Do not underestimate the power of a social media marketing campaign, especially when launching a new brand. Utilizing a social media presence wisely is one of the most effective ways a brand can communicate with potential customers.
In this article, we explore how new brands or brands new to social media marketing can employ specific tactics to expand their reach and engagement levels with their target audience.
Applying strategies like setting specific goals, selecting the right social platforms, mapping content plans, and using social media management tools can set your brand up for success in the world of social media.
Goal Setting
Setting goals helps to keep a social media campaign on track by giving you something to work toward and allowing you to measure your progress against milestones. Blanket goals that lack specifics will not get the job done. You must identify clear, specific, measurable, and attainable goals to accurately judge your progress.
Number-driven goals are the easiest to ascertain. For example, you can aim to achieve percentage increases in conversions, followers, impressions, and website traffic. You can measure these percentages using social media and website analytics.
All goals should fall within set timelines to keep your campaigns on track. You can set goals for anywhere from a few weeks to months and years. The key is to give yourself a framework with clear steps and achievements to meet.
Choosing Your Platform
Each social platform reaches a specific audience, and knowing which one to invest in is critical. That’s why you must have a deep understanding of your ideal customer.
The demographics of social media platforms vary. Research is available that identifies the ages, genders, incomes, education levels, races, and surrounding populations of social media users, the platforms they most frequent, and even what days and times they’re most likely to be active on their social media platforms of choice.
You can develop your social media marketing strategy after identifying the platform or combination of platforms that will reach your target audience. Keep in mind that when you’re just starting out, choosing one or two platforms where your audience spends the most time will be more manageable than trying to gain traction on four or five social sites at the same time. Once you’ve built a presence, you can expand your social media marketing strategy to include additional platforms.
Planning Content
When it comes to creating a successful social media marketing campaign, winging it is not an option. Planning your social media content strategy saves you time, as you’ll create and schedule posts in advance. Plus, you’ll always know what’s coming next, thanks to your comprehensive plan.
The first critical step to planning content that you will share is identifying the essential products or services you need to promote. Once you know what you are selling, you can design some of your content around its features. However, you’ll need a mix of promotional and educational or entertaining content, as constant self-promotion is off-putting to many social media users.
Secondly, clarify the foundational points of your social media message. For example, a personal training brand can select health and motivational thinking as the central content focuses of its social media pages. Having pillars in place helps anchor your content to the core selling point.
Now, create a savvy mix of relevant content by researching trending themes. Incorporate various formats, including images, videos, static posts, infographics, and polls, to keep your business’s online presence fresh.
Brand content should be valuable to avoid becoming white noise. Each post for your business should provide education, engagement, or excitement for followers. Offering valuable content improves follower retention and reach through shares and saves.
Then, you can construct a content calendar to plan and track production and posting dates that align with your overall marketing goals. It is also helpful to log holidays that offer promotional opportunities in sync with your brand.
A comprehensive content calendar keeps marketing consistent and cohesive and allows business owners to make the most of their online presence. Implementing a predetermined social media strategy minimizes day-to-day stress by allowing business owners to focus on their core competencies, such as developing innovative products or providing valuable services to clients.
Utilizing Management Tools
Many business owners launching new brands or venturing into the world of social media marketing for the first time do not have the skills or time to manage their accounts directly.
Fortunately, there are various tools that do the bulk of the work for you. Different platforms handle a wide range of social media aspects like scheduling, publishing, monitoring analytics, condensing information from multiple accounts into one space, and competitor reporting.
Using social media management tools reduces the amount of work you have to engage in, and many platforms offer low-cost or free plans. Share on social media buttons, for example, are a crucial tool that expands your brand’s reach by enabling your website visitors to share your content without leaving your website.
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Final Thoughts
Social media marketing is a necessity for modern brands. When a business is preparing to launch or enter this arena, there are several steps to take to be successful.
Setting clear and realistic goals with specific timelines centering on numeric increases in areas like follower count, conversion rates, or website traffic gives you progress measurements to track.
Selecting the right platforms to engage with will provide the best opportunity to reach your target customer base and reach those goals. Planning content and using management tools will ensure the optimal execution of your marketing strategy.
