Creating a social media presence takes a lot of time, and sometimes, it can be tempting to cut corners. But listen – you won’t want to do that.
One of the biggest mistakes that a company can make is to neglect to formulate a cohesive strategy. This is often a result of trying to do social media marketing cheaply because memberships to the main sites are “free”.
It’s 2020, and that means that social media is no longer optional and it needs to have a dedicated and supportive portion of your overall marketing budget. Do not let it be an afterthought…it can’t be the remaining $5 of your marketing budget.
It’s imperative that you and your team take the time to formulate a strategy, execution plan, and meaningful KPIs that will help enhance your business overall. We’ve seen companies leave their social media marketing plan and execution up to interns as a way to cut costs, but this isn’t an adequate solution – and will end up costing your company more in the long run.
Another downfall of having interns handle your social media strategy is that they may not have enough tenure with your company to fully understand and execute accordingly. With the end of each semester, and the start of a new end turn, your social media presence is bound to change.
Hiring a dedicated person or marketing team to handle your social media marketing campaign is essential to success, whether you are a small business or a large business. It gives them the opportunity to develop cohesive branding across your channels, a cohesive voice, and execute meaningful outreach/platform strategies. Something you absolutely do not want is for your Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn to all look like they are being handled by separate people in your company. It is unprofessional and bound to cost your business in the long run.
Whether you’re marketing a product or service, this blog post can serve as a quick punch list of the barebone essential items you need to consider when creating your social strategy:
Post Consistently.
Do not post 5 days a week one week and then go dark for 2 weeks on your social media channels. Posting consistently needs to be a high priority for your company. We don’t just mean abiding by a schedule, but also making sure that the associated imagery is consistent as well.
Also, posting consistently not only keeps your current audience engaged, but it also brings in new people to your target market which helps build brand awareness. For example, if you happen to post videos on YouTube, that platform’s algorithm feeds off of having a consistent upload schedule. The more you upload, the more your videos get recommended to users who are engaging with similar content (in this case, your competitors).
As with posting on other social media platforms, when you do this consistently, you can benefit from organic reach.
Plan Your Posts.
A part of good content marketing is good planning. We often stress the importance of scheduling your posts in advance. This gives you the opportunity to not worry about figuring out what type of content to post last minute, and instead focus on meaningful actions such as responding to customers and clients and creating engagement opportunities.
There are a variety of scheduling tools out there, so make sure to do your research and see which one works for your marketing plan.
Proofread.
Posts that are full of grammatical and spelling errors will hurt your business credibility. Think about if a potential customer visits your Facebook page and your posts are full of errors, and then visits your competitor’s and their posts are extremely well-written. The probability of your business earning that customer is few and far between.
Execute Outreach.
On LinkedIn, this could mean connecting with members of your target audience and having meaningful conversations. However, do not be the person that connects and then immediately sends sales messages to every single one of your connections.
On Facebook, this could mean joining relevant groups where your peers, competitors, and potential customers are. Again, having those meaningful conversations will help push people further into your sales funnel.
Spy On Your Competitors.
When doing your marketing research, make sure not to forget about your competition. If you don’t know where to start, what to post, or when to post, we encourage you to look at what your competitors are posting.
Take a look to see which of their social media posts are earning the most engagement, what time of day they’re posting, and what their content mix includes. This should give you enough ideas to start with. Just remember to improve upon their strategy and customize it to your company, your values, and your goals.
Utilize Paid Opportunities.
If you’re going to take the time to make a well-executed post and no one sees it, what is the point? Years ago, any time that your company posted on Facebook the majority of your Facebook followers would see and engage with your post. However, that is no longer true. No matter the KPIs you’re focused on – there’s probably a paid advertising option to support your efforts.
Also, remember to budget for paid advertisements. Look at how much you are willing to spend, and what your return on investment might be. If you can spend more to get a greater ROI, this may be something you want to do for your business.
Don’t Put All Your Eggs In One Basket.
Just because you post once on Instagram, and you get 5 likes, and that same post on Facebook earned you 22 … doesn’t mean Instagram isn’t the right fit for your business. Every social media network brings its own unique values to the table – take the extra few minutes to optimize each of your posts for each of the social media sites to maintain a cohesive and strong presence.
Learn What We Can Do For You.
Consistency and continuously learning and adapting is key to success with a social media marketing strategy. This is why brands who hire a marketing agency have an edge over their competition. Because of how many clients we (and other agencies) work with every day, we’re able to see overall trends, as well as site updates, and that may be rolled out to one account first – which gives our team an advantage to plan for all of our other clients.
If you’re interested in working with us, please contact us today!
