2015

HOW TO BUILD AN EFFECTIVE SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING STRATEGY? KAVITA RANA

SITESSIMPLY PTY. LTD | 167 Macquarie Street Sydney 2000, New South Wales, Australia Sydney: +61 (0) 2 8355 3882

Today when people just can’t live without social media, platforms such as Facebook, Pinterest, google+,

and Tumblr have become some of the best sections for companies to showcase their products before

the whole wide world. Social media marketing is one of the best practices for business, whether a newbie

or fortune company to stay connected to their audience as well as to their community.

So how do you actual set up a social media strategy? What all platforms do you need to consider? How

can you know whether your strategy is working or not? Well! We are here to answer everything. Check-

out the following points while building a social media marketing strategy:

Choose your media

There is a vast range of social media platforms where you can share news, ideas, and important

information associated with your company or brand. While Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Tumblr and

Pinterest are the top social networks, still each one has its own appeal, style and audience. But, before

you dive deep you must consider certain factors like:

Time –You should at least spend one hour especially at the starting. Thereafter, you can also use tools

like buffer, hoot suite and others to save a bit of time.

Resources – What kind of resources do you have? Do you actually have skills to deal with each of the

networks? While networks like Pinterest & Instagram work on images & photos, you will need good &

fresh content for Google+, and LinkedIn.

Audience – You must also know where your potential customers actually hang out, while choosing a

social network.

Step 2: Fill out your profiles completely

Now that you have successfully chosen the social network profiles, you must also make sure that each

of the profile is up to date & complete. It a very important part of social media audit, and showcases that

you are serious about engaging. However, you must also maintain these social networks timely & with

the right type of content including text, images, videos, photos, and everything else that concerns your

brand. You should also keep certain tips in mind while posting across your social media networks:

Keep your keywords targeted at your audience

Try to use fresh content

Show how the news is important for your customers

Keep posting often

Step 3: Find your marketing voice and tone

Well! You might be tempted to start sharing right away, but before starting you must create a voice for

your brand. So, how would you like to represent your brand? What kind of relationship would you like

to establish with the consumers? How would you actually like to introduce your brand? So, try to work

on your social media marketing plan. Try to engage you customers with delighting thoughts, something

that can actually keep them thrilled.

Step 4: Pick your posting strategy

How often should you post on your social networks? What is the ideal time & amount of posting? And,

what exactly should you post? Well! Everything actually depends on the network you are posting.

What you must be posting?

Well! When we talk about social media networks, visual content is more appealing than simple text.

Images tend to get more shares, views, clicks, shares, and likes as compared to other post.

On an average a photo on face book gets 53% more likes, 104% more comments and also more than

84% click-through rate. And, the same goes on twitter, a visual content can help you get more retweets,

and boost your post, however, even hashtags also receive more than 15% boost.

How often should you be posting?

Well! Depending upon your time zone target audience you must keep you social profiles up to date. Try

to consider the following checklist

Twitter – The best time for you to publish a tweet is around 1-3 pm on weekdays

Facebook – Facebook receives the most traffic around 1-4 pm and 2-5pm during the weekdays. So, it is

best if you keep your post going somewhat around these crucial hours.

LinkedIn – The best time for a post on LinkedIn is from 7- 8:30am and 5 - 6pm particularly on Tuesday,

Wednesday, and Thursday.

Tumblr – Try to post around 7- 10 pm on weekdays and on Fridays try to consider posting around 4pm

Google+ –Your post gets the best visibility on Google+ in between 9-11 am on weekdays

Step 5: Analyze, test, and iterate

The more active you remain on social media, the more idea you can have about what actually interests

your consumers. What is that grabs most of their attention? And which frequency is right for you? But,

how will you actually evaluate the entire data correctly. Well! The best thing is to get a reporting tool

that can actually help you manage each of the information. You can also set benchmarks, and after a set

period of time, come back and analysis how much business, clicks, comments or likes a particular post

brought. In this way, you can also know which social media strategy is working the best for you, or what

new do you have to implement.

You can also find a range of social media companies can help you track your social media campaign’s

performance.

Step 6: Automate, engage, and listen

The final piece of work lies in staying updated & engaged with your community. To accomplish this, you

can also consider using automated update tools, buffer, hoot suite, share this etc. Tools like this can

actually help you to queue your content and send it out according to the scheduled time. Using these

tools can actually help you to stay active & engaged across your social networks at the right time.

Building an effective social media marketing strategy i very important if you really want to taste some

success. So, keep all these important factors in mind before building your campaign.

Feel free to drop your suggestions & reviews.