How did you get into business, marketing or sales?
As in – doing it effectively.
You had to learn one of many important rules…
“Failing to prepare is like preparing to fail”.
Something i’ve experienced many times over… which, funnily enough, is technically what has lead me into business…
But that’s another story entirely, and certainly not supportive of the point I am trying to make.
When you are deciding on how you are going to use social media for your business, you need a strategy.
A plan that includes:
- What your key metrics are
- Your key performance indicators
- How you will move prospects into the next stage of your sales funnel
At least!
Following this you need to know a bit more about your potential consumers or the people who you hope to be working with.
For Social Media Success You Must Conduct Market Research
Or an analysis of what is going on in your market place generally including:
- Trends
- Latest releases
- Events
- Relevant Hashtags
- News
- Media Influencers (Including Social Media)
- Competitors (which I touch more on here)
This will help you to understand what your social media efforts should include and what should be involved in your social media strategy.
When executed properly you will definitely capture the attention of your target audience and possibly become an internet sensation!
It will also help you determine what you should be posting about and how you should be posting it.
But, what you really need to understand is…
You Need To Build A Brand If You Want To Succeed Online
Period.
There is no other way during this time of digital media.
All search engines and platforms are making it more and more difficult for one hit wonders to come along and fast track their way toward online success.
I always advice my clients to look at their brand as an individual with it’s own personality.
People tend to make purchases based on emotion more often than they do based on logic.
This means they are trying to get rid of an underlying pain or satisfy a deeper desire.
It is definitely in your best interest to make your brand become “somebody” that they can run to whenever they need one of these two things.
Do this, and you will see much more money than you could ever build any strategy for.
You’ll also find that various digital platforms, and their search engines, will begin to give you more leverage.
Which is just as well, because it’ll mean that you get priority since it sees you as valuable to others.
This means you can more effectively cut through the noise, also meaning…
The ‘Content of Content’ Will Be The Final Deciding Factor In Your Social Media Strategy Success
I’m sure you’ve heard the term “cash is king”, right?
I was at a networking event earlier this year and as a 30 second pitch somebody said:
“Cash is no longer king, card is now king as recent stats have shown…”.
Ironically, I was going to pitch about content that day and say:
“Cash is not king, card is not king… but content is king”.
Good content at that. In fact, no – Exceptionally amazing content.
How do you expect somebody to hear your perfectly scripted sales message or brand message if they are not listening, or giving you the time of day?
The only way is by putting together such brilliant content, that the person who sees your brand will have no choice but to be in awe and thankful.
When you can do this, and only when you do this, will you see truly great returns from your social media strategy.
If you can produce videos… interesting videos… then this will be the deciding factor in your social media strategy success – alongside things such as:
- Posting frequency
- Text quantity
- Your social media advertising budget
However, if you are using cool attractive images, then it’s an entirely different ball game.
As Overwhelming As It May Be, You Will Definitely Need To Manage It Somehow
This is what calls for discussion on another topic: “How To Simplify Your Social Media Management“.
When you dive into running an effective social media strategy for your business it needs to be well managed & monitored all day every day.
Whilst it’s important to understand quite a few different things to truly have “an active social media presence”, it certainly does not need to be overwhelming in any way.
Like most things, and what got you this far, if you remain calm and apply yourself… you’ll certainly get there in the end.
