the path of a social media strategy
TRANSCRIPT
THE SOCIALMEDIASTRATEGY
PATHOFA
What is this..?
A strong social media strategy is the difference between a small garden you can make salads with, to a farm
that bears enough fruit to feed your company.
This is a simplified keynote of the methods a company can use to start building a
strategy that yields results.
This is just the foundation.. you add to it from here.
1
Client GoalsWhat do you wish to achieve?
Brand Awareness
Brand awareness help others notice your brand and the conversation it brings to the table
Effectively, it’s really about Top-Of-Mind marketing, where someone thinks of your brand when a product or service is needed
Being a part of a potential clients feed allows you to be present in their daily conversation
Community Building
Community is the true currency you are trying to attain
A community can advocate on your behalf, engages you and each other and embeds your brand into their language
You would rather have 100 engaged followers than 1000 likes. Likes mean nothing is no one is talking
Thought Leadership
What do you have of value to add to the conversation? You have your expertise, this is your thought leadership
Using different mediums to express your opinion and expertise is what gives you content ie. Infographic, Whitepapers, Blogposts
Giving the community something of value is what makes people share your content
Drive Traffic
Where do you want your posts to lead to? Your website of course!
If your website has a good sales funnel, driving traffic should be one of your goals, which can in turn lead to conversions
Honestly, who doesn’t like seeing their Google Analytics numbers go higher and higher?
Choose 3 of the above goals and focus on them individually, building over time, a cohesive idea of how they interweave.
Of course you want all of the above, but narrowing down your goals will help in creating a REALISTIC strategy that
you can maintain.
After all, what good is a marketing strategy if you can’t maintain it?
2
Persona ProfilesWho is your audience and what do they do?
Creating Persona Profiles
Create profiles of your ideal clients that include:
Gender
Age
Job Description
Income
Likes & Dislikes
This will help you determine which social channels this demographic uses most and ultimately, help you hone your message
Proper Persona Profiles can help your marketing strategies on and offline
3
ChannelsWhich channels are worth your investment?
Choosing Your Channels
There are over 800+ social media channels, so which do you choose?
You choose the ones your target audience uses, hang out where they hang out.
This is why we ask the questions:
Who is your target audience?
Where do they congregate?
What do they talk about?
What do they love?
Creating Persona Profiles helps us narrow down the channels
Here’s a sample of information for the 3 of the biggest social media channels, that of Facebook, LinkedIn & Twitter.
This is where you cross reference your persona profiles against the channels own demographics to find out
if your audience uses them.
As an example, if your ideal customers drive a Lexus, make $350k/ year and are over the age of 45, it may be safe
to say that they don’t hang out on Facebook much, most likely LinkedIn is your better bet.
Demographic: 58% Women
Pros: Very Community Centric
Benefits: Depending on your industry, most people will look for you on this channel first
Users: 1.4Bn
Demographic: Business
Pros: Direct B2B engagement
Benefits: Real-World Network
Users: 347m
Demographic: Mobile-Centric
Pros: Perfect for Customer Service
Benefits: Very Event-Oriented
Users: 288m
4
Content StrategyWhat kind of content should you create?
Whitepaper
A white paper is a piece of evergreen content which can be used over and over again
It provides your expertise in more than just a bite-size format eg. How to build amazing abs in 5 steps.pdf
You use it to build your email list, providing it in exchange for an email address
It’s the gift that keeps on giving because if it’s good, it will be shared
Infographic
An infographic is also a piece of evergreen content
It provides a visually appealing way to showcase statistics to make a specific point eg. How Millennials Use Social Media
Good infographics make the rounds of the internet, great share ability
Blogposts
Is the first step to establishing your expertise
Consistency is key, keeping a scheduled blogpost is beneficial for your audience and for SEO purposes
Helps drive traffic to your site because you’re continuing to create fresh content to put out on your social channels
Google LOVES seeing you create fresh content for your community, it helps with your SEO rankings
Very cost effective. Minimum 300 words and an image is truly enough for most
Video
Video is currently the medium of choice right now, consider it a powerhouse
Doesn’t matter if it’s not super professional, that human element is trusted more
Good audio is key though
Gives you an extra social channel to engage via YouTube (3 minutes), Instagram (30 seconds) or Vine (6 seconds)
Length is key - see above
Images
We are very visual creatures, so let a picture speak 1000 words
You have 3-8 seconds to engage someone on social media, what do you think works best?
Extremely easy content to create!
Create a non-obtrusive watermark (bottom left or right corner) of your images for longer brand awareness when they make the rounds of the internet
It also provides some comedy relief. People LOVE to laugh!
5
CultivateWhat are we growing here?
Cultivating an Audience
A strong channel has great engagement, so how do you cultivate the right audience?
Proper Persona Profiles
Content that shares so others want to join in on the conversation
Make them love you! Find out what your audience enjoys
Creating Engagement
You have to give people a reason to follow you, and believe it or not, they don’t really care about your special deals half the time
Ask yourself why you follow certain brands?
Some people really enjoy the behind the scenes of an agency, don’t be afraid to show failures as well as successes
Creating fun, enjoyable, education and informative content is the key to good engagement
Engagement is what builds a community, so find unique ways to do so
Above all, KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE!
6
Marketing ObjectivesMeasure. Measure. Measure
Analytics
If you can’t measure it, it doesn’t exist is a mantra you should consider
Return on Investment (ROI) is a word you will love to hate
Social Media is extremely measurable but..
Some very important aspects can’t really be measured, like the value of your community, why higher engagement is better for your bottom line
Some of these metrics are hard to truly measure in dollars, but there are creative ways
Benchmark
You have to start somewhere, so write down where you started with:
Followers
New followers per day
Posts per day
Shares/ Retweets per day
Visits
and any other metric you feel is important
This helps you see your progress and set goals
This also helps you see if what you’re doing is working or if you should change it up
Keeping tabs on your metrics also helps provide hard numbers to management
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April May June July
We hope you found this slideshare informative, and that it helps you build a more coherent
social media strategy.
If you do like it, all we ask is that you share it, thus proving that good content finds
a way around the internet.
If you didn’t like it, make it better. Create the good content you want to see.
- The Octopus & Son Team
