With the continual rise of social media accounts, it’s pretty obvious that social media should be an integral part of your company’s digital marketing strategy. Just check out these social media statistics:
- The internet has 3.17 billion users
- There are 2.3 billion active social media users
- 91% of retail brands use 2 or more social media channels
- Internet users have an average of 5.54 social media accounts
- Social media users have risen by 176 million in the last year
- 1 million new active mobile social users are added every day. That’s 12 each second
- There are 1.65 billion active mobile social accounts globally
No matter what your business sells and who you sell it to, social media marketing can help you grow your brand and you bottom line. Kick start your social media marketing campaign by following these strategies.
Have a Plan Based on Your Goals
Start by thinking about your goals. Do you want to increase website traffic? Build brand awareness? Increase conversions? As always, make sure these goals are specific, measurable and attainable. Based on these goals, start to form a social media marketing plan. Based on your target audience, think about the keywords you would like to use and content that will peak their interest.
Remain Consistent With Your Brand Image
Each social media platform has its own unique voice and environment, but your company’s core values should stay the same. Align your social media branding with the branding on your company website. Create a social media style guide. A social media style guide is the rule book for how social media managers will create messaging on social media. This should start with defining your buyer persona, reflecting upon their demographics, job roles, goals and challenges. Include a company overview which defines your mission and vision. Finally, determine the language you will use in response to comments and inquiries (hint: remember to keep it helpful, thoughtful and educational).
Include Images and Links
Share your business’s unique, original content to gain followers and fans, but it’s also a great idea to link to outside sources. Linking to outside sources increases trust and reliability, and who knows, you may even get some in return. Also, don’t be afraid to include images, videos and infographics in addition to your text. Visual content is more than 40X more likely to get shared on social media than other types of content.
Customize Your Content Across Platforms
Remember to follow best practices when publishing your content. What works on one platform, doesn’t work on another.
- Twitter: Use for posting short updates, comments, or thoughts to the internet. Keep your tweets between 100-110 characters and use images to better communicate your message.
- Facebook: The most popular social media platform in the world. You want to keep posts to around 250 characters. This allows you to showcase more of your brand’s personality and engage with a wider audience.
- LinkedIn: A great place for professionals to connect. Share rich, thought provoking, long form content.
Post Regularly, Then Share and Retweet
Produce a frequent publishing schedule to include answers to: what content, what platform and at what time. The more your audience hears from you, the more trust you will build. Don’t forget to share and retweet. It’s an excellent way to widen your audience and show them you know what’s relevant.
Looking to learn more detailed information about creating content for social media? Check out The Ultimate Guide to Social Media Content Creation.
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