Blogs

5094

Social media is indeed an unavoidable part of the marketing mix for businesses today. This is especially true for products and services whose target market are consumers (B2C) as it provides an opportunity not only to sell to your customer but also to connect with them and forge a valuable relationship. The two-way communication between businesses and consumers can add value to a business by being a source of consumer insights that can then be used to improve and innovate products and services. What used to cost the top dollar in terms of advertising spend can now be done with leaner budgets and more insights to ensure efforts are both effective and efficient. The Right Social Media Channel for Your Business Here is a cheat-sheet some insights to get you started: Knowing the strengths and weaknesses of each platform is a start. How do you determine which platform is suitable for your business? There are several steps to be taken before you decide to ensure that your efforts are directly contributing to the bottom line of your business. Asking yourself these questions will help determine which of these platforms can be used best to market your products or services and which can be used to build your brand, be it with consumers or within the industry. 6 Steps to Build a Successful Career in Social Media Marketing What to ask yourself before starting? Start by asking yourself what your main OBJECTIVE is for having a social media presence. Then ask yourself what your GOAL to determine how you use these social media platforms. The next question is vital for the success of your social media channel and that is determining who your TARGET AUDIENCE is. This will be the basis of your CONTENT PLAN and AD TARGETING. Next, think about what MEASUREMENTS will determine the success or failure of your social media efforts and the TIME FRAME in which you will be measuring your efforts to help keep you on course. Lastly, but probably most importantly is determining HOW MUCH INVESTMENT your business can afford to set aside for your social media efforts. This will also determine the rate at which your products and services will be seen and your channels grow. Why and How Should Businesses Use Social Media? Best Digital Marketing Courses Online Advanced Certificate in Brand Communication Management - MICA Advanced Certificate in Digital Marketing and Communication - MICA Performance Marketing Bootcamp - Google Ads from upGrad To Explore all our courses, visit our page below. Digital Marketing Courses Once you have determined where social media fits into your business, then you can start planning for the content that will engage your audience and tell your business’s story. It is important to set a solid foundation and stick to a content plan to avoid mixed messages being sent to and received by your audience. Building anything of value takes time and effort; the same principle applies to social media. It’s recommended to allow 3 – 6 months from the start of your social media efforts to measure what is working and what is not. Any sooner and you will not be able to make a decision based on a large enough sample of data. In-demand Digital Marketing Skills Advertising Courses Influencer Marketing Courses SEO Courses Performance Marketing Courses SEM Courses Email Marketing Courses Content Marketing Courses Social Media Marketing Courses Marketing Analytics Courses Web Analytics Courses Display Advertising Courses Affiliate Marketing Courses upGrad’s Exclusive Digital Marketing Webinar for you – What’s new in Marketing? document.createElement('video'); https://cdn.upgrad.com/blog/rumi-ambastha.mp4 Digital Marketing Free courses to Learn Influencer marketing free course Introduction to advertising free course Influencer marketing right free course SEO basics free course SEM basics free course Email marketing free course Social media marketing introduction free course How to leverage user generated content free course Content marketing free course Fundamentals of marketing free course Brand marketing masterclass free course Popular Digital Marketing Blogs Beginners Guide to YouTube Marketing : Complete List How to Monetize Your YouTube Channel? Top 5 Actionable Steps The Complete Guide on setting up a LinkedIn Company Page Everything You Need To Know About Digital Marketing A Complete Guide to Digital Marketing Strategy: What it is and How to create it? Digital Marketing Tutorial: A Step-by-Step Guide To Become an Expert Future of Digital Marketing: How It Goes From Here Importance of Digital Marketing: Top 10 Reasons Your Business Needs it Digital Marketing Challenges: How to Win Amidst the Challenges in Digital Marketing

by Veronica Rajandra

08 Jan 2021

Blogs

5112

Creating a winning social media strategy requires a firm understanding of both your business goals and the strengths of the different social media platforms out there. Here are 6 steps to creating a winning social media strategy for your business: 1. Identify Where Social Media Fits Into Your Business To ensure that your social media efforts are directly contributing to business goals and providing ROI, there are several key questions that should be answered: i. What is my overall business goal? Some of the common goals of a business include brand awareness, sales, product launches, customer service, leads, building audiences and keeping up with competitors. Learn digital marketing courses online from the World’s top Universities. Earn Masters, Executive PGP, or Advanced Certificate Programs to fast-track your career. ii. How can social media support this? Depending on what your overall business goal is, this is where you identify which social media platform would best support it. For example, Facebook and Instagram would be best used to create brand awareness while YouTube may be the right platform for product launches. iii. How much money am I willing to spend on social media? Once you have identified which platforms are the best to support your business goals, creating a budget is essential for the growth and content of your page. Bear in mind if you have a limited budget, video-centric platforms such as YouTube may not be the best choice. Thus ensuring a sufficient budget is in place to support your social media efforts. It’s NOT Too Late to Be a Leader in Digital Marketing 2. Define Your Target Audience Here is where we talk about who your audience will be on social media. This area would usually be defined by your business and marketing plans and can be further refined on social media. Your audience can be defined by the following segmentation: Demographic Geographic Psychographic Generational Behavioural Besides traditional marketing segmentation, you can also use data from existing assets to define your audience. These include: Website visitors Engaged users Users who have interacted with your business before Existing customers This is an important step in the process of creating a winning social media strategy as this will define your content strategy and also ensure that you are reaching the right audience with tailored messaging that resonates with them. 3. Research What Your Competitors Are Doing This is a great way to not only understand what your competitors are doing on social media but to also understand what works and what doesn’t. The easiest way to do this is by visiting the social pages of competitors to see: i. Which social media platforms they are on This will show you your competitor’s overall social media strategy. For example, are they only focusing on Facebook? And if so, what are they using it for? ii. How they are using each platform By looking at each platform you will be able to identify your competitor’s platform strategies. For example, are they using Twitter for business updates or for customer service? iii. What is working and what is not. An overview of your competitor’s social media platform can shed light on what is working and what is not within a given industry or content type. For example, if your competitors are posting photos only and talking about very technical aspects of products, looking at how their audience responds will show if you that approach to content works for your audience. 10 Practical ways to Grow your Business Right Now! 4. Create Your Content Strategy Based on the previous 3 steps, you will have sufficient information to then create your own content strategy. Key areas to look at when creating your content strategy are; i. What type of content will you be producing? Here is where you identify (based on the previously allocated budget) what types of content you will be producing. Will you be producing video, images, links or curated third-party content? ii. How frequently will you be posting? Depending on your types of content and budget, you will then be able to identify how frequently you will be posting. For example, if you are producing only videos, you may be able to post once a week or once in two weeks depending on the next question. iii. How many resources do you have on hand for content? Once you have identified the types of content and the frequency of posting, you will need to identify if you are able to produce content internally or if you will need to outsource content to third-party content producers. Again, the budget allocated will help you answer this. 5. Define Your Measurements To ensure your efforts are contributing to your overall business goals setting measurements is an important part of a winning social media strategy. Some common measurement metrics for social media include; i. Reach/Impression This can be measured by total overall reach/impression for a page or by each posting and can be further defined by organic vs paid. This shows you how many people have seen your content or page. ii. Engagement Here the number of likes, comments, shares, clicks, downloads and views are measured as an indication of how well received your content is. Best Online Digital Marketing Courses Advanced Certificate in Brand Communication Management - MICA Advanced Certificate in Digital Marketing and Communication - MICA Performance Marketing Bootcamp - Google Ads from upGrad To explore all our certification courses on Digital Marketing, kindly visit our page below. Digital Marketing Certification iii. Link Clicks This is as it suggests, shows how many times your links have been clicked on and further insights from your website can provide more details on what was done on the site. Top Digital Marketing Skills Online Advertising Courses Influencer Marketing Programs SEO Optimisation Courses Performance Marketing Certification Search Engine Marketing Course Email Marketing Strategy Content Marketing Strategy Social Media Advertising Digital Marketing Analytics Website Analytics Online Display Advertising Best Affiliate Programs iv. Sentiment This is an indication of overall happiness or unhappiness towards content or a business. For example, if more of what users on social media are saying is negative or are complaints, this will show up as an overall negative sentiment towards the brand. This a useful measurement for customer service efforts on social media. How to Decide Which Social Media Channel is Right for your Business in 2018 Digital Marketing Free courses to Learn Influencer marketing free course Introduction to advertising free course Influencer marketing right free course SEO basics free course SEM basics free course Email marketing free course Social media marketing introduction free course How to leverage user generated content free course Content marketing free course Fundamentals of marketing free course Brand marketing masterclass free course 6. Continuously Optimise Here we look at efforts on a monthly or weekly basis to see what has worked and what hasn’t on your owned assets as well as competitors. Using data and insights, you will be able to identify what works with your audience and create more of that and what doesn’t. It also provides an opportunity to ensure every dollar spent on social media efforts is being done so efficiently. Following these six steps will ensure that you are off a great start with your social media efforts. Ensuring a solid foundation and continuous optimisation is the key to a winning social media strategy that will benefit a business and help it grow in the long run. upGrad’s Exclusive Digital Marketing Webinar for you – Webinar with Q&A Session on Digital Marketing document.createElement('video'); https://cdn.upgrad.com/blog/kapil-panchal-alumni-talk-about-careers-in-dm.mp4 Popular Digital Marketing Blogs Beginners Guide to YouTube Marketing : Complete List How to Monetize Your YouTube Channel? Top 5 Actionable Steps The Complete Guide on setting up a LinkedIn Company Page Everything You Need To Know About Digital Marketing A Complete Guide to Digital Marketing Strategy: What it is and How to create it? Digital Marketing Tutorial: A Step-by-Step Guide To Become an Expert Future of Digital Marketing: How It Goes From Here Importance of Digital Marketing: Top 10 Reasons Your Business Needs it Digital Marketing Challenges: How to Win Amidst the Challenges in Digital Marketing Learn digital marketing courses online from the World’s top Universities. Earn Masters, Executive PGP, or Advanced Certificate Programs to fast-track your career. Featured Programs for you – Advanced Certificate in Digital Branding & Advertising from MICA

by Veronica Rajandra

12 Sep 2018