Step 1: Take stock of where you are.
Grab a pen and paper, sit down with a cuppa and make a list of where you are at this moment: what platforms are you on? How often are you posting? What do the levels of engagement on each platform look like? What is working well… and what isn’t working so well?
Step 2: Analyse the market
Taking the time to check out what your competitors and others in your industry are doing on social media can help brainstorm your own strategy. This kind of research will give you a great insight into the habits of the audiences you want to target, as well as providing a valuable overview of your industry. See what’s working for others by looking at how many followers they have, what type of content they are posting, and how often, and how many likes, shares, comments, retweets etc. they are generating.
Step 3: REALLY think about your ideal client.
I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to have a clear definition of your Ideal Customer. As well as the obvious demographics (age, gender, job title, location, marital status, salary etc.), really delve into their psyche: what are their hope and dreams? What are the biggest obstacles they face? What are their biggest challenges and fears? This insight is really important if you want to know who to market to, what to say and how best to reach them.
Step 4: Research where they and who they are hanging out with.
With your ideal client firmly fixed in your mind, now is the time to examine their behaviour on the internet: what are they looking for? Which blogs do they read? Which Facebook pages do they like? Do they have a Twitter account? Do they participate in forums, if so, which ones? Are they using LinkedIn?.. If so what groups are they engaging in?
A good way to find out where your ideal client is spending time online is to come up with a list of categories your potential client might be interested in and find a few competitors and main influencers in those categories. Look at their profiles, followers, read the comments on their posts; really delve into the activity on their platforms to find out where your ideal clients are hanging out and who they are engaging with.
Step 5: Set goals.
Often people feel overwhelmed because they’re not sure why they are using social media. Taking a clear look at what you want to achieve can help to clarify, simplify and focus your efforts. Be honest about what are you hoping to achieve from using social media. Is it an increase in sales? Greater awareness of your brand? To establish yourself as an industry expert? Set realistic and measurable goals that reflect your aims.
Step 6: Implementation
Create a step by step plan of what you will do each week and create daily time-slots during which you can engage with your audience in a meaningful and human way: providing useful updates, sharing photos, answering questions, replying to comments etc. Use scheduling tools like Buffer and Hootsuite to help you get organised and get ahead.
Step 7: Monitor and Measure.
With all the work you put in to your social media marketing, you’ll want to know whether your efforts are paying off. Knowing what’s working and what’s not will help you adapt your strategy to effectively meet your goals.
Monitoring your social media activities means listening to what people are saying to you and about you and measuring them means counting, calculating and analysing those activities to help you to determine hitting the mark and what’s falling short. Some of the best free monitoring tools include Hootsuite’s analytics reports, Google Analytics, TweetReach, and Social Mention, but there are many others and my advice would be to try a couple of them and choose the one that suits your needs best.
To be the best you can be on social media takes time: you can only successfully market to your target audience once you are REALLY clear about who that is and where to find them. You’ll need well-defined goals and a sensible plan. Even then you’ll need to be continually experimenting, tweaking, exploring and carefully examining your results. Remember that not everything will work for your business, so embrace the trial-and-error nature of it all and use you’re your successes and failures to teach and inspire you!
