Guaranteeing effective social media strategy is much easier if you plan well and execute better. The mindset that will really help get things done? Set out to achieve bold things with a bold strategy. Aiming for the stars requires you to consider all aspects of social media — the audience, the creative, and the measurement — but at least you’ll be prepared to execute the most effective social media strategy possible. How Can You Guarantee Effective Social Media Strategy? For many businesses, social media is the new cornerstone of their digital marketing programs. Social media is great for:1) finding audiences and 2) engaging with those audiences. Research suggests more and more that social media platforms exert an overweight influence on purchase decisions, particularly Twitter and Instagram: This is new research. And important: Twitter is more influential than YouTube at swaying purchase decisions | via @eMarketer #research https://t.co/fHGO0ormW1 pic.twitter.com/nJXNwmG91P — Sky Alphabet Social Media (@skyalphabet) March 26, 2019 As budgets shift from traditional digital marketing platform to social media, effective social media strategy is necessary to deliver the results executives and chief marketing officers (CMOs) demand. The primary reason social media is becoming the centrepiece of digital marketing strategies is that brands own their audience. No one else is in between. It’s you and them. For companies feeling the heat to do more with social media, this article lays out the keys aspects of a writing a social media marketing plan. Whether you decide to outsource your social media or grow your own department, there are many factors relating to social media strategy and planning to consider. Demographics are Driving the Shift to Social Media More people are spending more time on social channels. Most consumers use at least two social media platforms each and every day. Many use more than two. Shifting demographics are driving much of the adoption of social media. As younger people enter into adulthood, a greater percentage of users are accessing the internet primarily from a phone or other mobile device (tablet). New Research Shows Social Media Is Critical To Shopping Decisions Extremely useful trend for social media marketers: internet users say social media is just as important as other channels for shopping decision research. Up to 36% from 27% in just 3 years…up 30%! via @emarketer #smm #socialmedia https://t.co/WE1KktUDK2 pic.twitter.com/3CoXUYoZnB — Sky Alphabet Social Media (@skyalphabet) December 14, 2018 There is also a definite shift away from certain ad and marketing genres. Many users are bothered by advertising on a small mobile screen. Let’s look at a typical result. The chart below shows THREE months of website visits BEFORE a social media strategy: Two things we want to point out in the chart above: before implementing a social media strategy you can see very low levels of traffic coming from social media (19). Note also the total average session is 1 min 41 seconds. Now let’s look at the results after ONE month of a social media strategy: Do you see how much better that is? After only one month of driving traffic from Instagram and Facebook, social media is now the #1 source of traffic. What’s more important is that the time spent and number of visits per month have increased significantly. Equally as notable is that social media advertising tends to have an impact on organic search. We’re not sure why, but we see it time and again when we run paid social campaigns. Let’s look at this another way. Here’s the same data that compares the social media ad period year versus the period without social ads: Social media is an excellent source of traffic so make it a key part of your marketing plan. Step One: Define Your Marketing Goals Bold marketing plans address the primary business goals of the company and then articulate the tactics necessary to achieve them. Strong social media marketing plans do the same. So ask yourself: what are your goals with social media? Check out this selection of Marketing Goals: Build brand awareness Close (more) deals or (different) deals Build a (high quality) sales pipeline Reduce (customer) churn Decrease customer acquisition costs Strengthen the differentiation of your brand  Grow event attendance Grow paid users Increase revenue Improve lead quality Increase clickthrough rate Improve conversion rate Increase leads Improve product adoption Launch new product or service Recruit top talent Shorten sales cycle That’s a lot of goals, right? Don’t pick more than three.  Questions to Ask and Answer Is one of your goals to be better liked? If it isn’t, it should be. Likeability is a major factor when it comes to consumer choices. Social media can influence how much a brand is liked in a major way. But be careful. A lot of marketing supposed to make consumers like a brand more actually makes them like the brand less. One of your tactics should be to produce marketing and creative artwork that people actually enjoy. That’s why visuals are so important. As simple as it sounds, use creative that won’t turn people off. In a pinch, show a puppy! Influencer campaigns often lead to mixed results. Pepsi stepped on a likeability landmine when it launched an influencer campaign featuring Kylie Jenner. The campaign was not well received and the social media furor caused the ad to be pulled within two days.  Brands have to be cautious with hiring influencers, for no other reason that surprises can happen. It is important to have concrete contracts with stipulated terms and deliverables. Other questions to ask and answer: Do you want to educate people about your products or another aspect of your company? Are you trying to defend against risk? Are you seeking awareness? What about your authority: are you known as a thought leader? Are you know by anyone as anything at all? With who? Do you want to expand your audience? How do you intend to do that? Are you seeking to increase sales? Do you plan to do that through trial? Discounting? Promotion? Articulate as many aspects … Continue reading Social Media Strategy