1. Set Clear Goals
What do you want from social media? Brand awareness? Leads? Direct sales?
If you can’t clearly define your goals, you will be aimlessly marketing your business. It’s a lot like driving to a destination. Unless you can define where it is you’re trying to get to, driving around in circles isn’t likely to help. Same with social media marketing. If you don’t know what your goal is, you’ll be posting at random hoping you end up somewhere you want to be.
Define KPIs (key performance indicators) to measure your success.
Once you’ve defined what your goals are, you need to define your metrics for success. Some examples of social media marketing KPIs could be:
- Grow following by 10% each month
- Generate 5 new leads this month
- Close 1 new deal this month
- Generate 50 new mailing list sign ups via social media
The KPIs should be unique to your business, but make sure that they are meaningful and measurable for your business goals.
2. Identify Your Target Audience
Who are your ideal customers? Where do they spend time online?
What problems do they have that your business can solve?
Much like driving without a destination is pointless, you have to clearly define the “Who” of your target audience.
When you know “Who” you’re marketing to, then you know which types of content you should be posting, which platforms you should be on, and what types of calls to action to include in your strategy.
We have an internal saying here at Entrust Marketing: “It all starts with ‘Who.’”
3. Choose the Right Platforms
- B2B businesses should focus on LinkedIn and Instagram.
- Retail & lifestyle brands thrive on Instagram and TikTok.
- Local businesses gain traction on Facebook and Google Business Profile.
Each platform has unique nuances that make it beneficial for different businesses.
Going one step back to #2 above, when you know “Who” you’re marketing to, choosing the platforms becomes very easy. You can research the demographics of each platform to find the platform that best fits your audience.
4. Plan Your Content Strategy
- Mix educational, entertaining, and promotional content.
- Use a variety of formats: videos, carousels, polls, stories, and infographics.
A strong social media content strategy is going to have a mix of different styles and types of content. It can become incredibly boring for an audience to see the same content time and time again.
When building your content strategy, come up with 3-4 content pillars that you can stick to consistently. A rather simple example is “Educate, entertain, engage.”
In this example, the “Educate” pillars can be any posts that help educate your customers in your services/products, your sales process, etc. Give them some new knowledge. In our case, the “educate” pillar of our strategy as an agency centers around giving out helpful marketing advice.
“Entertainment” posts can be industry-specific memes, bloopers, or funny videos that help to personalize your business in the eyes of your audience.
“Engagement” posts can be polls and other audience-centric posts where you invite them to take part in the fun and interact with your business.
5. Create a Posting Schedule
- Consistency matters more than frequency.
- Use scheduling tools to maintain a steady content flow.
The last thing you want when it comes to social media is to “Post and Ghost" your audience. Stay consistent and reap the rewards.