Creating a social media marketing strategy - The power of social media – and especially sites like Twitter (especially, just twitter…) – that act like tools of communication is immense. People can interact with even those whom you don’t know or have ever known. Your prospective clients are out there and you can reach them without any hesitation.
But to be able to reach them and get that conversion, you need a strong marketing strategy. How do you do that?
As seen in the image, the interlinked efforts bring results. All these sites ultimately share the same arena on the web. That is, they are all a part of the web and hence, can be inter-related. In fact, they should be!
Twitter for instance, must share links to your Facebook or Google plus Page, the Business Pages must mention about your Twitter handle while your blog, should talk about everything!
Social Media Marketing Strategy Step 1: Make Profiles on All the Leading Sites.
Don’t worry. You don’t need to master them and nor do you need to spend hours on it. You just need to spend a well planned time on strategy.
To begin with, you must have profiles – at least on the sites where your target audience is. If you are for instance, working on recruitments, being on sites like LinkedIn is needed. You could make a profile and start a group. And gradually plan the activity.
On the other hand, if you’re looking for teenagers, Facebook should be a great zone; while for working professionals – it should be Twitter. It’s all about where your TG is.
Social Media Marketing Strategy Step 2: Create a Time Line.
If you plan to tweet, it doesn’t mean you need to be on Twitter all day. You can spend about just an hour. When you log in, try to post content as well as interact. You can also schedule tweets using something like HootSuite.
If you are working on your Facebook page, then try putting in place the content that you intend to post and when you intend to do it. Build activities that can engage people.
Decide the time durations in the day or in the night, when you’ll be working on your SMM plan.
Social Media Marketing Strategy Step 3: Develop Content.
You must make your content. Rough drafts are fine, but just before you launch or immediately after you launch, you need to have you content strategy in place.
What are you going to tweet? What are your status-updates going to be about? It might be a good idea to pre-plan your content. If possible, you should even pre-schedule your posts as mentioned earlier.
Also, if you are maintaining a blog, then keep the posts in the back-up. You don’t have to post them immediately, you can plan when to publish your content. But it’s better to keep them ready, content marketing should be an ongoing process.
Social Media Strategy Step 4: Plan Interconnections.
This is the important step, and this step may vary for various businesses. But it is important because of all the efforts that you are putting into your social media planning.
Hence, what you do on Facebook should influence Twitter; what you do on Twitter should get you more followers, getting more followers should mean more readers on your blog, and the more readers on your blog should mean a greater audience and stronger presence on social space with other sites like Reddit, and StumbleUpon. And again, a good presence on Facebook would mean great activity on sharing sites like YouTube and Vimeo! So it’s all about interlinking; And so you need to plan them right.
Social Media Marketing Strategy Step 5: Evaluate.
Evaluation doesn’t always mean just a Google rank or number of hits. It means checking on how much of your activity is actually doing well and what should be the plan ahead. Having million followers on twitter and none of them ACTUALLY interested in your work or business or event, is absolutely pointless.
Big numbers without relevance don’t count. And hence, evaluation is important.
Evaluation is also for the review of your work. The content that you have published and the videos or photographs that you are sharing.
- Do people like your work?
- What content is getting good reviews?
To find yourself in a win – win situation, you must cater to the demands.
Now that you have completed the 5 steps to make an effective social media marketing strategy plan, it doesn’t mean you can rest! Social media is something that’s completely alive and active. So, if you want to do well, you should now pick up an energy drink and totally rejuvenate for more hard work in the days and nights ahead. But hey! It’s all fun – the journey should be tiring, but certainly worth it!
About the Author
The author is an expert social media strategist working with iNetZeal.Com in areas of SEO, SMO, and SMM. She is a passionate blogger with many years of experience and expertise.