a virtue in and of itself, but only has value if it’s meaningful. Try to be different for difference’s sake and you’ll accomplish nothing more than being weird. That might thrill the guys in the office, but it will fail in the marketplace.