It’s no secret that one of the most effective ways to grow your business or blog is through social media. I have no doubt about that.
Social media is one of the best forms of online marketing. But what makes an effective strategy? And how can you use it to grow your business or blog?
When Ray approached me to write a guest post about social media marketing, I jumped on it! A) Cuz I like ya Ray, and B) Because guest posting is a great addition to my social media marketing plan!
In this guest post, I’ll help you come up with an effective social media marketing plan.
We will discuss the most important aspects of a successful social media marketing strategy, so you can grow your business or blog!
I can provide you with all of the tools and information I have learned studying Social Media Marketing, but it’s up to you to put it in to action.
Let’s get started!
The Most Effective Social Media Marketing Strategy For Your Business
- Preparation
- Planning
- How To Successfully Execute Your Social Media Marketing Plan
- What Are The Best Social Media Websites To Market Your Business?
Preparation
There are several steps to creating an effective social media marketing plan that works for every business or blog! Let’s break it down:
1. What Is Your Product?
This is the most important step in creating any social media marketing plan. You need to know your product inside and out.
Your product could be a physical item, or it could be your website or blog. Having a clear understanding of your product will help you streamline your marketing campaign and make it much more effective.
2. Who Is Your Target Audience?
Who is your product for? When you created your blog, who did you envision reading or using it?
You simply can’t market something to someone if you don’t know who it is for. It won’t work effectively. Google analytics can give some insight into who is already visiting your site.
Pay special attention to your returning visitors, as they are particularly interested in what you have to offer. Keep them in mind when brainstorming future blog post ideas!
Ask yourself what topics would they be searching for, what writing style would resonate well with them, and what type of graphics would attract your ideal reader?
3. Who Are Your Competitors?
Knowing who you’re up against can help you serve your ideal audience better. A little friendly is good!
So, take a look at what some of your competitors are doing across social media and identify what seems to be working and what doesn’t.
You’ll likely find some gaps you can fill here too. And, this can help you further idenify who your target audience is.
Planning
Now that you (hopefully) know a little more about your product and your audience, you can start planning!
Every plan should start with a clear and attainable goal. What are you hoping to achieve?
If it’s more e-book sales, create an effective landing page with a clear call to action. Then, once you have the product in place, you need to get people to find it!
You can use social media sites such as Pinterest and Facebook to get people over to your page.
But this doesn’t always work.. Why? Find out!
How To Create A Social Media Marketing Strategy That Works For You
Try two different plans, with separate landing pages and social media graphics, and then split test the results to see what works and what doesn’t. You can do this by analyzing your data in Google analytics.
You’ll notice a huge improvement and be able to cut through the learning curve much faster this way. You can also use this to see which Pin graphics or Instagram posts get more traction.
Social media works, if done right! If you’re not getting much traffic from social media or you simply want more, you need to re-evaluate your strategy.
And, if you don’t have any more time to allocate to your strategy, then this is exactly the plan for you! By testing your process, you can use your time more effectively.
How To Successfully Execute Your Social Media Marketing Plan
1. Add Value
Give your readers something of value! Valuable information is the best way to gain credibility!
Think, what can I do to add more substance to my site?
Come from a place of honesty and service and show credible ways to solve your audiences problems and you should be able to see an increase in loyal followers!
2. Get Noticed!
Create a cohesive branding strategy based on the results from your above A/B tests.
Use the styles that work best for your audience and create social media posts that get noticed.
There are tons of online stock image resources as well as simple graphic design tools such as Canva that make this step easy.
3. Be Persistent
There are millions of blogs out there and many are competing for your audience’s attention. I like a little competition, because as I mentioned it can help you identify your audience and it can help you fill voids they may have missed.
Branding can help people distinguish your blog from the others. You will not notice immediate results, because effective branding takes time, longevity and consistency.
One of the most common things I’ve seen among my ‘competitors’ is they give up too soon. Nothing beats persistence.
Learn in a few easy steps how to build your own brand
4. Find Inspiration
Check out some inspiring stories of leaders within your niche or industry.
A little inspiration can bring out new ideas. You can also find new mentors this way and other leaders in your field!
5. Wait For It
Perhaps the hardest step, waiting… It won’t happen overnight.
What Are The Best Social Media Websites To Market Your Business?
Here’s a list of my favorite social media networking sites to get you started:
1. Twitter
Twitter is a great platform to post links to your blog or business website, and connect with like-minded individuals through hashtags.
2. LinkedIn
LinkedIn is known as a social network for professionals. This is a great place to establish your business or blog. You can join company pages and groups- they even have blogger groups. It’s like Facebook in a business suit.
3. Tumblr
Tumblr is the site that lets you share anything- text, photos, quotes, links, music, images, videos, you name it. And it’s free! There are tons of bloggers on here to connect with, in every niche.
5. Flipboard
I love this one! Flipboard is a social network and news aggregator that allows you to follow topics and other users. Create ‘Magazines’ and add content from blogs and other websites as well as flip stories from other users into your magazines.
6. Snapchat
On Snapchat you can share photos, videos, text, and drawings quickly and easily with anyone around the world. Upload ‘stories’ to share, and create snapchat geofilters to promote a business, wedding, or party! It’s a fun way to stay social online.
7. Reddit
Reddit is known for news, social networking, content rating, and discussion. And it is super popular today! With over 300 million monthly active users, your blog posts could be seen by a whole new audience.
8. Pinterest
Pinterest is a social site that focuses mainly on images and not on status updates. It’s an excellent way to share your blog posts and website links. The pin feature allows users to share and save other people’s work.
10. Medium
Medium is an online publishing platform that brings together writers, thinkers, poets, storytellers, and bloggers alike! You also get paid for your writing through their partner program.
I hope you’ll put this information to good use because if done right, it works!
I couldn’t reveal ALL of my social media marketing secrets just yet. There is so much more to share than I could cover in one post!
I’m set to graduate from the digital marketing program at George Brown College this fall, and have spent thousands of dollars and several years studying the ins and outs of social media.
As a former jouranlist, I have an edge on my competition because I come from a lenghthy background in editing, publishing, and graphic design.
I’m currently working on an interactive course featuring tips I’ll only share with the bloggers who are ready to take their marketing to the next level.
So, if that’s you head over to Stephsocial.com and stay tuned!
Author: Steph
A former journalist, writing for newspapers and magazines for nearly 10 years before taking a few off to study social media marketing.
Twitter | LinkedIn | Medium
Great post. As we know that how social media is very important for business. Your post have some important imformation.
Thank you for sharing this information.
knowledgeable content
thanks for providing such a great article, this article very helps full for me, a lot of thanks
Amazing Article. Very useful post for me, Thanks for sharing.
Glad to read that! Thank you! 🙂
Among all the tips you have shared here, I like the point on persistence that you have mentioned. It is very significant if you wish to get through to your customers and clients. I like the way you have bifurcated the different points so that people easily understand what you are trying to explain.
Indeed! Thank you for reading! Really glad you liked it. 🙂
Thanks for this article, Social Media’s growth help users to do business and promote their their business digitally in various digital platforms. There are many social media marketing services also which can help you.
So true! Thank you for reading! 🙂
Great tips here, thanks! I’ll save this for later!
Ah! Such a helpful article!
It is indeed! Thanks for reading it. ?
This is a very helpful post. I may need to try some of the other social media platforms to reach more people. Thank you for sharing!
That’s great! Hope they prove to be effective for you. 🙂
Thanks for this information.
Thanks for giving me the opportunity to do this for you and your readers Ray! It was an honour and I had so much fun writing it:)
Oh it was great working with you, Steph. Thank you for delivering such an informative article! 🙂
Nice post. What I liked most is unlike many you just didn’t fluff and said buy my course. You addes value in your post. Blogging is not as easy and quick money as many think. Thanks for helpful post.
That is true, the post is full of great information! Glad you liked it, Syeda. 🙂