Social media is an excellent marketing tool that can level the playing field between major corporations and small businesses or brands. Even so, an active and engaged following is absolutely crucial to garnering success from any social media endeavors.
This can be pretty difficult to execute successfully, though. There are over 800 million active monthly users on Instagram alone, making it sometimes challenging to get your brand noticed on the platform.
If you want to stand out, then you must apply a few tactics to your social media marketing campaign that will help convey your brand’s story to your potential market.
By creating a strong online presence for your brand, you will attract the right customers to your business.
So how do you do that?
Here are eleven social media rules for a successful social media marketing campaign that every leader should know:
1. Know Yourself
Before heading out into the world of social media, you need to be sure that you know your brand and your business well.
You need to understand the strengths and weaknesses of your company, what your goals are with social media, and who your target audience is.
Once you know each of these things, you can more effectively create a social media marketing plan.
2. Meaningful Interaction
Driving a successful social media campaign is not just about content. It is mostly about the relationships that you build with your target market.
When people comment on your posts, whether they are on Facebook or on Instagram, respond to them.
Any social media interaction that you can have with your target market is an opportunity to develop a meaningful relationship with a potential customer.
People like knowing that there is a real person behind the brand and that it is a person that actually cares. This will build strong, long-lasting customer loyalty in your followers.
3. Content Plan and Dashboard
Social media is just as much a part of your business plan as payroll, inventory, and delivery. To be successful, you must create a clear and actionable plan that is based on real data and real goals.
In your content plan, create a yearly agenda of the content that you will make. This should include the formats of your content, how you will distribute it, and what kind of marketing funnel you will follow.
You can easily do this through an automation tool, such as Buffer or SproutSocial, or even on a group-sharing platform, such as Trello.
If you make a well-thought-out plan, you will be able to make better and more effective decisions down the road that will ultimately result in increased sales.
4. Track Success
Even if you create an excellent content plan, you still need to track the success of each post. Every month, take a look at a report of the success of your posts to determine which types of posts receive the most engagement and why. Then pivot your content strategy to reflect that.
Eventually, you will be able to create better content that your target market actually wants to see.
Tools like Hootsuite offer the most accessible tracking tools for you to quickly and effectively determine which posts are the most successful among your audience.
5. Cold Call Sharing
People love seeing validation in the form of likes, follows, and reviews. Potential customers are more likely to engage with your social media if they see that other people are already doing so.
Don’t be afraid to reach out to your current customer database to ask if they would perhaps leave a review, share your content, or like a post.
You may be surprised how many of your existing customers are willing and excited to join your social media community.
6. LinkedIn Sales Navigator
If your business is a B2B company, then you will need to connect with the right people within your niche rather than a broad customer base.
When it comes to connecting with other businesses, LinkedIn is the top platform. You can easily find your target B2B market through the LinkedIn Sales Navigator.
You can use this tool to access the accounts of the key people at the companies that you want to sell to, and you can also better understand the structure of these businesses, including their social media game.
This will allow you to create meaningful interactions with the key people in those businesses. This paid service by LinkedIn is certainly worth the investment if you want to take your social media plan seriously.
7. Facebook Groups and Pages
Businesses often overlook Facebook groups because they are slow to grow and require quite a bit of effort. That being said, if you take the time to invest in them, then you will certainly see the rewards.
A Facebook group, which is separate from your business page, allows you to post relevant content and build an authentic community of users within your niche.
This is crucial in order to build trust for your brand before you ever push a sale. The main drawback of Facebook groups is that it can take a long time for them to build traction.
One way to get your Page and group noticed is through Facebook ads. You don’t need to spend a lot of money to gain followers.
Instead, budget about a dollar a day for your ads simply to get your group noticed. Then stay engaged and let the growth happen organically.
8. Produce Quality Content
Producing quality content should go without saying, but it is certainly worth noting. In an effort to produce a lot of content, many businesses sacrifice quality for quantity.
Avoid that and create a nice balance between your own quality content and that of others.
By sharing, re-purposing, and creating content, you will undoubtedly have a nice flow of content that your users want to see and engage with.
9. Go Get Them
Just because you have great content and a page to display, it doesn’t mean that you will necessarily get followers. While this can be very tragic for an already overworked business leader, it is a simple truth.
You must go out and get your followers just as much as serve them.
This can be done through ads, influencer marketing campaigns, or simple engagement. One easy way to do this on Instagram is through the automation tool Growr. This tool automatically engages with users in your niche so that you don’t have to.
By simply engaging with users around the clock, your account is more likely to be noticed by interested users. This will naturally increase your followers and boost your engagement.
10. Be Open and Engaging
When it comes to social media, it is super important to be available to your followers and potential customers.
Throwing content onto the platform is only half of the work. The other half is authentic engagement. Respond to comments on your page and go out and respond to other people’s content as well.
This will build an authentic relationship with potential customers that money simply cannot buy.
11. Focus on a Specific Niche
Social media is already flooded with content, both good and bad. Rather than being a generalist, narrow down your content theme to a specific niche.
While you will ultimately be isolating a huge population that is not interested in your niche, you will also be gaining even more direct access to potential customers that are much more likely to spend money on your product or brand.
Keep in mind that your social media strategy will take quite a bit of time and effort. Even so, with a diligent and consistent approach, your social media campaign can convert many potential customers into loyal customers for years to come.
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Which Social Media Rules Do You Follow?
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