Social media is becoming bigger and more popular each year, without any signs of slowing down. With new social media sites popping up left and right, it’s increasingly valuable for small, local businesses to have a comprehensive social media marketing plan. Advertising on social media is often free or low-cost, making it a no-brainer as a way to gain customers, build your brand, interact with your peers, and advertise your products.
Know Your Audience
It isn’t always in your best interest to try to create content that speaks to everyone. One of the first lessons to keep in mind when developing a social media marketing strategy is to know your audience. Once you have a sense of your target demographic, it will be easier to design an online marketing strategy. Your advertising and social media presence will be much more powerful if you tailor your content specifically to the customers you are trying to attract.
Target Your Marketing for Each Platform
Each social media platform has strengths and weaknesses, and knowing what those are will help you develop the content that will be the most dynamic for each platform. It’s also important to understand how your audience and demographic changes from platform to platform. For instance, users of one social media platform may be older than users of another, and your marketing should reflect that so you don’t alienate anyone.
Develop a Schedule for Creating and Sharing Across Platforms
While it’s not an exact science, there is some strategy involved with knowing what to post and how often. If you post too often, people may quickly become tired of your brand or develop an unfavorable impression. Posting too little risks your demographic losing interest or forgetting that you exist. Develop a posting schedule across your social media platforms, rather than just posting whenever you get the urge. This will help you grow and cultivate an audience that looks forward to your posts.
Encourage Customer Participation
Getting your followers involved will create a positive impression of your brand – and it’s also free advertising! Encourage your followers to share content about your brand, and re-share the most positive, relevant posts on your social media. This type of participation will earn you new followers quickly, as the original creator of the content will share with friends and family, who will then become new followers!
Make it Easy to Contact Customer Service
One of the easiest ways to lose customers is by ignoring customer complaints or making it difficult for a customer to reach you for help. Be sure that your social media accounts all have a clearly marked contact section through which your customers can reach out privately for help. If you don’t have an easy way for customers to contact you, they will comment publicly on your social media, and all of your other followers will see a page littered with customer complaints.
Whether you’ve already begun developing a social media marketing strategy, or are just starting out and aren’t sure how to begin, Smargasy can help! At Smargasy, we pride ourselves on helping local businesses succeed by developing comprehensive social media marketing campaigns tailored to them. Our valuable services including search engine optimization (SEO), content marketing, social media advertising, email marketing, and reputation marketing. Contact us today for a free strategy session.
