Whatever kind of business you are running, knowing how to promote and advertise your business is vital to your success and profit. Knowing how to plan a successful social media strategy is crucial. Social media has become a critical part of marketing. Knowing how to use social media platforms as a business can be the difference between your business succeeding and failing. After all, it is no good running a great business if potential customers do not even know it exists!
In this article, we will look at the main steps needed to design and plan a successful social media strategy for your business!
Ensure Security of Accounts
The importance of security cannot be overstated. Social media accounts can be hacked. This leads to dire consequences personally and professionally! You should ensure that any devices used to access social media have sufficient antivirus protection. Plus ensure passwords to accounts are secure and only given to a small number of trusted employees. Employees who understand your social media strategy. The internal security of your company is highly important. It may be worth implementing a Zero Trust network model for your network!
Create Buyer Personas
Before you start planning and creating social media content, the first thing that you will need to do is work out exactly who you are advertising your business to. This will determine not only what kind of content you make, but every other aspect of your social media strategy.
A useful thing to do is to create a buyer persona. A buyer persona is the ideal person that you are marketing to. Instead of a real person, a buyer persona is typically an amalgamation of traits and demographics of your customers. For example, if you are working in the automotive industry, there is no use in advertising to people who do not drive! An example of a buyer persona could be male, in their thirties or forties, with disposable income and an interest in sports and leisure.
You can use examples from your existing customers to create a buyer persona. Or, consider the traits of a demographic that you want to advertise to more than before.
Develop a Brand Persona
A brand persona is what your business would be if it were represented by an actual person. A brand persona should have the desired traits of your business. These are worked out by analyzing the buyer persona and working out what that persona would best respond to. For example, a formal or casual manner. You should ensure that all of your social media posts and communications seem as if they come from this same persona.
Choose the Best Social Media Platform
Deciding which social media platform to use is essential. Although it can be tempting to sign up for every single social media platform that exists (especially as many of them are free to use). You need to make sure that you have time to consistently maintain and update accounts on every single site that you are using. You can use your buyer persona to work out which platforms your chosen demographic uses most. Some platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter, even allow paid ads, which can be worth considering!
Create a Content Calendar
The final step needed to plan a successful social media strategy for your business is a content calendar. Your customers and potential customers do not want to be bombarded with a constant stream of content. However it is ineffective to post too rarely. You should research the best times of day to post content (usually the times that your target demographic is likely to be online). Then ensure that content is posted at least a few times a week. You will also need to take time to respond to direct messages from customers/potential customers as soon as possible, and in an approach fitting to your brand persona!