Planning Your Social Media Marketing Strategy

Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.

Planning Your Social Media Marketing Strategy

Social Media Marketing Strategies

In one of my previous articles, titled “Why Is Social Media Marketing So Important To Your Business”, I explained that online marketing presents a different level of marketing, called `networking’, where we engage our customers and contacts to make them feel special and comfortable with us, giving them a better experience, and I think it’s a mutual comfort, and they will then come back to us and also refer us to their friends and family.

So let’s start from the premise that the use of social media marketing in your business is of utmost importance in today’s marketing environment, and move right into the subject of planning your social media marketing strategy, as you will want to understand and follow these guidelines for success.

Social Media Marketing Checklist

To start with, and of the highest significance, you have to realize that you will need to allocate a specific amount of time EACH DAY to social media marketing! Results typically don’t come about overnight so you will need to be unswerving and commit your labors over a lengthy period of time in order to be successful. And even after you start seeing results (generating traffic and leads), you will want to keep active day after day to retain your presence and keep up the momentum. Your customers don’t care to see outdated blogs, posts, deals, etc. They will quickly move on to your competitors who are giving them real-time information and value.

Identify Your Social Media Marketing Goals

Next, you will need to identify your social media marketing goals. What do you hope to accomplish with social media? This is typically defined as actual sales, but may perhaps be defined by leads generated or something besides that entirely. It really depends on the nature of your business. I suggest you sign up for a website analytics service, such as Google Analytics, in order to track traffic, leads, sales, etc., that are generated from your social media marketing efforts.

Then, you will need to decide on the right platform and create your account(s) to get started networking. Make a note of your target audience and decide on the social media site that encompasses those demographics. Are you targeting a younger generation or elder generation, male vs. female, etc.?

Create A Facebook Page For Social Media Marketing Of Your Business

For illustration, Facebook is still much more of a friend-oriented social network where content is light and fun, not packed full of stuffy advertising jingles. So, if you want to create a Facebook ‘page’ for your business, by all means do so, but present the site as fun and engaging. Twitter on the other hand is a micro blogging social arrangement where users dispatch brief messages about particular news items, events, exciting links, things that are happening at the present. Twitter is a great tool in support of company news, press releases or time-sensitive deals. Everybody wants a terrific deal and when they discover it, they share it with their links. These ‘re-tweets’ can unfold like wildfire! As Facebook is a friend-oriented social arrangement, LinkedIn is more of a business-oriented social group or work networking site. So, if you hold business-oriented products or services to sell, LinkedIn may perhaps be your chief social media resource.

Regardless of the platform you decide to implement in your social media marketing strategies, you want to:  post quality content that your readers will identify with; take part in debate groups; engage your readers by asking questions or taking polls; offering a giveaway, etc. You want to provide your audience with  something they want, so create value…basically, paying them for their time. Once again, make the commitment to put in some amount of time each day of the week to take care of your social media site. Here is an additional good reason for the importance of choosing the appropriate social networking site. If you sign up for 10 social media sites, you will be required to preserve 10 social media sites each day of the week! Believe me when I say that is A LOT to keep up with. Unless you have the funds to hire someone to preserve your social media sites on a day after day basis, you probably won’t be able to keep up with that many. So, select wisely.

Social Media Marketing Networks Are All Unique

Every social network has unique features, characteristics, and philosophy. Therefore, it is of paramount importance to understand which tools are the most appropriate for your industry, business, products, services and audience. It’s all about the people, platform, participation and promotion!

I invite you to review what another master marketer has to say about the usefulness of social media marketing to build your list.  and find out more social media sites.

Feel free to share this post with your friends, family and business associates or others who would be interested in social media marketing list building information.

P.S.:  I am affiliated with one of the best online educational programs for teaching network marketers, whether new or seasoned, about social media marketing in order to build your list. To find out more about this list building program, now and see for yourself how you can start to build your list right away.

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