This 7 Step Social Media Strategy For Success

By Author: Harris Symonds
Total Articles: 121
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Social media is the new tool in the small business marketing toolbox. According to a February 2012 poll conducted by Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, the CMOs surveyed estimated that there will be an increase of 8.1% in their marketing budgets over the coming year. It was also revealed that they are planning to allocate around 7.4% of their marketing budgets on social media in the current year and expect that this figure will rise to 19.5% by 2017. This indicates that social media as a marketing and branding tool for businesses, is all set to grow. However, in order to get in front and stay in front of the competition using social media marketing you need to have a proper marketing strategy in place which is aligned with your business goals.

Our 7 Steps for a Social Media Marketing Success

Small business marketing is often a difficult task for the business owner/operator so here are seven steps as suggested by social media experts at Brisbane Branding that can help every marketer create an effective and successful social media strategy:

1. Establish your business goals and objectives
2.
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... First of all, it is important to chalk out the goals and objectives of your social media efforts to promote your business. When identifying your goals, keep in mind that they need to be SMART – Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely. Social media goals for a business may be generating awareness, generating new leads and prospects, boosting sales or increasing brand visibility. Depending on your sales process and business focus, your goals might be more specific. You can also seek assistance from an online management company in Brisbane for this purpose.

2. Understand your target audience
It is vital to understand your target audience before starting branding in Brisbane through social media. However, for success, you need to do more than that – you need to make sure that you understand the major and minor activities of the target market and how it uses social media. Your social media marketing strategy should include the platforms your target audience would use. Determine how they make use of social media when they are shopping – do they use it for input only or do they look for additional information.

3. Choose social media networks
Marketing through social media needs considerable effort and time on the marketing professional’s part. This is why you need to make a wise decision regarding the social media networks you will be focusing more on. Spend some time exploring various social media networks and how they can be used to your benefit before making any decision. If however, you are having a hard time deciding on which platform would work the best for you, you could consider approaching an online management company in Brisbane to help you choose the right social media networks.

4. Expand your brand
Make sure that you update the standard of your brand from time to time to ensure that you are making the most of your branding opportunities while branding in Brisbane. In today’s world packed with content marketing and social media, you brand may require something more than just a tagline and a logo. Expand your brand using images, live formats, audio and video.

5. Develop a content strategy
While working on different platforms it is important to understand your target audience and their needs on different platforms. Rehashing the same content or information and using it on different platforms isn’t enough. Find out what type of information your target market seeks and what other marketers are offering them. You need to determine how this content is different from yours and formulate your content marketing strategy based on that.

6. Enhance your presence in social media
Develop an advertising plan to convince your audience to visit your page on social media. Your target market uses social media to connect with friends and family, not marketers, so you need to offer them some sort of incentive in order to grab their attention and get them to your social media page. Consider offering freebies, coupons or discounts to persuade them.

7. Measure your results
In order to measure the effectiveness of your social media strategy, you need to have certain metrics related to your business goals in place. It is very important to measure and determine whether your strategy is delivering the desired results. These metrics need to be determined beforehand and you must ensure that the means necessary to monitor them are incorporated in your strategy.

Finally, the success of any small business marketing campaign will only be realised if your efforts are aligned purposefully with the goals and objectives of your business.

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