Written by: Maria-Paz Hornisch, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
If you want to use Social Media for your business, it is essential to develop a Social Media marketing strategy before writing posts and sending them through Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and other platforms. This Social Media marketing strategy will significantly depend on the goal or set of goals your company wants to achieve, and basically why you want to use social media to accomplish them.
A Social Media Marketing Strategy can aim to accomplish the following four different goals:
1. Establish the business as an authority:
Use Social Media to achieve this by sharing what your company stands for, what its mission is, and what its opinion and advice are on industry topics. Additionally, share testimonials from people who rave about your products and services to showcase the results that people can achieve. It will show social proof for your business and position it as an expert in its field.
Another way to establish a business as an authority is to grow its social media following. The number of followers an account has, combined with the level of engagement on the account, is viewed by others as social proof. Remember, though, that buying fake followers to increase numbers won’t help the authority of your business because the account will be lacking real engagement, and people can tell when an account has fake followers.
Lastly, use Social Media as a channel to provide excellent, engaging content that is relevant to your target audience
2. Build brand awareness and customer loyalty:
Building brand awareness is vital in today’s marketplace. Given the fact potential customers have so many options to choose from out there, you want them to think of your company and your products and services. The easiest way to build brand awareness is through Social Media, because you are meeting the audience where they are hanging out, and you have the opportunity to get in front of them multiple times on multiple platforms.
With Social Media, a company, no matter how small, is planted out there right next to its biggest competitors and in front of the eyes of an ever-scrolling audience. Social Media allows you to communicate your company’s brand in a positive and authentic way, which will attract your ideal customer.
Once a potential client is aware of your brand and has most likely started to engage with social content being published by your business, it’s time to build customer loyalty. Social Media is a crucial driver for word of mouth and one of the most potent ways to connect with your audience: studies show that 71% of consumers who have had a good Social Media service experience with a brand are likely to recommend it to others.
This could be through sharing it on Social Media or tagging others on posts published by your company or simply talking about your company over coffee with their friend. Remember, word of mouth referrals is another type of marketing channel. The best way to maintain customer loyalty is to provide above and beyond customer service through responsive and friendly engagement on social media. This could be through responding to comments or direct messages.
3. Drive leads (which eventually turn into sales):
Social Media is all about starting conversations with your audience and then leading them somewhere. It is great for that first touch-point with a potential customer, but at the end of the day, you want your audience’s emails. Having their name and contact info on an email list is so important because these are the people that are considered leads. They’ve decided that they want to hear more from your business and learn more about what your business can do for them. Social Media plays such an essential role in terms of getting someone hooked onto a brand or company. The goal should be to drive that hooked audience to a free or paid offer to continue the conversation through other marketing channels and not just on social media.
4. Compliment other marketing channels:
As mentioned in the previous point, Social Media marketing complements other marketing channels your business may have, such as email marketing. For example, email marketing requires you to gather a person’s contact info through a form. To complement this marketing channel, you would use social media posts to drive traffic to the opt-in form page. Using social media to complement other marketing efforts is a quick and effortless way to get in front of a target audience to provide them with smooth, digestible content and to ask them to take action.
Are you interested in creating a Social Media marketing strategy for your business? Download my workbook “4 Simple Steps to Create your Social Media Marketing Strategy” here or on my website.
Maria-Paz Hornisch, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Maria-Paz Hornisch is the Digital Marketing Strategist behind The Digital Madl, dedicated to helping ambitious mompreneurs with branding and digital marketing strategies to create a rock-solid presence online and skyrocket sales. Maria-Paz is a bachelor in Business Administration and holds an MBA in Luxury Business from ISC Paris École de Commerce. For twelve years, she developed her career in Chile, France, and Germany, working for a Spanish multinational commercial bank and two German luxury and fashion e-commerce companies. Originally from Santiago de Chile, she now lives in Munich, Germany.
