Grow Your Business With An Effective Social Media Strategy

Strategizing is vital to the success of any business venture, and it's the same with social media. If your business is on social media, or considering it, it's critical to develop and implement a well-thought-out strategy. Doing so can increase your followers, convert them to customers, and ultimately grow your business. We'll give you insights in this article and the one to come on how to do just that.

Why You Need A Social Media Strategy

In 2021, 91% of businesses planned to use social media to market their business. Astonishingly, 54% of marketers do not measure their return on investment (ROI) on their social media marketing and over 30% are not even sure how to measure it. That means by formulating a plan, measuring it, and adjusting when necessary, you can be ahead of your competitors. Here are the first three steps you can take.

Step 1: Research Your Competitors

The first step in your strategy is to research your competitors on social media and determine what is working for them, if anything. If your competitors have a strong following and high engagement (likes, comments, shares), then determine what they are doing and emulate it.

Are they getting a lot of engagement with their articles or more with polls? Do they use more videos or simple images? Paying attention to their posts, particularly the ones with the highest engagement, can give you insight into the types of content you can consider pursuing as well. Don't copy them, but consider the same types of content and cadence of posting. This ties directly into the next step.

Step 2: Understand Your Audience

Next, improve your understanding of your target audience. If you have not done so yet, create customer profiles (also called avatars) of your target audience. Identifying their demographics (age, gender, physical location, etc.), is the first major step in determining which platform(s) you focus on.

As of January 2021, the top five most used social media platforms in the U.S. are Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram, and Twitter. There are other popular platforms as well, such as LinkedIn, Reddit, and others. It's a good idea to have a presence, even minimally, on several of them, but it's most beneficial to focus on one or two.

An important step you can take is to research the current demographics for the top sites to determine which ones align with the demographics of your target audience. Pinterest is used predominantly by women (70%), for example, so if your product appeals broadly to women, Pinterest is a platform you should consider.

Step 3: Post Useful & Relevant Content

Knowing who your target audience is and what platforms they use will guide the content that you produce. The best way to gain the attraction of new followers and keep your current followers is to provide useful and relevant information. Use the 80/20 rule and you may be surprised how well it works. 80% of the time, do not post about your sales, products, or services.

The bulk of your posting should be a variety of other material that rewards and engages your followers. For example, post information that speaks to your industry and is relevant to your readers, such as an relevant "how-to" blog article. This can be someone else's article as well; it doesn't have to be written by your business. Ask questions about their holiday plans, post polls to get a better sense of their needs, use videos and pictures to highlight your business, and other engaging posts. Above all, make it social because that's why people use social media-to be social.  

The remaining 20% of your posts can be about your sales, service, or products. If your followers receive mostly useful and engaging posts from you, they won't mind a sales pitch every now and again. What they will mind is a sales pitch every time. That will likely result in them ignoring your posts, and then they could stop seeing them all together-due to the algorithms. The more they interact with your posts (likes, shares, comments) the more often they will see your posts.

Skip Member Highlight: Social Media Example

Footsteps Researchers is a company based out of St. Louis, Missouri — and a Skip member. They conduct in-depth research on the Morning Reports of American military companies from World War II. They also offer specific guided tours, called "footsteps tours" through Europe, tracing the steps of soldiers from World War II.

Footsteps Researchers primarily use Facebook because the bulk of their audience is adults between 30 and 70. Facebook has the largest user base for its target range. They also utilize LinkedIn to promote and interact with other professionals in their field. Their advice to businesses: "Have a plan, look at your demographics, make it strategic."

Conclusion

Having a well-thought-out social media strategy can give you a competitive edge and be a game-changer for your business. In this article, we laid the first three steps you can take to start building your audience and converting them into customers.  Stay tuned for part 2, where we will highlight three more steps to craft your social media strategy.