Do you have a social media presence for your business? And if you do, is your strategy working for you? Or…
Do you have a social media marketing strategy?
Here’s how you lay a powerful foundation so you’ll know which social media channels to give your attention to for your niche market. Then see how to emulate the movers and shakers in your industry. And why would you want to do that in the first place?
All that and more is in the post: the social media marketing strategies (long term) and tactics (short terms action) that will serve you well for years to come.
1. Slow and focused action
Chances are good you’ll only need to deal with one or two networks. This is in contrast with what many online marketers do; they jump directly into the deep water.
They figure it’s a good idea to cast the widest net and something’s bound to happen. But why waste time in networks where your audience is not to be found?
Also keep in mind that each network has a learning curve which includes all the “tribal knowledge” known only to those who’ve been there long enough to know.
You’ll do better to only have to deal with one or two places; hence, start slow.
One of the most important tasks is finding out the networks where your audience spend their time.
Ideally, you want to do this in the most efficient way; here’s how.
2. Locating your audience on social media networks
You should know who your major competitors are and ideally the lesser ones, too. You’ll go through this in a step-by-step process; it only requires time.
A. Visit each competitor blog and check-out the social media shares for each post. You can modify this for expediency and only go with posts with a high number of shares.
Either way, you want to identify the most active social media channels.
B. Click-through their social media icons so you can visit their social media pages. Then evaluate the activity; is it high, low? What are their followings like in terms of numbers? What is the quality of the conversations?
This is important groundwork and intelligence-gathering because eventually you’ll strike a gold vein. That is to say, you’ll discover where the action is with your audience.
And this will be the channel where you’ll want to focus your efforts.
Do you see the value here?
Rather than shot-gunning your social media marketing efforts; you know, throwing spaghetti on the wall and seeing what sticks, you’ll know exactly where you need to be.
3. More intelligence by observing your industry heavyweights
If you’ve been around long enough, this is not fresh news. And if so, have you learned all you can from your industry heavy-hitters? If you’re new to business or have not achieved all you hoped for with social media, then this is an important step and will pay-off.
Who are your greatest competitors in your industry, market or niche? Next, make a short list of the top 3 or 5.
Go to their most active social media channels and take notes.
Study their posts, post lengths, post content, conversations and how these leaders interact with their audience. Remember, it’s your audience, too. What else?
Do they focus on specific types of media such as podcasts, video, etc? You may not be set-up for it, but you can make a plan for using it.
Emulate the leaders in your industry/market without directly copying them.
The most distinguishing aspect of your business, aside from maybe your product or service, will be your uniqueness; your personality, experiences, style of expression.
You must offer something that sets you apart from the rest because if you don’t, you’re just like all the rest which is the kiss of death. Why then, should anyone give you their time (and money)?
4. Relationship building the easy way
You’ll get farther, faster by cultivating relationships on social media channels. And you know which channels you need to be targeting after you implement the steps above.
You sow the seeds of relationships by sharing other peoples’ content; it’s easy.
Share the content you consider useful and otherwise appeals to you and your audience. Don’t worry about what you get in return or how fast or slow it happens.
Just start doing it and make it a habit. It’s fine to make shared content as much as half of your content – just be sure you don’t waste your audience’s time.
Your efforts will be noticed, and the cool thing is some people will start sharing your content. But you cannot create crap content and expect others to share it. Make your stuff worthwhile and shareable.
5. Reveal yourself through commentary
People love reading, seeing or hearing thoughtful commentary and this is yet another worthwhile part of your social media marketing strategy.
It’s also another form of content that will provide you, and your audience, some variety. And it is a way of creating a conversation – the very core and substance of social media. Plus…
Good to preferably excellent commentaries are likely shared by those with whom you’ve built a relationship. Recall #4, above.
So what do you comment on?
It’s best to stick to topics in your industry; the things your audience will want to read about. You can find trending topics in your industry, news, articles written by others in your market, new products in your industry – you see?
Let your audience know your thoughts, feelings, analysis, warnings, endorsements or anything else truly worthwhile. And be sure you explain why you feel or think they way you do.
There is almost no end to what you can do with commentaries.
Conclusion
You’ve just read, and learned, powerful strategies for creating a social media marketing strategy that’s practically guaranteed to work if you use it.
Remember – the quality of your efforts from creating your blog and its content all the way to executing your strategy determines how successful you’ll be.
What will you do when your social media marketing campaigns start to pay off? For one thing, you can be prepared with your internet marketing skills – just in case you feel they can improve.
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