By Annabelle Smyth
It’s pretty clear that when it comes to marketing your business, social media isn’t going away. If you want to create a following that helps drive sales, you need to improve your social media strategy.
Lucky for you..
There are a host of ways you can do this. Here are 7 pretty simple ways to improve your social media strategy.
How to Improve Your Social Media Strategy
Pick the Right Platform
These days, there are literally thousands of social media networks. Everyone is familiar with the big ones, but there are a host of others in various niches. The platforms you decide to use will depend on your audience.
However, most businesses can’t really go wrong by joining at least a couple of the biggest platforms, which include Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest.
Ideally, you’ll be using a multichannel approach. But rather than just posting the same things on every platform, think through which platform would be best suited for different types of content. Posts that are a good fit for Pinterest might not work well on Twitter, for example.
Engage Influencers
If you want to improve your social media strategy, try partnering with influencers whose audience seems to jibe with yours. Users see a lot of ads on Facebook, Instagram, and other platforms.
But..
When someone they know—a trusted expert or influencer—gives you a shout-out or recommends your product or service, people tend to pay attention. Form relationships with influencers by offering them free product in exchange for a review of the product. See if you can arrange a writeup or sponsored content on their social media pages.
Create a Brand Identity
Social platforms like Facebook and Instagram are worthwhile because they can help you reach a lot of people.
However, if you don’t stand out, those sheer numbers can actually work against you. Users are constantly evaluating who they follow or “like,” and you don’t want to be on the outside looking in when users decide to streamline their feed. If your brand is simply a version of someone else’s, you may not make the cut.
This is why you need to create and communicate a unique brand identity that stands out. Improve your social media strategy by articulating your unique brand identity in a number of ways that tell your story. Text, visual designs, photography, video, and gifs should all be part of the mix.
Bring Value
This is one of the best ways to improve your social media strategy. You need to understand your audience and what they’re looking for. What made them follow you in the first place? What are they interested in? What problems can you solve? Funny memes, entertaining videos, and contests all have their place but can only get you so far.
Offer useful, practical content that fits into the lives of your audience and helps them solve some kind of problem, and they’ll reward you with their loyalty. Even better, they’ll share that content with their like-minded friends.
Set Goals
Your social media activity should actually help your business progress toward some goal. Decide what your social media goal should be, then design tactics to get you there.
Sure, everyone wants more likes and followers.
But..
Are you after something more specific?
Once you have an audience, what will you do with it?
Do you want to generate leads, provide customer service, increase traffic to your website?
When you know what you want, you plan your engagements accordingly. Understanding your goal will help you improve your social media strategy in a way that makes your goals reality.
Measure
Once you know your goal, decide what measurements will provide the most accurate picture of your progress.
Are you measuring followers and engagements?
What about the behaviors exhibited by followers after a specific type of post?
If people are visiting your website after you post an infographic what are they doing once they get there?
Are those posts actually generating sales?
Measuring the data and retargeting your efforts accordingly is the only way to know whether your efforts and resources are paying off.
Be Consistent
Once you’ve identified your best platforms, honed your brand’s voice, tuned into your audience, and developed a social media strategy, consistency should be number one.
Every post you publish should be in line with your goals and identity, and above all, you need to stay active. Decide how many times per week your audience needs to hear from you, and understand that this may vary from platform to platform.
Post consistently, keep posts relevant and on-brand and let analytics be your constant guide.
If you want to improve your social media strategy, follow these 7 tips to build a loyal, vibrant tribe of followers. If you do it right, you’ll turn that tribe into customers that keep coming back.
Annabelle Smyth is a freelance writer located in Salt Lake City, Utah. She enjoys writing about leadership, HR, and employee engagement. She has most recently worked with JUMP, writing about social media best practices. When not writing and educating herself, you can find her hiking the canyons with her dog and friends.
Social media stock photo by ChristianChan/Shutterstock
