It goes without saying that marketing is one of the primary functions of social media. Most, if not all, businesses employ it. Amongst those, others also using it are your competitors. It’s a cut-throat business environment nowadays. You want to take business away from your competitors, but you don’t want them to take away yours.
Keeping ahead of the pack is the name of the game. Below are some useful tips on how best social media can be employed as a marketing tool. Follow these marketing tips to improve social media presence.
Setting Goals for an Effective Social Media Marketing Campaign
Setting goals when undertaking any task is essential. Setting goals means you are beginning with the end in mind. The goals you set will guide you, keep you on track, help keep the objective in mind. Marketing practitioners use the acronym SMART when talking about goals. This is no exception.
Specific
A goal should be just that. Specific. Clear. Not vague. Not general. You don't set a goal like a goal is ”to increase sales significantly in the next quarter”. A specific goal is ”number of units sold should increase by 12% over the next 6months”
Measurable
A social media marketing initiative should be capable of being quantifiable and measurable. If it’s measurable and specific, then deviations from targets set are also measurable and will make much more sense.
Attainable
So your goal is specific and it’s measurable; but is it realistic? Can it be reasonably reached? The entire marketing team has wasted everyone’s time and effort if the goal they set is not attainable. Saying ‘’the aim is to reach 80% of Instagram users by year-end’’ is meaningless if it is not attainable; if a more reachable goal would have been, say, 30%.
Is your Social Media Marketing Strategy Relevant?
What does your goal hope to achieve? The goal must be in sync with the business's entire marketing initiative. Is it to widen the audience? Is it to increase the number of social media platforms? Or is it to make more use of one platform and less of another.
Timely
The social media marketing strategy has to have target dates. So you want to double your target audience. A noble goal by any standard, but after how long? A week, 6months, or 3years. If timelines and dates are not specific, the goals are then as good as no goals at all.
Employ Competent and Qualified Social Media Marketing Managers
Managers who are skilled and qualified demand high packages, simply because such people are scarce. So many business owners try to cut costs by employing unqualified and incompetent managers. A very short-sighted policy. Investing in the best brains is a capital investment much like buying expensive but well-functioning equipment. You spend more now, but you reap greater rewards later, with less running costs and for much longer too.
So it is important to employ managers who are leaders, who think strategically and can adapt to changes in the marketplace. Management with all-round skills (organizational, branding, good interactive skills) will help you deliver the results that you are advertising through your social media marketing campaigns.
Know which Platform to Use
Utilize published results of surveys when deciding which platform to use when targeting particular target groups. Classify target groups by age, sex, or income bracket. If your ad is about fashion denim jeans for teenagers, use the platform most popular with teenagers such as Instagram.
For a successful social media strategy, it is therefore crucial to concentrate more on your target audience.
