Social Media Strategy in six simple steps?
Do you just not know where to start? We’ll try to break it down into simple steps. Hopefully this will make it clearer for you!
- Who is your Customer?
Good question! It’s all back to market research. When you carried out your market research, who did you define your customer as? Are they male or female? What age group are they in? Where do they live? Are they working? Do they have any interests? Where do they shop? What do they buy? If you haven’t done market research or if your customer offering is changing, then get back to the drawing board. Do some market research! Either outsource this to the experts or do some simple research yourself. If you have existing customers, then ask them some questions. Always ask for customer feedback. Not just feedback on how great you are! Ask them why they bought from you, will they buy again, etc. Also ask a bit about themselves – this will help you to get to know your customer and who they are.
2. What are your Goals?
This is worth asking at the outset of any marketing campaign. What do you want to achieve on social media? Is it clicks to your website? Is it product sales online? Is it brand awareness? Is it to garner more social media followers?
Once you know what your goals are you can then move on to the next step.
3. Where is your Audience?
No, not in a stalking way! But what social media platform are they using? There’s no point in your business being just on LinkedIn when all of your audience are actually over on Instagram. Choose your platform wisely. It’s easy to say that you’ll be on all social media platforms, but realistically choose one (or two) and do it well. You’ll know where your audience are when you know who your customer is. If you know your customer well enough, you’ll have designed a customer persona. With this, you then know what social media they are using.
4. When will you connect?
Is there a time of day that your customer is on social media? Is it at 6-8am when they are commuting to work? Or are they more likely to be on social media from 4-6pm during their commute home? Are they a busy mum and they don’t have time to be on social media until 8pm? By knowing your customer, yes, back to point one again (!), you’ll know what time to post on social media. Remember that you can schedule posts on most platforms.
5. Why choose you?
Exactly, why you? What’s so great about your business? What differentiates you from your competitors? Basically, what is your unique selling point (or U.S.P. in marketing language)? Once you have identified what makes you different, you can then use this in your marketing strategy. For example, if you are selling take away dinners, but do 20 others in your area, what is different about your take away? Maybe it’s the way you cook the food? Or is it the ethical packaging that you use? Perhaps you don’t add salt as an ingredient? Is it the flavour of the food? Could it be the speed of delivery? What is your USP? Once you know what it is, you can shout about it!
6. How will you Engage?
So once you know who your customer is, what your goals are, where your audience are, etc., how will you talk to them? Do you have a standard tone of voice that you use in your social media? Do you use humour? Are your posts serious? Where is your branding?
This is an important one to sit back and consider. You need to decide what style you feel comfortable with as a business. But it also has to be a style that will resonate with your customers. Set some time aside each week or month to write your content for social media, blogs, etc. Keep the same standard and tone to your work. Consistency is key.
If you need help with creating a social media strategy for your business then contact us at www.lushmarketing.ie/contact
We’re here to help and marketing strategy is one of our favourites!