By Michelle Penczak
Marketing and Social Media Management are two areas that can honestly be a bit overwhelming. There are so many different avenues to dive into with each one. Along with the various avenues, you’re going to get a million other pieces of advice from great marketers to not-so-great marketers. Marketing should be about teaching people something of value. The more significance people learn from you, the more they will look at you and your brand as a trustworthy resource. Social Media Management develops, implements, and monitors an online presence strategy for a persona and brand. The best piece of marketing advice I ever received was teaching people and being authentic in the process. People can spot someone blowing a load of smoke a mile away. You do not want to be that type of marketer. You want your brand to be reliable, trustworthy, and genuine. With both Marketing and Social Media Management, there is a process for developing your plan of success.
A BASIC OUTLINE OF HOW TO GET STARTED WOULD INCLUDE THE FOLLOWING:
Determine who you are teaching and who is your target audience.
What does your ideal customer or client look like? The more specific you can get, the better you can target your audience. A good starting point is the age, location, and interest range of your current customer base.
Decide which platforms you will operate on.
Not every business is destined to operate at peak quality on Pinterest, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter. I would start with 3 to dedicate to yourself and your audience. However, keep in mind that goods and services tend to do better on platforms such as Instagram and Pinterest versus relationship-based platforms like Twitter and LinkedIn.
Develop your strategy.
What are your goals? Are you looking to gain more followers? Is it telling your brand story? Is it finding new customers?
Be sure to set a goal to go hand in hand with your strategy for each platform. I’m also a big fan of setting number goals each month.
Plan your content.
What you post on Facebook isn’t going to be the same as Twitter or Pinterest. Make sure that you are crafting the narrative and tailoring it to your audiences on those respective platforms. Create a content calendar each week or each month. Stick to it. That means blocking the time on your calendar to create the content as well.
Engage with your audience.
One of the biggest mistakes I have seen is brands not engaging with their audiences. Liking comments, responding to them, and following up with messages keeps those comments and messages coming week after week. If you don’t respond and engage with your audience, they will begin to think of you as another stuffy marketer and eventually stop commenting and liking your content. People will engage with your page more if you engage with them. Be personable and ‘approachable’ to those to whom you are marketing.
Track and monitor your performance.
This is your data, the numbers that prove all of your efforts weren’t in vain. If you don’t track and monitor your progress, you will never be able to tell what is working and what isn’t. This includes everything from engagement rate to amplification rate and everything in between. Tools like Minter.io and Hootesuite will automatically pull this data for you on the linked platforms.
The best piece of advice I can personally give you when implementing a new marketing or social media strategy is to not give up. It’s really easy to get bogged down in the numbers when you feel like you’re giving everything you’ve got and the numbers don’t reflect your efforts..
Whenever you feel that way just repeat the word ‘yet’ to yourself over and over for a few minutes. Trust me, I know it sounds crazy but it works. You will get those numbers to where you would like them to be but it will not happen in a week and you have to be consistent with your process.
Michelle Penczak, CEO Squared Away
