Four Tips For an Effective Social Media Strategy

By Debra Zimmer, The Expert Marketing Coach and CWCC Member

Back when social media first hit the Internet, hardly anyone thought of it as a tool to help build business and increase customer sales.  It was used primarily for social interaction and connecting with friends from your past. These days, this platform is extremely powerful in business for staying in communication with existing customers and attracting new ones.

However, the key to being successful on social sites is to have a well-planned social media strategy in place. Below are four tips that will help you organize your own strategy.

Determine your Social Media Goals and Objectives

You need to have well defined goals and objectives for your social marketing campaign. Your goals are generally what you are looking to achieve in the long-term while your objectives are the short-term actions you implement daily to help you reach those long-term goals. Your objectives need to be aligned with your goals.

Define your Theme

If you have read the book, The Now Revolution, by authors Amber Naslund and Jay Baer, you will understand why defining your theme is so important. Your theme will determine what you want your audience to do.  This is typically three things:

1. Sales

2. Awareness

3. Loyalty

Both awareness and loyalty naturally lead to more sales, however, each campaign in your social media strategy should focus on just one. Simplicity and consistency are essential here.

Build Relationships – Stop to Listen

Social media is centered on maintaining relationships and building new ones.  Your social marketing efforts should be focused around these two aspects.  It should not be all about you. You need to be listening to your potential customers and not just talking to them. If all you are doing is talking to them, they will get tired of simply being “talked to” and your campaign will not be a success. You build relationships with your customers by genuinely listening to them.

Be a Power User

A “power user” is an individual who is extraordinarily active in the social media community and has more of a significant effect on the members than the average user. Power users have more influence because they build honest and strong relationships with their followers, share valuable content and do not self-promote excessively.  They actively build up a prominent social status in the social community.

In the end, not everyone’s social media strategy is going to look the same and results will always be different.  Just remember, it takes time and consistency to start reaping the rewards. Please contact us to learn more information on building a strong social media campaign to build relationships and increase sales.