How to Start A Business Course – Planning Your Business: Social Media Marketing Strategy – 6/27

Social Media has revolutionized the way that we market our business. It allows us to develop more meaningful interactions with our customers as well as provides businesses with a way to be more easily discovered.

“A brand is no longer what we tell the consumer it is. It is what consumers tell each other it is.”

And this is why it is vital to be on social media and position your brand as one that consumers want to tell each other.

Let’s take a look at social media marketing for startups.

Did you know that 73% of businesses believe that social media marketing has been very effective for their business?

The objective of this article is to share with you how to develop a Social Media Marketing Strategy for your startup that enables you to post like a pro while focusing your efforts where it matters most which will be on growing your business.

This is not a full marketing strategy but it will give you a high-level overview of what you need to consider when carrying out your Social Media Marketing.

Do you know how to choose what social media platforms to use for your business marketing? There are so many platforms online today and it can be difficult to determine which channels you should use for your business but we are going to answer this in this journey, so stay with me ‘till the end.

Let’s begin with having a look at what Social Media Marketing Is.

SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

Is a tactic that you use as part of your overall marketing plan and it refers to the process of gaining traffic or attention to your business through social media platforms.

Within this marketing tactic, we have 2 strategies that we can use: ORGANIC AND PAID SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING.

ORGANIC SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

That is anything that you post to Social Media that you do not have to pay for. Bear in mind that you do still have to pay for the employees that you use to create content, manage your social media, or market your business but generally the platforms themselves are unpaid.

PAID SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

This is any paid method that you use on social media or mostly referring to your Social Ads. It is always best to use a combination of the two but we are going to focus more on organic social media marketing in this lesson because as a business and particularly as a start-up you will probably have less access to an ad spent than an established company.

In order to be successful in Social Media Marketing, you need to have a Social Media Marketing Strategy.

SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING STRATEGY

Social media marketing is a tactic that you use as part of your overall Marketing Plan and it refers to the process of gaining traffic or attention to your business through social media platforms. It is also a detailed blueprint that answers the what, when, how, and why for all of your social media business content that you post to social media business pages.

A strategy helps you to identify the tactics that you will use in achieving your goals and when developing a strategy for a start-up, it doesn’t have to be too in-depth. A high-level overview of your strategy will suffice until you have more time and money to invest in the development of a detailed strategy.

STEP 1: GOAL SETTING

You want to ensure that when you are setting goals, you follow these smart methodology which is SPECIFIC, MEASURABLE, ATTAINABLE, RELEVANT, and TIME-BASED.

BRAND AWARENESS

Business goal
An example of how these goals would work if our objective is brand awareness our business goal might be to increase brand awareness by 70% across all marketing strategies for the first quarter so that 70% across all of the marketing activities that you’re conducting whether it’s digital, traditional, whether you are looking at a PAID or UNPAID, whatever the case is that is across all marketing strategies and across the first quarter.

Social Media goal
And then you want to save your social media goals maybe you decide that you want to sit them on a monthly basis so you would say that you want to then increase Facebook followers by 40% in one month and remember that this is then only the contribution of Facebook to your overall brand awareness. But you could then split out into additional social media channels so maybe you’d rather say that 10% comes from Instagram, 10% from Facebook, and, 10% from Twitter for instance.

Key Performance Indicator
And then of course you need to be able to measure whether you are achieving your goals. You want to set a Key Performance Indicator or a KPI and this is the metric that you will use to measure whether you are achieving your goal or not. In this case, our KPI would be our month-to-month follower growth on Facebook but we’d also want to then save that for if we’ve set a detailed Instagram or detailed Twitter goal for instance. We have different metrics to measure them or we measure the month-to-month follower growth on those various platforms.

We can see that this is a SMART goal because we know that it is specific, so we know which platforms and how much increases we want to make. We also know it’s measurable because we have our KPI. It is obtainable because we have taken our own overall business goal and we have broken it down into small increments. It’s relevant because in order to achieve brand awareness, especially for a startup we also want to try to increase that awareness, and it is time-based so we know when and by when we want to achieve what.

STEP 2: SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS

When you are choosing your platform for social media marketing you want to base it on your Target audience and what are the platforms that your target audience is using.

You also want to identify what resources you have at your disposal. And this includes coming up with a strategy and includes creating content, as well as posting and managing your social media.

TARGET AUDIENCE
RESOURCES
BUDGET
So are you doing it yourself? Because if you are then you have to understand that you’re gonna have to put time aside every single day to do all of these tasks for your Social Media.

And then you want to consider your Budget. How much money do you have available to be able to produce content, posters, and tools if you need them, and what do you have available in order to run your social media marketing?

Remember that the fewer resources and budget that you have to go towards your social media marketing, the less you’d be able to do. So for a start-up, I will say to consider only 1 to 2 platforms and base that again off who your real target audience is and what platforms they are using, as well as the resources at your disposal and your budget.

Let’s look at some more information about each of the individual platforms you would have outlined your target audience and identified which platforms you want to use. We’re going to run through the big 5.

Facebook

This is a social networking platform it allows users to interact with each other in different ways. It has 2.5 billion users of which 65% are female and 35% are male and the top age range is 18 to 54.

YouTube

This is a video-sharing platform and it allows users to post videos to a feed that other users are able to watch and interact with. It has 1.9 billion users with a gender split of 38% female and 62%, male. The highest age range on YouTube is 18 to 42.

Instagram

This is a photo-sharing platform and it allows users to post highly visual content to feeds and interact with other users’ content. It has 1 billion users and the gender split is 68% female and 32%, male. The age range on Instagram is 18 to 42.

Twitter

Which is a micro-blogging platform. It enables users to share short snippets of information that other users can interact with. It has 335 million users and the gender split is 62% female to 38% male. And the top age range is 15 to 34.

LinkedIn

Is a professional networking platform and is dedicated to networking and connecting with industry professionals and experts. It has 500 million users and the gender split is 69% female and 31% male with the age range being 25 to 54.

We also need to remember that we need to use these platforms in conjunction with the industry that we’re in as well as what we want to achieve through our social media marketing. Now that we’re familiar with the platforms and I’m sure that you’ve identified platforms according to your target audiences as we’ve run through these.

Now let’s take a look at the content that we need to produce as part of step three of our social media strategy.

STEP 3: CONTENT TYPES

Let’s first look at the most common content types that we find on social media. Here are some examples of post types and each of the various content types.

TEXT:
Event, company, and industry updates or announcements and news

PHOTOS:
There are also photos of products, brand images, quotes that are helpful, hints, and, memes.

VIDEO:
You can create how-to videos, product demos, testimonials, behind-the-scenes, and, webinars.

FILES:
It is including slides, ebooks, guides, catalogs, instructions, and, templates.

When you are considering your target audience, you want to look at these types of content and you want to decide what is going to appeal to the audience most.

Ask yourself, am I going to be able to contact them through video? Is that what’s going to appeal to them most with their highly engaging images on Instagram? Do they want videos on YouTube? What is it that the target audience wants in relation to your product, service, and brand?

Creating engaging content

Original
Identify a unique perspective or point of view with creative formats for content.
Valuable
All content that you produce should provide value whether it’s to educate, entertain, inspire, connect, communicate or promote – what value is the viewer getting?
Compelling
Your content should inspire action, use a call to action, evocative language, and psychological tactics such as FOMO and time limits.
Clear
Your message should be clear and to the point so that someone can understand what the post is about over the period of a scroll.

Consistent
Users will begin to build a relationship with your brand, you need to ensure that your style, voice, terminology, and messaging remain the same over platforms and in different situations.
Well-written
Although you may only be posting 280 characters, don’t underestimate the power of good writing, no matter how short it is, make sure it’s punchy.
Findable
Your content has to be findable, so optimize every piece of content as best you can.

THE WHY BEHIND THE CONTENT:

Behind every piece of content, there has to be a WHY. We’ve answered some of the fundamental questions;

We know who our audience is.
We know which platforms we’re going to use
What content types and post types that we want to use in order to target them

But we also need to consider the why or the actual purpose behind the content itself.

ENTERTAINMENT
Users are much more likely to share humorous content behind the entertainment. What are we trying to achieve? So according to the goal that we have set, we are trying to create brand awareness, right? Now we can see our goals are aligned with the types of content that we are producing. So we know that they like videos and we’re going to create an entertaining video to drive that brand awareness.
INSPIRATION
Your content should inspire people to take action by aligning with consumers shared beliefs.
EDUCATION
This makes the consumer feel as though the brand cares and it’s there to support them by being a source of information. So this also positions you as a thought leader in your industry and it makes people and it builds a sense of trust in your brand.
CONVERSATION
So is the content that you’re posting going to create engagement and conversation around your brand and product? Not only that this drive actual engagement on your Social Media channels, but it can also position you as an industry authority, as well as create relationships with your users.
CONNECTION
You want to connect with your audience and build a relationship with them. We also know that online users want to build connections and relationships with brands online. You want to make your users and consumers feel as though they’re interacting with the real person online and they want to engage, respond, and interact with your brand. So give them the opportunity to do that.
PROMOTION
Of course, we want to promote our product, brand, or service and we can do this through the posts that we post on social media.

Now that we know why we’re creating this content and we know what formats and types, we’re really getting amped about this. We also then want to insert each of these types into our customer journey. So we want to connect our content with the customer journey.

Content for the customer journey
Throughout their customer journey of awareness, consideration, purchase, retention, and advocacy;

What information do you think they will need or want at these different points?
What content will generate awareness and interest in our product, service, or brand?
What content will convince them that this is the product for them during consideration of our product, service, or brand?
What content will really drive home the user’s intent to purchase?
Having become a customer what content is going to encourage that customer to buy again?
What content will encourage them to share your content and advocate for your brand?

COPYWRITING

Copywriting is the activity of writing the text for publicity material and in this instance, it would be the copy that accompanies your social media post image and ultimately what will become your social media post.

Different Copywriting Tips:

UNIQUE SELLING POINT: What you want to do is when you are writing your copy for social media, you want to express your unique selling point. Consider in each instant instance what sets you apart from your competitor and why would someone choose you over your competitor.
HIGHLIGHT BENEFIT OVER THE FEATURE: You could also highlight the benefit over the feature. So don’t highlight the feature of the product, highlight what the person is going to get for purchasing your product or service.
USE PASSIVE VOICE: You also want to use passive voice. Write your social media posts as though you were directly addressing a person.
FIND A DIFFERENT ANGLE: When considering the copy for your posts you also want to try and find a different angle. Approach users from a different angle to your competitors. If you wanna do research, look at what your competitors are posting.
CREATE SUSPENSE OR URGENCY: You can create suspense or urgency. Use phrases that create suspense or urgency such as buy now, limited time-offer, time is running out, while stocks last. Those create urgency.
USE A CALL-TO-ACTION: And then finally one of the most important things to remember and to use in each of your posts is to use a Call-to-Action. Tell users what action you want them to take, from the post that they are seeing, why they are seeing it and what should they be doing about it.

             KEYWORDS

It really helps and contributes to your search engine optimization to include keywords. So you wanna first do some keyword research. You want to list out the main keywords that someone would type into Google in order to find your product/service.

You would then want to use online tools to research additional keywords and synonyms. You can find more of those words, and analyze their online usage, generally, words such as insurance, for example, have got a very high usage, and therefore they are highly competitive and they’re harder to rank for. But the less competitive words should be easier to rank for. And then you want to use these in your social media posts as well as your bio’s.

Keyword research

List keywords
Research additional keywords and synonyms
Analyze their online usage
Insert into social media posts and bio’s

              HASHTAG

You also want to include hashtags in your posts. So you can again list the relevant keywords and then insert them into a hashtag tool to research whether these hashtags are in use and whether they’re popular. Create a branded hashtag.

This is extremely important and then insert your hashtags into your social media post. It is important to remember to only use the most relevant hashtags. You can use your branded hashtag in your posts.

Hashtag research

List relevant keywords
Research hashtags
Create a brand hashtag
Insert into social media posts

STEP 4: DESIGN AND STYLE GUIDE

This is your design and branding. Here, you can use the previously created design and style for your social media because of course you want to use the same brand, and color palette, throughout all your designs. You want to stick to the right typography for your business as well as use the same kinds of all styles of visuals across the board.

You also would want to remember to keep your tone, consistent online as well as your brand character. So imagine that your brand is a person and how would this person interact with users online, and what kind of jargon or words would they use?

When you are designing for social media, you want to use a variety of images but of course, keep them too within the same style as your design guidelines. Include your logo and your online images.

You also want to use the balance to ensure that there is a balance within your images that it’s not too crowded, and that you can also able to view them easily on mobile. You want to keep all of your designs consistent so that they can be related to your brand and become memorable.

If you want to limit your text within your images, use as little text as possible within the images that you’re posting to social media, rather than put your text on the actual post copy section.

And then use any negative space to your advantage. Negative space is the white space around your design and it’s okay to have that white space there because it means that the central visual of the image will definitely pop out when people are scrolling through timelines.

Designing for Social Media

Different images
Style of images you are using
Images sizes and resolution for each channel
Include your logo
The presence of a recognizable logo makes it easier for users to recognize your brand- how often do you scroll through social media, and see a post but don’t look at who posted it? This can help users to identify your brand.

Balance
Keep your design balanced and ensure that imagery is easily recognizable – consider what it would look like on mobile.
Consistency
Ensure that all your brand color combinations and fonts are adhered to.
Limit text
Try not to use too much copy on your designs. Keep it as short as possible and to the point.
Use negative space
Particularly if you are highlighting a product – ensure that your product stands out – again not making the image too busy or chaotic.

Now that we know which platform we’re going to use, we know what content type and what post type. We know what to post and how we are going to design it, and what design style to stick to when posting to social media.

STEP 5: SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGEMENT

The process of creating, scheduling, analyzing, and engaging with content posted on social media platforms.

Social media management entails;

Social Media Strategizing
Scheduling posts to a variety of channels
Managing community relationships so replying and commenting on messages or posts
Measuring brand sentiment and managing your brand’s online reputation
Monthly reporting and analyzing the content direction
Collaborating with multiple departments for content and to streamline online experiences

As a business owner, you are going to have to manage your own social media, and managing your own social media means that you have to come up with a social media strategy. You have to determine who your audience is, what goals you’re trying to achieve, which platforms you’re going to use according to your target audience, as well as which content types and post types you’re going to use, in order to create content that will help you to drive your users to take the action that you want to achieve for your goals.

So we need a strategy in order to know what steps we’re going to take to achieve our goals. And then you need to schedule your posts to a variety of channels. As a business owner, you might then have to create your own posts as well as post them or schedule them to channels. I would suggest using a Social Media Management Tool that will enable you to manage multiple social media channels all at once. So even if your social media is just 1 or 2, this will really help you.

Go and check out tools such as Hoot suite, Co Schedule, Sprout Social, as well as Buffer. Here are some tools that you are able to use. Some of these tools are free, so check out the free ones but I would, at the end of the day, suggest investing if you have the budget for a paid tool because it gives you extra details in analytic insights.

And part of managing your social media is also managing Community relationships. You want to ensure that you are responding to the comments of your users if they share your posts or the company shares your posts, then like the fact that they shared it. So just small little ways in which you can engage with your community online or create a community through Facebook groups but that will come at a later stage as you grow your social media. For now, ensure that you engage with users.

You will also need to ensure that you are measuring Brand Sentiment. Look at how users are responding to your brand online and some social media management tools will also have a kind of brand sentiment evaluation built into them.

You also need to ensure that you are doing monthly reports and analyzing your metrics and data. So using a social media management tool will help you to easily compile monthly reports but then you need to decide what actions you’re going to take from the data that you are seeing, however, I would suggest that you, especially starting out, you measure at least up to 6 months of data and check how you can adjust your strategy.

Last but not least you want to manage Inter-Departmental Collaborations. So if you can, but of course for start-ups, you might not have many different departments but I’m sure you might have additional employees. If you do, then you want to ensure that you are getting content from all of your different departments because more brains are always better than one.