{"id":6947,"date":"2020-07-23T00:40:50","date_gmt":"2020-07-23T04:40:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.atyourbusiness.com\/blog\/?p=6947"},"modified":"2020-07-23T00:41:13","modified_gmt":"2020-07-23T04:41:13","slug":"7-tips-to-building-a-strategy-with-social-media-for-businesses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.atyourbusiness.com\/blog\/7-tips-to-building-a-strategy-with-social-media-for-businesses\/","title":{"rendered":"7 Tips to Building a Strategy with Social Media for Businesses"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Social media still matters to marketers. In fact, 91% of marketers<\/a> use at least 2 social media channels to promote their brand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019re a marketer or small business owner, you know that social media can be a great tool to build your business. For many, it\u2019s a source of frustration and energy. All too often, people put in time and effort without seeing the results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s usually because they\u2019re not building a strategy with social media. They have a ‘post when they feel like it’ approach, which doesn\u2019t do much to build the business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keep reading to find out how you can build a great social media strategy that gets results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

1. Choose the Right Platforms<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

You don\u2019t need to be on every single social media network. You don\u2019t have the time and you can\u2019t produce enough quality content for your business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You have to limit yourself to 2-3 platforms that you are comfortable with. You also have to choose the social media channels that you enjoy. For example, if you spend a ton of time on Facebook, then start there. Marketing on Facebook is often a great place to start because your audience is very likely to be there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once you start seeing results on Facebook, you can branch out to Instagram or YouTube.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Understand Your Audience<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The key to choosing your platform is to understand where your audience is. You should know your target demographics and know where they hang out online.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You want to know their age, income, gender, and what they look for online. This will help you create messages that will break through the noise and get attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, if you\u2019re a fitness professional that targets guys who want to get big, you\u2019re not going to spend time on Pinterest. Women are more likely to be on Pinterest than men.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pew Research Center<\/a> publishes a report every year about social media usage. It details who uses social media and which channels they prefer to use. This is a great resource to use to discover where your target market spends time online.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. Set Strategy Goals<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Your social media strategy needs goals. You cannot overlook the importance of goal setting because your goals guide everything else. For example, your social media goal is to increase ecommerce sales from your website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With that goal in mind, you\u2019re going to have to produce content that shows off the reasons why people would want your product. You\u2019ll also have to check your website to make sure it\u2019s easy for people to buy online.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You may decide that you want a campaign to generate real estate investment leads. View more info here<\/a> to find how to create and close these leads. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s different from a brand awareness campaign. You\u2019re casting a wide net with brand awareness, asking questions to jumpstart engagement, and developing content that tells your brand story instead of being product-focused.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4. Find Your Brand\u2019s Voice<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

If you treat your brand like a person, what would they say? How would they talk? That is the voice of your brand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A great example of a brand\u2019s voice is the official Twitter account of New Jersey<\/a>. You can just picture it being tough and sassy. That\u2019s the exact voice of the Twitter feed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You don\u2019t need to be tough and sassy, but you do need to discover your brand\u2019s voice and make it relatable online.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

5. Create a Content Plan<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Once you have your voice and your social media channels picked, you can then start to publish content. Quality content is hard to produce without organization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You should have a content game plan that outlines what you\u2019re going to post, when, and where. You should take a look at various holiday calendars to take advantage of days like National Chocolate Day and International Paella Day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can also add days to your calendar to draft content and create videos and images.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

6. Automate and Schedule Content in Advance<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Social media can be time-consuming. You want to excel at it, but it takes consistent quality content that resonates with your audience. You can create a social media system to help you be consistent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, you can batch all of your video content at once and then edit the content. You can then schedule your videos in advance. You could do the same for images or graphics. Some companies and bloggers will schedule a month in advance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you don\u2019t have a full marketing team behind you, then you could devote one hour a day to social media. Monday can be writing blog posts, Tuesday create images and pins. Schedule your posts on Wednesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

7. Focus on the Right Metrics<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

All too often, you\u2019ll see people get hung up on the wrong metrics. If they\u2019re marketing on Pinterest, they\u2019ll complain that their monthly views have dropped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Instagram and Facebook, they\u2019ll talk about how many followers they have or how many likes a post received.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The thing is, those metrics don\u2019t really matter much. What really matters is whether or not people are engaging with your brand by leaving comments or visiting your website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is why goal setting is such an important part of your social media strategy. It helps you focus on the right metrics that are aligned with your goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A company that uses social media to drive sales wouldn\u2019t care about monthly viewers or followers. They\u2019d care about the amount of traffic that goes to the company website and the percentage of visitors who purchase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Creating a Strategy with Social Media<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Social media isn\u2019t hard, but it can be for marketers and business owners who don\u2019t have a strategy. Posting a cat picture once a month isn\u2019t a strategy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A strategy with social media is a concerted effort that forces you to get your messages, channels, and audience aligned. You also need to have organization and consistency. Once those things are in place, then you\u2019ll be a social media success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Head over to the home page of this site for more business and lifestyle tips.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Social media still matters to marketers. In fact, 91% of marketers use at least 2 social media channels to promote their brand. If you\u2019re a marketer or small business owner, you know that social media can be a great tool to build your business. For many, it\u2019s a source of frustration and energy. All too […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.atyourbusiness.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6947"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.atyourbusiness.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.atyourbusiness.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.atyourbusiness.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.atyourbusiness.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6947"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.atyourbusiness.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6947\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6949,"href":"https:\/\/www.atyourbusiness.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6947\/revisions\/6949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.atyourbusiness.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.atyourbusiness.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.atyourbusiness.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}