If you’re posting blindly on your social media platforms with the hopes of going viral and spurring engagement, you’re wasting your time and your money. Taking the time to develop a custom social media plan is a necessity if you want to see engagement on your posts, interact effectively with customers, and establish an online presence reflective of your company’s mission. Here’s why your business needs a social media strategy.
Customer Relations
According to an article by Revlocal.com, “It’s no secret that social media has, essentially, taken over our lives. The latest data shows that we spend five years and four months on social media over the course of a lifetime.” With so many people and businesses on social media, you need to have relevant content that draws customers to your company versus your competitors. A strategy based on engaging with customers can enable you to receive valuable feedback, and create lasting brand loyalty.
Establish Your Brand
Social media is likely to be the first thing a customer sees from your company. From Facebook posts to Instagram pictures, the best way to get your brand out to as many people as possible is through social media but you need to know how you want your brand to be perceived. Do you want the rough and rugged attitude of Duluth Trading Co. with their clothing or do you want to bring out your inner athlete with Under Armor? Each company has a brand they’ve built and continue to showcase through their advertisements and social media. You’re creating your own exclusive brand that will then be shared with the rest of the world. Think about what steps you go through before you purchase from a business. Main Street ROI says in their article, “Of course Google is one of the top sites to search, but many are also turning to Facebook and other social media networks to see if a company is established there.” Customers want to see what type of environment surrounds your company and if other people trust you.
Organization
It becomes much easier to create posts and ads when you set specific goals. How many posts do you want per week? How long should the posts be? Who do you want to see these posts? Questions like these help steer your strategy and enable you to see the kind of results you’re getting through analytics. Knowing what you want to accomplish helps the planning process. Like outlining a paper, you know what you want to do before you do it. It makes the actual process of content marketing more beneficial and utilizes your time effectively.
Having an Advantage
Posting blindly without goals in mind is time consuming and wasteful. Let your competitors do that. When your business has a social media strategy, you give yourself an edge by posting with a purpose. Having a plan enables you to properly prepare posts and use the responses and interactions on those posts to calculate their effectiveness. You may notice that your posts may be viewed by more people at 9:00am, but that posts made at noon have a higher engagement rate. You can apply this knowledge to plan your posts accordingly and adjust your content schedule. Without taking the time to review your posting strategies and their results, you’ll never improve your social media presence.
Many companies have established their brands through social media. From Wendy’s roasting people to small businesses posting quick vlogs on Twitter, your ability to reach out to the public has never been greater. Study what you’ve done and use it to make adjustments to your plan and maximize your efforts. Take the lead in your market and niche and establish yourself as a thought leader. Social media is here to stay but it changes rapidly. Be sure to keep up.
Recent Comments