The Small Business Social Media Marketing Strategy That Actually Works!

Secrets of a Successful Social Media Marketing Strategy

Many people think they can make it big online if they just figure out how to make their content to go viral. If that’s your marketing plan, it’s time to go back to the drawing board. It’s difficult and even less fun than they think. They see others rocket to celebrity status with YouTube or Instagram fame. Without a solid strategy, that three minutes of fame is long gone.

Social media marketing has been around for a long time, but only recently has it really taken off. There are millions of people using these sites every day. If you have a product that people want to buy, they are going to find your ad on these sites. But it’s still not that simple.

First, let’s look at what social media marketing is all about. Social media marketing is the use of websites like Facebook and Twitter, YouTube and Instagram to reach your target market. The challenge is that there are thousands of competitors fighting for the same market share.

What is Social Media Marketing?

Social Media Marketing takes advantage of popular free platforms that are available to the public. These are platforms where people can interact, exchange information and create an online community. Social media marketing may be one of the most important marketing tools that small businesses can use for steady growth.

The web is an increasingly powerful medium in which to reach your customer, because more people are online now than ever before. Facebook is by far the most popular social media platform among small and medium-size businesses. YouTube, Twitter and Instagram also rank high. These are free platforms.

How to Choose Your Dominant Social Media Platform?

Let’s look at some numbers. Facebook alone has over 800 million users. Twitter has over 200 million users. That means there are over a billion people who are using these sites every day. YouTube online video platform viewers amount to 1.86 billion in 2021.

So, how can you take advantage of this? Well, the first thing you need to do is set up a platform of your own. That means creating your own website. You can set up a blog on any free blogging site, or you can set up a website using one of the many web hosting companies. This is where you will post your articles, videos, pictures, etc.

Social media marketing is a complex and ever-changing profession. It is essential to develop new strategies regularly, in order to keep up with the competition. There are a lot of platforms to choose from; Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc., but you should send your followers to your branded platform.

Social media tastes eventually change. That means the popular sites of today, like Facebook, may end up being the “Friendster” of the next decade. The other downside to relying on other platforms is the mercurial nature of their policies. Who knows what direction they may take next year? By building your own following, you can create a haven for your brand.

When choosing a starting point, inspect your target audience. Which platform is more relevant to your audience? Start with research. Look at the major influences on your chosen demographic. Where are the top influencers hanging out?

So, how can you connect with a massive social media audience? There are millions of competitors trying to get the attention of the people as well. A good approach is to follow relevant blogs or Twitter accounts with a niche that appeals to you, and then go from there.

How to Use Social Media to Promote a Brand

A lot of new businesses create a brand for themselves before they even launch their product. However, you need to give your audience a reason to share your brand with their network, and that’s by providing great content on your social media pages. You need to promote your brand like crazy, so you will gain a loyal fan base.

Tips for a Good Social Media Strategy

You’ve probably already done plenty of planning for your new marketing strategy, but is it good enough? The answer is probably not. Instead, it’s time to change up the way you do things.

1. Know Your Target Audience

You probably already know some of your audience better than others, but you should still use an analytics program to figure out who’s your best audience. A quick way to determine this is to look at the demographics of your blog readership.

2. Link Your Content to Your Social Media Accounts

One of the first things you can do is to link all your content, such as your blog posts, articles, videos, pictures, to social media. When you add this to your marketing strategy, you’ll be able to reach your targeted audience on social media as well.

3. How to Choose What to Post

There are many types of posts to choose from, but they all focus on different things:

· Blog posts

· Q&A

· Articles

· Images

· Videos

· Live broadcasts

· Podcasts

· Infographics

· Ebooks

· Audio books

· Apps

· Interviews

· Webinars

Creating something in any of the above media or format will help you get the word out about your company. These posts might reach your target market, but they might also get the media’s attention.

You can create different posts for each type of platform you use, depending on your niche. You can also plan posts ahead of time by using an event calendar. You don’t have to use every strategy. Pick one that is compatible with your audience.

The big thing is to be consistent with delivery. Putting out content on time and with consistency will be far more effective in the long run than jumping from one medium or platform to another. This is where momentum come in. It may take a while to see engagement and you may think that the strategy isn’t working.

If you give your strategy 90 days to germinate, you’ll see movement by the end of the second quarter. It’s about consistency and grit. Keep working your tactics for the duration. The process isn’t complicated; just uncomfortable.

Get Ready to Track Your Success

Let’s say you want to reach out to a specific audience. So you make your contact list, then you write posts. However, the posts that your target audience will respond to are going to be content that you have a direct insight into.

These are going to be some of your most read posts. Your post needs to be engaging. Include a few sentences of explaining why your blog post is so important. This creates a curiosity for the reader, where they click on your link and read your post.

Optimize Your Personal Social Media Profile

Be sure to optimize your profile on your social media platform of choice. That means you’ll want anyone who searches for you to be familiar with your company and your brand and your personality.

This is how social media marketing can work for you. By writing brief articles, you can build a comprehensive list of subscribers, and then share those articles with your social network. You can even create a series of articles and publish them all at once. This will allow you to increase your traffic and give you a steady stream of sales.

Using Social Media Influencers to Promote Your Brand

There might be a temptation to skip the maturing process and pay a few influencers to promote your brand. This is not a great idea. The growing process is important to the overall value of your marketing process. There are competitors out there who may already have a stronger brand following. They put in the time and the work to grow organically.

One of the most disastrous things you can do in social media marketing is to be unprepared in front of a live audience. Not only do you look bad, but the influencer who promoted you will look bad as well.

There will be a time when you can make a deal with a few influencers. That will be when you already have a solid track record and have perfected your game. Those attributes come with experience.

So forget the get famous quick, go viral or go home tactics. This is a marathon, not a sprint. When you’ve taken the time to understand your market and give them what they want, you’ll be rewarded. That’s the strategy that pays dividends.

What are you waiting for? Get to it — you’re going to be glad you did! For more small business ideas on social media marketing, subscribe here or go to my site https://contentmarketing magic.co/blog.