7 Steps to establish a Social Media presence for your business
Today, social media is one of the most critical practices in digital marketing that businesses need to consider while planning their marketing calendar and activities. It is not only a way to showcase your brand strength and display your products, services, and offerings, but it is also an extremely effective tool for reaching your target audience and generating leads.
Over 90% of marketers say they are or will be utilizing social media for their business, and more than 60% say they have recruited new consumers using social media.
Nowadays, businesses are focused on data-driven marketing rather than traditional marketing approaches and practices. With that being said, it is not only important to get brand impressions but to also achieve a high engagement rate (how the customers or leads engage with your social media content).
Additionally, it is also important to grow your organic followers so that the content that you are publishing on social media generates the right leads without spending a lot of your budget on ads. This will in turn contribute to your business growth.
Emphasis on strategy
It is an undeniable fact that businesses today need to establish their online presence strategically. Even companies that establish a good website sometimes fail to recognize that social media is a part of their overall content strategy.
A methodical and strategic approach towards publishing the right content, combined with a coherent design and mood board is key.
Doing this will help develop momentum with the intended audience and allow the company to establish a strong presence in their target market.
Here are steps that you can implement to establish a social media presence for your organization:
Step 1: Decide on your social media marketing goals
Identifying your objectives and goals is the first stage in developing a cohesive strategy. Without goals, you have no means of benchmarking the success of your social media efforts.
Always make sure that your social media objectives are in line with your marketing goals.
Let’s say you want to launch a new brand. That means brand awareness will be your initial marketing goal. So, all your social media content should be geared toward maximising brand reach and tapping into all potential target audience pools. If you do this successfully, you will be able to see increased levels of engagement with your brand and generate leads.
Other kinds of marketing goals to consider:
- Increasing no. of followers
- Increasing engagement rate
- Leads generated or inquiries generated
- Generating social media traffic to the website
- App installs
You should also make sure that the above metrics have timeframes attached to them. For example, generate 100 leads every month for the first year and increase every lead generated by 10% for the next year.
Step 2: Learn everything you can about your audience
Knowing who your audience is and what they need will determine the kind of content you will post on social media. By researching your target market, you’ll be able to create content that they’re going to like, comment on, and share.
This step is also essential if you want to convert your social media audience into clients. Begin by gathering information about your present consumers. Then dig deeper into your social media analytics. Who is buying your product? Who is interacting with your posts?
Once you’ve defined your audience, you’ll create buyer personas, which will be able to help you understand the simplest ways to engage with your audience
Step 3: Choose your channels and create your profiles
Decide which channel(s) to use
Pro-tip: Write out a mission statement for every social media channel. A one-sentence declaration to stay you focused on a selected goal.
Example: “We will use Twitter for customer support to keep email and call volumes down.”
Set up your profiles
Once you’ve decided which social media channels you want to focus on, it’s time to form your profiles, or improve existing ones so that they align with your strategy.
Make sure you fill out all profile fields and include all the keywords people would use when they look up your business. Use consistent branding (logos, images, etc) across all your channels so that your profiles are easily recognized.
Step 4: Come up with a memorable handle
What’s in a name? Ideally, it’s catchy and memorable. When it involves your social presence, you’ll want to form a handle that individuals will recognize across all of your social medias.
Step 5: Create a social media content calendar
Sharing great content is important, of course, but it’s equally important to have a structured plan of when to share content so as to make the most impact.
The time you spend connecting with your audience should also be factored into your social media content calendar. Timing your social posts is an elemental science. Usually, we find that people prefer to check social networking sites during their lunch breaks and in the evenings after work.
Set your posting schedule
Your social media content calendar lists the dates and times at which you publish content on each channel. It’s the best place to organize all of your social media activities, from sharing photographs and links, to writing blog articles, and creating videos.
Determine the correct content mix
Make sure that your content strategy and calendar reflect the mission statement that you’ve assigned to every social profile so everything you post is functioning to support your business goals.
You might decide that:
- 50% of content will drive traffic back to your website
- 20% of the material will be dedicated to lead generation (newsletter signups, e-book downloads, etc.)
- 5% of content is going to be about your company culture
Step 5: Develop a content pipeline
A cute or hilarious post may catch a viewer’s eye for a few seconds, but engaging content is what keeps them coming back.
Think about what kind of content you will post? When and where will you post them? Will they add value to your audience’s lives?
Step 6: Track your company’s social media reputation
Every social media platform is a great place to share information about your company. But here’s the thing: you’re not the only one who’s talking about yourself. Others are as well.
As you explore the varied social sites, devote your time to tracking the reputation of your business.
Look around to see what others are saying about you. This is a great way to build your network.
Step 7: Measure your results
We talked about how important it is to start with a goal in mind in the beginning of this post. It is equally important to measure your progress to see if you are accomplishing these goals. Looking at your website analytics and tracking your social media engagement is vital to knowing whether your strategy is working.
Getting consistent social media engagement takes time, energy, and money.
Irrespective of the dimensions of your business, social channels can facilitate your better position and connect with your audience, reach potential customers, and increase awareness of your brand. If the probabilities seem overwhelming, start immediately. Eventually, you will discover what works best for you.
If all of this seems like a lot of work, hiring a marketing team to handle all your social media may be the right option. Greyscale Digital prides itself on being one of the top marketing agencies in Dubai and we are passionate about providing custom end-to-end digital marketing services to all our clients.