You created your social media accounts, now what-

A lot of people are so excited to get started on social media, they set up their social media accounts and this just sit back and wait for the magic to happen. Well, I hate to tell you that is not really how social media works, all networks won’t work for every business, so it’s important to do your homework first! In this blog we will help you put together that strategy for a good social media marketing outcome!

First, you need to define your goals to accurately understand what “work” means for you.  

We start this off with what we call a Social Media Audit:

  • Set Your Goals – SMART
  • Understand your Customers and Competitors
  • How Utilize Social Media
  • Where is your audience active at

Where is my audience active & where are they searching:

Every minute, people are conducting millions of queries on Google, Twitter, and Facebook. If you are active on these social media platforms, then you have a chance at appearing in social media search results.

Any Niche sites? Just because 1 business gets leads from a site, doesn’t mean you will.

4 Questions to ask Yourself:

1.Where is my audience?

2.Where is my audience active?

3.Where is my audience searching?

4.What niche social media sites are right for me?

Second, we will look at the profiles you have had for awhile or the ones you have just set up. This will help determine where you need to spend your time, remember not every social media platform works the same for each business.

Examine your social media profiles

  • Locate and document all your social media profiles, official and unofficial
  • “Why are we using this social account?”
  • “Why do we want to use it?”
  • “What are our goals for this social media platform?”
  • “Are our target markets using it?”
  • If you no longer have a good reason to use the account or you find that your target market is elsewhere, don’t hesitate to cut ties and focus your effort where it is better spent.
  • Check for completion of all details on these profiles and for consistency in imagery and message

Third, now that you have your social media audit done and you have examined your own social media platforms, now we get to take a look at your competition and see what they are doing. In this case, we don’t look at them as competition, but more of industry leaders.

Examine those who do it well

Find 4 to 8 niche influencers and examine how they manage their brand on social media Observe imagery and branding on each of their profiles. 

Measure key metrics like followers and engagement:

  • Branding: How does their overall look promote the brand? Can visitors get an accurate sense of their personality or culture? How have they chosen to use images in header and avatar?
  • Popularity: How many followers/likes does the page have?
  • Frequency: How often do they post? What do they do on weekends?
  • Engagement: What is the number of people talking about the brand compared to the number of fans?
  • Types of posts: What topics do they frequently discuss? What types of posts do they use: photos, questions, videos, chats, text? What is engagement like for each of these post types?

Make an action plan for improvements and goals for your profiles

Fourth, now we will need to put in place the correct tools to measure your ROI (Return on investment). This can be a little tricky with social media, and is one of the more frequently asked questions that we get!

When measuring your ROI there are a few things to think of that mean social media are working for you:

  • Monitoring the insights that the social media platforms give you
  • Have custom coupon codes for social media platforms
  • Increasing repeat customers
  • Create a custom phone number through Facebook to monitor how many people are calling you through Facebook
  • General branding or exposure – are your brand follower numbers increasing? Facebook likes, Twitter and Instagram followers?
  • Increased organic traffic (SEO) – Monitoring Google Analytics, are you getting more people to your site from social media?

Some tips about the Social Media Platforms:

Facebook

  • One of the largest social media networks
  • Nearly ½ of all users are active each day & connected to 80 pages, groups, or events.
  • Don’t expect sales right away
  • Sponsored ads actually work
  • Share content from other pages

Twitter

  • 85% of Twitter users “feel more connected” to a business after they follow them
  • Not necessarily a lead generation platform
  • Post Often (as in multiple times per day)
  • Use # (Hashtags) and @ (Mentions)
  • Follow the Followers of like-minded companies

Pinterest

  • More popular content-sharing platform than email
  • Highest revenue per click than any other social sharing network
  • Post pins your target market with enjoy
  • Add custom images to your blogs
  • Join as a business & use Rich Pins

LinkedIn

  • User base of professionals
  • Typically most suited for B2B marketing
  • Complete Your Profile and Your Company Profile
  • Build your connections
  • Participate in posting to your profile, company page and groups

Instagram

  • All photos and videos
  • Powerful for promoting both one’s personal brand and a business
  • Post Often and give value
  • Comment and engage on others pages
  • Use Hashtags and Mentions

Google Plus

  • Integrated with Google Search results, the world’s dominant search engine.
  • Complete business brand profile
  • Link to YouTube and add your other social media links
  • Solicit Reviews

YouTube

  • The second largest search engine in the world and reaches more U.S. adults than ANY cable network
  • Create both instructional and fun videos
  • Have clean videos that look professional and authentic
  • Consider Overlay-Ads on videos

Tools (FREE!)

Buffer.com

Hootsuite.com

Feedly.com

Canva.com