Social media and digital marketing can be the most rewarding endeavor for any business, but it can overwhelm. Any brand or business today will find social media to be a tool of paramount importance. We have learned that by focusing and tracking critical elements of our purpose, we stay on target and message.

This questionnaire is your north star: let it guide your social media and digital marketing strategy.

We must align the social media strategy with our business goals. Like a car with a pulling steering wheel, if the social media strategy is not aligned, we will veer off course and ultimately waste time and money.

 

As with all of our clients, we begin with the WHY! So why start with WHY? It gives purpose and meaning to the events of our day.

Why are we in business? Why do we show up at work every day? Why are we reading this blog post?

C2C’s goal is to help businesses remember — or find — the WHY and incorporate that into their brand and messaging. We know that consumers emotionally connect with brands that understand and cater to their why, and deliver on the brand promise. We love teaching this to our clients.

So here we go:

Here are our six keys to building an effective social media strategy:

1. What are our goals?

The answer to this question will provide guidelines for our social media posts. (FYI, more sales is not a useful goal; the customer doesn’t care about that.)

Use SMART goals:

• Specific – Make our targets clear and accurate, so there is no confusion on what the result should be.
• Measurable – Make our goals measurable, so we know if our efforts are working.
• Actionable – We’ll want to set up steps to reach our goal.
• Realistic – Set goals that make sense for our brand. Do we have 100 Instagram followers? Shoot for 200 in 30 days.
• Time-bound – It’s essential to set timelines. Fill out an excel spreadsheet for all applicable platforms: Facebook, Twitter, et al., and set goals for those pages.

 

2. Who is our target audience?

The second essential component to creating a social media strategy is knowing who appreciates our service or product.

Learn the demographics and psychographics, including which competitors they follow, what publications and websites they’re into, etc. Seriously, follow our competitors and pay attention to what content their followers engage in.

The more we know about our audience, the easier it will be to create content that bridges the gap between our brand/business and the addition of value to their lives.

 

3. What is the current state of our social media marketing?

Auditing where our current social media marketing strategy and presence stands is another crucial step in creating our social media strategy. Do we have Facebook? Are we on Twitter? Have we updated our LinkedIn lately? Check the temperature on all platforms and be honest with ourselves.

Pay attention to our engagement, what networks we’d like to be on (or drop) and the quality of our content (images and videos): are we consistent?

Our audience should dictate which platforms we use. If we have little interest in Snapchat, but our target audience is active there, that’s where we need to go.

 

4. What kind of content will we need to produce?

Content, Content, Content. We are experts in our field, right? Then we should share what we know. Give, Give, Give, Give, and when we’re ready to put up the “ask” (buy my stuff), then give more. People can see right through a sales pitch and couldn’t care less that we need to drive revenue. Consumers will give back if we give first.

Content should be genuine and give people a reason to follow us. For example, this blog is a free offering of our time and expertise. We hope that people reading this will grow from the knowledge, do better business and find success.

 

5. Do we have the necessary resources and budget?

We should consider what our time is worth and whether we have resources or the budget needed to create the content necessary. Put a price on your time. Decide what freeing up 10 hours a week is worth to outsource your content.

Can’t I hire an intern or a millennial? No! We can’t hire an intern to do this, because it won’t work (see #4). We must curate content, or work with someone who can.

Which leads to the next question…

6. What tools will we need?

Here’s where we can revisit our resources and budget. Existing free or low-cost tools can help us create the content we need. Try built-in social media network tools, like Facebook Live and Instagram Stories, that make it easy to create content. Don’t be scared to create authentic content. Just start. Learn along the way.

If you need coaching or help, call us or find a social media coach. Initial rates are as low as $249 per month.

Find out more here: https://2completion.com
Quick Stats from https://hootsuite.com

2018 – Protect Your Brand, Project Your Brand