Your business lives online, but does it perform to its best ability? If you want to keep your brand relevant and increase brand recognition, social media marketing is a great way to do that. It can be difficult to understand where social media marketing impacts your business and how best use it to connect with your customers. Whether you are a social media manager or looking to find a partner, here are some ideas to consider as you strategize.
Think Strategically on Social Media
Strategy on social media is an evolving process as algorithms change. In 2018, Facebook began changing how users interact with businesses, showing more posts from family and friends. It is harder than ever to find results you are looking for.
Now is a great time to plan a review of your social media channels and your goals, think of how to reach them.
Here are some questions that can help you get started:
- What is the story you are trying to communicate on social media?
- Who is your target audience or audiences?
- What do your users engage with most on your platforms?
- What would success look like for your social media marketing in 2019?
These are just a few questions you can ask yourself or your team as you plan and strategize your social media for 2019.
Know the Platform Updates
Algorithms change but other big updates are features that are added to different platforms.
Think of the changes this year just on Instagram –
- The launch of IGTV – capabilities to create videos from 10 minutes to 1 hour
- Mute – where users can hide posts from certain accounts while still following them.
- Reposting for Stories – the ability to instantly repost stories in your own story
- Nametag – a way to share your profile with people in real life through scanning on your phone
Social media companies like Facebook and Twitter are constantly changing and throwing social media managers for a loop with little notice. While it can be hard, it is necessary to keep up with the pace of social media companies, especially when it comes to social media marketing trends for 2018 and the future.
Find Creativity Around You
Social media marketing is just one branch on a tree of ways to engage your customers online. Your online avenues may include a business website, email, digital advertising and more to social media marketing. Understanding web design and search engine optimization can help your work on social media by giving you a more wholistic digital perspective.
Social media marketing falls within a digital marketing ecosystem full of creative people with different pedigrees. You can learn from web designers, SEO professionals, photographers, videographers and graphic designers that you would not have considered before that all bring a unique perspective that can elevate your brand and tell your story.
Stock Your Toolbelt
Social media marketers and digital marketing agencies all have favorite tools when it comes to managing an online presence. There are subscriptions to social media software that can help build your brand online, such as social media post scheduling, reporting and analytics, and even stock imagery and graphics that will boost your brand’s image.
Some tools in house social media managers and digital marketing agencies use: Sprinklr, Sprout Social, Salesforce, Hootsuite
Subscriptions to such software can cost your company thousands of dollars per year (if not more!), finding a partner to work with that already subscribes can be a way to gain access to tools or you can try free trials on many of them to figure out what you work best with.
Integrate Your Organic and Paid Strategy
Social media is more pay to play than ever, and in 2018, more businesses have seen their organic content be seen, shared and liked less and less. Take stock of your organic and paid social media campaigns, find insights and hold your results up next to other channels and historic data to inform your decisions. Think, how could a paid strategy actually boost my organic content?
Experienced digital marketers can integrate a paid strategy with your organic content to boost relevancy, decreasing the cost of your ads and convert more customers. With a comprehensive plan in place, your social media can beat the downward trends and you can continue to reach your customers where they are.
Care and Community Management
Your strategy can push engagement and drive up hundreds of likes, comments and shares, now what do you do with them? A dedicated professional or team can help put all brand mentions, tweets, shares and messages into context and help you decide how and when to respond.
Part of the changes in social media means that active management of your community is more important than ever, but you might not have planned the time to manage it efficiently. You should spend time growing your business and let your social media team handle the rest.
Agencies Can Tie It All Together
A digital marketing agency will be able to tie together your social media channels and give you better insights and suggestions to run your business more effectively online.
On top of that, they can give you insights into your website, search engine optimization, search engine marketing, email marketing, and of course, social media marketing. If you are just starting out, they will even be able to give you tips to start your new business on the right foot.
