Developing a Social Media Strategy
First of all, We all get a question in our mind, "How to build a successful social media marketing?" So, let's start by answering this question.
For building successful social media marketing, you need to follow 4 stages.
METHODS OF SUCCESSFUL SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING
There are four methods of building successful social media marketing. Those are :
1.Social Monitoring & Listening
2. Social Influencing
3. Social Networking
4. Social Selling
All 4 of these stages are key to reaching social media success. But all of it hinges on Stage 1: Social Listening.
Listening gives you the insights you need to perform the other 3 stages well.
It helps you develop a strategy that will give you influence, a strong network, and lots of leads and sales.
The key, of course, is to get your information in front of your prospects and customers where they hang out online.
The social success cycle has 4 stages:
1. SOCIAL LISTENING
During this stage, you will be monitoring social media and responding to customers, while listening for important trends and topics. The goal of your social monitoring and listening is to manage your online reputation, reduce refunds, and identify product and content gaps. Some comments, like these, are positive. You’ll want to celebrate them—and respond with a great big thank-you. Some comments will be negative and you’ll have to respond immediately so people know you’re accessible. If you don’t respond, you could gain a bad reputation – but it’s also important to respond appropriately.
Social listening will also give you the insights to make decisions throughout the rest of the cycle. It’ll help drive strategy development that influences, grows your following, and ultimately leads to lots of conversions. An example of an effective way of doing this is using your Twitter account to listen to your customer's needs, wants, and complaints. A simple check in on your account will provide your customer care team with a pulse on your customers.
GOALS OF SOCIAL LISTENING
What are you listening for? When tuning in to social conversations, your goals are to:
• Track public perception of your brand.
• Identify the topics you need to be talking about.
• Keep a pulse on the industry, where it’s going, how it’s being perceived.
• Perform customer research.
• Conduct competitive research.
METRICS TO WATCH
What should you measure to track your social listening efforts?
• Reputation score:- Are people happy or sad when talking about you? Is the tone negative or positive?
• Retention rate:- Are you retaining customers? If not, why?
• Refund rate:- Are you able to resolve issues without having to issue refunds?
• Product gaps identified:- What suggestions are people making for new product features?
• Content gaps identified:- What content should you develop to answer questions and resolve issues before they arise?
2. SOCIAL INFLUENCING
This is the stage where you establish your authority in your industry by posting relevant content that adds value. The key here is creating content that people want to engage with. The more relevant the content, the more they will recognize your authority in the space and identify you as a valuable resource. As they continue to engage with your content, it will be shared with their networks, and your brand will extend its reach.
GOALS FOR SOCIAL INFLUENCING
During this phase of the social success cycle, you’re trying to:
• Increase engagement with your brand and your content.
• Start conversations around the topics related to your business.
• Boost traffic to your site.
• Build awareness of your products and offers.
• Grow your retargeting list.
METRICS TO WATCH
How do you know you’re building your social influence? These are the metrics that matter most:
• Site engagement rates:- Are you getting more social shares and comments?
• Traffic by channel:- Traffic from your social media channels should increase over time.
• Offer awareness:- People see and respond to the offers you make on social media.
• Retargeting list growth:- Through retargeting, you’re able to get your
offers in front of people who are most likely to buy from you—and they respond by downloading your lead magnets and subscribing.
3. SOCIAL NETWORKING
Social networking involves building relationships with trusted influential people and brands in your industry. Create mutually beneficial relationships that allow both parties to grow. You will share valuable content from people within the industry and even competitors. But, if it’s helpful to your audience, it’s worth sharing. As you develop these strategic relationships, you’ll notice an increase in mentions in the long run.
Another added benefit of social networking is that you will be able to share content that fills gaps left from your content. By sharing their content, you’ll also be creating good with brands that are similar to yours – possibly creating a relationship that can lead to a profitable partnership.
GOALS FOR SOCIAL NETWORKING
During this stage of the social success cycle, you aim to:
• Share content that fills gaps left from your content. This content may relate topically or target people at different skill levels.
• Create goodwill with brands that are similar to yours.
• Over time, transform that goodwill into profitable partnerships.
METRICS TO WATCH
To measure the strength of your social network, watch these metrics:
• Number of inbound links:- A strong network will result in more backlinks to your content.
• Number and description of earned media mentions:- Consider the relevance and value of the mentions, who they come from, and the value of those mentions.
• Number and description of earned strategic partnerships:- Are you reaching out to partnership prospects, or are they reaching out to you? How relevant are those brands to your business, and what is the value of those relationships?
4. SOCIAL SELLING
This is where you’ll be generating leads and sales by connecting a seeking audience with your products and services. Focus on engaging your audience and making sure that you speak of the benefits of what you offer. With so much noise in the digital space, you’ll want to make sure your benefits resonate with your audience. So, your social selling should focus on seeker channels where customers are actively looking for specific products and services, like Google, YouTube, or Pinterest. People will go to these channels to search for and discover content.
An example of social selling will look as follows: A lead reads a blog and you’ll embed an offer in the content. You’ll leverage social media to promote the content, directing traffic to your content where new leads see your offer. If they click to opt-in for the offer, you can immediately make an upsell offer – a low-priced product that’s designed to turn your new lead into a life-long customer. But, if they don’t opt-in, you can retarget them with ads.
GOALS FOR SOCIAL SELLING
Your goals at this stage are to:
• Generate leads to grow your email list.
• Acquire new customers and upsell/cross-sell existing customers.
• Increase buyer frequency, turning one-time customers into raving fans.
METRICS TO WATCH
To track your success at social selling, watch these metrics:
• Number of lead:- Other time, your email list show growth.
• Offer conversion rate:- Are your offers converting? Maybe your offer isn’t relevant or isn’t close enough to your prospects’ bottom-line desire.
• Buyer recency/frequency:- You want customers to buy repeatedly and often.
RELEVANT ROLES IN SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING
Once you understand the basics of social media marketing, you need to identify the people who will be responsible for managing your success.
There’s no right answer. It will depend on your organization and goals. But in most cases, you’ll find your best solution is one of three departments.
MARKETING
Most marketers are already involved in social media since it gives them the 3 things they need to do their job well:
• Customer insights
• understanding of the trends and conversations influencing their prospects.
• A powerful channel for disrupting the status quo.
Because they’re already actively participating in social media, marketing professionals could be a good fit for managing/directing your social media efforts.
SALES
Salespeople often use social media to engage with prospects, identify talking points, and figure out what matters most to people evaluating their products.
That being the case, someone on your sales team may be a good fit for managing/directing your social media program.
PUBLIC RELATION
Public relations is another good option for taking responsibility for your social media. PR is all about creating a positive brand perception, and it’s already customer-centric, which makes it social by default.
