The Best Social Media Marketing Strategy …complicated.
There’s no doubt that successfully marketing your business on social media is difficult. But there are steps you can take to make sure that your business gets back on the right trajectory.
Part of any good social media strategy is the setting of realistic goals. In fact, marketing has always been about setting goals and then trying to achieve them. But what are your goals are in the digital space?
Suppose traffic to your website has fallen. Then in this scenario, you’ll want to focus on marketing techniques that will drive traffic to your web page. Alternatively, if you find yourself losing customers, use social media to support and engage your clients. If nobody knows who you are, then you want to use social media to create meaningful content that people can actually relate to. This doesn’t mean bombarding them with emails and promotional material. It means engaging them so that they want to come to you.
Once you’ve identified the area that requires improvement, the next step is to get disparate departments involved in the effort. When it comes to social media marketing, everybody needs to be on the same page. This means that your social media effort across your business needs to be integrated.
Obviously you want to use social media for sales. But it’s so much more subtle and relevant than previous forms of advertising. Just put a post up on facebook at an opportune moment that introduces a common problem. For example, you could ask, “Wouldn’t it be great if you could sync your appointments software to your Google calendar?” People will respond and think to themselves, “well, yes actually, it would.” Then you could go on to say how your business can help do them this.
People are likely to engage with a post like that and share it with other people who they think might have the same problem. This could not happen with cold calls. And it rarely happens with spam emails.
The other major part of your strategy, if you’re failing to keep customers, should be to use social media as a customer service outlet. By publicly addressing concerns customers have, you can create a great impression. In fact, if you can turn around a customer complaint on social media, it shows future customers that you really care about their satisfaction. More so, in fact, than if the complaint had never been raised.
Make sure that you choose the social media platforms that will add the most value to your particular enterprise. If you’re in the business of selling tickets to an event, Twitter is a great way to keep people updated. If you’re a hairdresser, use Instagram to show off your best cuts. If you’re involved in selling to other businesses, use platforms like LinkedIn to communicate your message.
Finally, produce great content. This can be in the form of how-to videos or behind the scenes documentaries following your business. You could also offer guides, especially if you know people often don’t take advantage of everything your product has to offer. Keeping your social media strategy at the centre of what you do is one of the quickest ways of generating new business.
