Social media confidently has come to everyday lives and nowadays it continues to be in trend. It is a controversial question of how useful social media can be.
Some people are right when they say that social media takes us from real life to the online world. Others will say that social media platforms bring people together because there are many possibilities for communication here.
In any case, online networking is a source of information that is used by many people and it provides merchants with a lot of opportunities to interact with potential customers.
SMM Strategy: Main Points
SMM has grown from another way of getting traffic to something more important – this is a strategy of interaction with the target audience, the formation, and development of the brand. If you make the company “friendly” to social networks, you can achieve impressive results.
In order for the SMM strategy to justify itself, it is necessary to set realistic and measurable goals, study the market and competitors, plan publications in advance and distribute areas of responsibility. The audience should be regularly entertained with new useful and entertaining content, promptly respond to comments, motivated to make reposts. This is the only way to make groups interesting, active, and users – loyal. Let’s point out the most important sections for successful SMM strategy for today:
1. Summary
This section is not needed by strategy developers or executives, but by managers who depend on whether the strategy will be approved. In order for management to accept your ideas, the summary should summarize the essence of the strategy, the main objectives, means and performance indicators.
The volume of the summary should not exceed one or two pages of printed text so that the manager could become familiar with its content in just a few minutes. There is no place for reasoning and long conclusions – we need facts in a pure form.
2. Mission
The mission is expressed in one or a couple of inspiring proposals, which contain the message that is important for the target audience. The mission is not to “make a lot of money” and not to “sell more”. This is something more affecting the deep feelings of users. For example, Nike in 2017 conducts its campaigns in social networks under the slogan “If we can be equal in sports, we can be equal everywhere.” The topic of equality is discussed not only in the US and Europe, but also in other countries, so this mission is relevant and fits well with the overall concept of Nike – “Just Do It”.
3. Goals
If the mission connects the target audience and the company and is addressed to an external user, then the target is needed by the company.
The goal should be the answer to the question “Why is SMM needed?”. Correct goals should be:
- realistic (hardly a small regional stores network in the foreseeable future could become a global network);
- specific (the goal should not be blurred judgments and a double interpretation. “To become the best in the field” is not a goal. But “To conquer 20% of the market” is another matter);
- measurable (the goal is expressed in concrete numbers so that you can compare the result “before” and “after.” “Increase brand awareness” is not the goal. “To make every fifth person in the city know about our store” is a measurable goal).
4. Target audience
Thanks to a wide range of settings, advertising, and informational messages can be perfectly “tailored” to the recipients (that is, your target audience). It is almost impossible to achieve such a coincidence in other areas of promotion (the exception is the email channel on the basis of existing customers). So, in Facebook, the targeting parameters may depend not only on demographic indicators but also on what people share in the Chronicle, what applications they use, what advertising they click on, which pages they go to.
5. Competitors
In order to develop an SMM strategy, be sure to study the activity of your competitors in social networks. Pay attention to:
- sites where they lead groups;
- content type;
- frequency of publication;
- whether competitors work with bloggers;
- competitors’ own unique ways of promotion.
This does not mean that you should blindly copy SMM models of competitors, but knowing them is useful. Moreover, we recommend studying foreign experience and delving into groups of foreign companies working in your field. In the West, SMM is one step ahead of the national one, so there are many interesting things to be learned there.
6. Content plan
So, now you exactly know why you need SMM strategy, what do you want to achieve, to whom your efforts are directed, what competitors “cover”, which platforms to use. It’s time to decide on the content formats and the schedule for the publication.
The content plan allows you to structure work with social networks, plan working hours and costs, “accustom” the target audience to the rhythm of publication of materials.
8. Performers
You can engage in SMM on your own or outsource it – we will not discover anything new here. But there is one nuance in SMM that distinguishes it from other areas. The SMM is beneficial to involve all company personnel. This is its uniqueness.
The simplest thing a company manager can do is to motivate employees to repost records. Imagine if the company employs 100 people, and everyone makes a repost, then the article will immediately collect 100 likes and 100 reposts. And if you consider that reposts will be made by friends of employees, then the figure can grow significantly. Motivation can be different – from moral to material incentives.
Therefore, some companies practice the distribution of responsibility for SMM between different departments. For example, the marketing department deals with targeting, the sales department publishes information about promotions, the design department shares concepts, and the HR department deals with information about vacancies. So you can continue indefinitely. In fact, each department has something to share with the target audience, while there will be no significant burden on each of them. Involving the staff is the best fit for the idea of a strategic SMM.
9. Performance Metrics
This is probably the most important and difficult question. At first glance, the effectiveness of SMM is measured by the number of likes, reposts and comments. These indicators are important if your goal is to increase outreach and raise brand awareness. But if you need to increase conversions, attract traffic, get leads, then these metrics are not suitable – here you need a conversion rate, number of transitions and the coefficient of lead generation.
Universal indicator for Internet marketing is considered ROI. But in the case of SMM, there are problems with its assessment. Suppose you want to increase the level of customer service using social networks. How to measure ROI? Here we need other indicators, for example, the response time of technical support or the number of issues resolved.
So, the choice of metrics depends on the goals of SMM. In order to evaluate the effectiveness of SMM, special tools are used. The most obvious are Google Analytics and Yandex.Metrica. Be sure to mark the links with UTM-tags so that you can track not only social networks but also specific posts from which there were transitions. In addition, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube have free embedded analytics systems that allow you to track group traffic, target audience, and interactions.
What Makes a Successful Social Media Marketing Strategy
Social media is not a panacea, and not for all products does it work effectively and are able to increase sales. There are some questions we recommend answering when you are planning a campaign in social media:
1. Are my clients on these social media platforms?
Some people are present in social media as individuals. They can indicate their position and work experience, but they do not do their functional duties here. Many people only use social media for entertainment, socializing with friends, hobbies and personal development. For now, only linkedin.com is a professional social networking website. Other online networks perform multiple functions and join different groups of people.
2. Is it acceptable to provide information about the products of an online store there?
There is a lot of entertainment content in all social media. Try to imagine how the post about your product will be perceived among such information and how it will influence the products or your company image in general.
3. Are your potential customers ready to make a purchasing decision here?
In other words, what do you expect from social media? It is an important point for the evaluation of the effectiveness of online networks and it should be carefully considered by merchants who work on the B2B market.
For example, an online store specializes in expensive and complex equipment. Due to the fact that many people use online networks only for entertainment, rest or refocusing, they are not ready to make serious decisions here, so social media can indirectly affect the sales and can be used only for brand image and reminding clients about your company.
How to Create a Social Media Marketing Strategy
Content Planning
Quality content is the basis of efficient interaction with potential customers in social media. When you create content, take into account the audience you interact with. For instance, if you are going to show the post with discounts to new people who are not familiar with your online store, you should present your online shop, explain who you are and give information about price discounts. If people do not know your company they perceive your message harder.
Or another situation, when you use Remarketing features on Facebook or Twitter. Remarketing is the functionality that allows merchants to reach potential customers who previously visited the online store. In this situation, people have some information about the online shop and you can put more specific details in your post.
Reviews
In the e-commerce market, reviews play a huge role. Due to the fact that customers can’t test the products as in real stores, they read opinions about products before they make their purchasing decisions. Encourage those visitors who write reviews. You can also ask your loyal clients to do this. Such a strategy works very effectively.
Sharing Buttons
Your customers can “do your job” and spread the information about your online store. Allow your visitors to share information quickly. For this, it is really important to put “Like” Facebook Button or Twitter Button not only on the main page of your website but on product pages, as well.
Visualization
One good picture is worth 1000 words. Make your images attractive so that people like to share them. In social media, this is really effective, especially on Instagram and Pinterest (don’t forget to activate the “Pin It” button for all pictures).
Entertainment and Socializing as a Part of Your Marketing Campaign
You should create some kind of interactive communication. People expect such activities here. Lotteries, contests, interesting discussions on topics close to your business – all such interactions are acceptable and will involve visitors in your community.
Regularity. Post information on social networks regularly. There is no right answer on how often you should do this. It depends on how much news you have. If your online store has many products and the range of your goods changes quickly, you can publish even several posts per day.
Hashtags. Hashtags are used to organize content in online networks and they work as navigation on features. Always add hashtags to your posts.
Analyze in advance all possible variants of what your potential customers can call your product or which words they can use. Professional language can differ from the “vocabulary” of ordinary people. With hashtags, your posts can be reached more frequently.
Always let the visitors of your online store use their social networking accounts instead of registering.
Most people don’t like long registration procedures. You can allow them to skip this process and use their social media accounts. GoMage has a brilliant solution for your Magento online store. We offer Social Connector extension by GoMage for free.
