8 Tips to Boost Your Social Media Marketing Strategy

Social media. We use at least one platform, daily. 
We started stepping to this worlds slowly and now we just can't live without using a social media platform. 

Businesses, of course, took advantage of that and a new, revolutionized way added to what we knew about marketing. 

This new way needs new strategies, to be more specific, a really well-executed social media strategy that will bring results for brands and businesses.

Just a few of the benefits of an Amazing social media strategy are:

• Increased brand awareness
• Audience growth
• Better connection with the audience
• Increased website traffic
• Higher lead generation
• More conversions (which translates to more sales and money)

So there's no doubt that social media should be an essential part of your overall marketing efforts. 

According to statistics, social media is a really large pond to go fishing for your target audience. Not being active on social media as a brand or business would lead to an incomplete marketing strategy. 

If you’re ready to start your social media strategy, keep reading. We're doing a deep dive into the best tactics around it!

1. Set your goals and objectives

Having a solid plan, and goals are essential if you want to do start building your social media strategy.

If you don't know what to do, how are you going to achieve it? Not to mention that you cannot measure and evolve your strategies over time and if you don't have some strong goals to start with. 

Your goals should align with your overall social media marketing efforts. 

Writing down your social media goals is really vital if you want to reach them!

A study has shown that if you write down your goals it's 30% more likely to achieve them and become successful. In some other studies, this number climbs up to 40%.

A few good tips when setting your goals are to make them achievable and keep them broken down into smaller action steps. 

2. Do your research and keep your audience in mind

Connecting and engaging with your audience is extremely crucial in today's marketing if you want to make a profit. Yet in order to do that, you have to understand your audience.
You have to be able to know their needs, wants and if possible how they feel (especially during uncertain times)! 

Standing in your audience's shoes is now, more important than ever.

A few tips so you will understand better your audience:

Study your audience to get a better look at their soft spots.

Always take a careful look at the demographics.

Show up! Take part in conversations on forums where your audience "hangs out".

Respond to comments on your blog, and put comments on other blogs with the same audience.

Reply to comments or questions on your all social media channels.

Collect the feedback (there are many tools you can use).

Once you feel you know who your target audience is, you'll be better equipped to help them. People want to deal with businesses that care - not just a faceless brand. Which is what makes this step so crucial for any social media strategy.

3. Run contests to boost your strategy

A successful social media contest is one of the most alluring things you can use to increase your visibility, your followers, and your engagement!

The key here is to offer something of great value. Something your audience will find absolutely irresistible. 

How to run a contest on social media:

Set your goals (do you want more Facebook page likes? Instagram followers? How many?)

Decide what social media platform you’ll host the contest on

Set a deadline for when it’ll end and when the winner will receive their prize

Create the contest and promote it!

To get mind-blowing results, aim to have your audience do something more. Create the contest in a way the audience will get extra entries for sharing and contest and similar things.

It’s a genius tactic. Your contest will basically run itself!

4. Create your content really carefully

Every piece of content you post on social media should be carefully thought-out and brings a lot of value. If you’re posting just to post something – you’re going about it all wrong.

Depending on the social network you’re posting on, you’ll need to learn the different purposes of each network.

Here are some examples:

• LinkedIn – A professional network that is perfect for B2B audiences. It also includes LinkedIn Pulse, a content publishing, and distribution platform.
• Facebook – Almost everyone has a Facebook account. Particularly good for news/entertainment-related content. While Facebook Pages struggle to perform, Facebook Groups can be a great way of connecting with your ideal audience.
• Instagram – Perfect if your content is highly visual. Static images and short videos work incredibly well but it’s not as good at driving traffic back to your blog.
• Pinterest – Similar to Instagram, Pinterest is highly visual.

Once you're more familiar with the different networks, you can focus on which ones you think are the best for you and your business. 

An important component of crushing it at your social media strategy is the use of the right words. The way you deliver your message will vary depending on the social media platforms you're going to use. 

But, in general, there are many ways to increase your online visibility in all the platforms.

A great way to begin is to learn how to create captivating copies on social media. Therefore, you'll have to use copywriting techniques, to address your audience directly. Use catchy hooks to start your posts. 
Try using different content types, like blog posts, videos, photos, ask questions, etc. 
Keep in mind to always write a description on every link you post, never just put the headline of the post.

A well-optimized social content will help you see higher engagement rates, more followers, and generate more leads and sales.

5. Keep the sales tactics to a minimum

The rude, traditional marketing went out of the window a long time ago, and for a good reason too. People don't like and do not want to be sold to. 

People want to establish real connections and relationships with brands. That's the key ingredient to the special sauce that gets your audience or clients to trust you. 

And if they trust you, they'll buy from you. 

Watch out: Posting too many promotions in a short time frame can bring you a really negative outcome. People tend to walk away from a promotion bombard.   

Alternatively, you can craft valuable content that people actually want to consume. Content that leads buyers to your products or services – without being pushy.

6. Take advantage of video content

The only case you've never seen how powerful video content has become is to be living under a rock.

Especially in social media marketing. 

So, if you haven't already, it's now the time to jump on that wagon as soon as possible!

There tones of different ways to use video content in your social media strategy. But live videos are the ones that trending right now.

Live videos allow you to connect with your audience in the most authentic way possible. Plus you can always repurpose your live videos! 

People engage with lives by asking questions, so you can show them you're not just a brand by interacting with them during and after your live.

Your audience will see you're a business owner who cares and this will bring you more results than any other promotional tactic. According to Facebook, live videos can skyrocket the interactions and engagement you'll see 6times more than average. 

7. Create mind-blowing images

It's not a surprise that crafting mind-blowing images for social media should be a top priority.

A great and free tool you can use -which we use too- it's Canva.

Another option you have is to outsource. Many bloggers and business owners do this - and we can tell - it's well-spent money! 

You’ll need to create graphics for:

• Cover photos for each social media platform you have
• Images for your opt-in freebies (you’ll want to post these on Facebook sometimes)
• Facebook and Twitter posts
• Instagram images – (You can use copyright-free stock photos or create a graphic using Canva or PicMonkey.)
• Infographics
• Pinterest graphics
• The dimensions for these will change over time.  So do your research when creating these to find the right sizes for social media images.

Every business’s images and graphics will vary, but you’ll want to make them cohesive with your brand and always eye-catching.

8. Connect with your audience

If you’re not building relationships with your audience or customers – it’ll have disastrous effects on your business.

Expanding your reach is undoubtedly the ultimate goal. And the best way to do this is by connecting in a genuine way with your audience.

This will lead to targeted people landing on your website and purchasing your services or products. Social media is one of the best tools to bring in new customers or clients.

Smart ways to connect with your audience:

• Interact in Twitter Chats
• Retweet on Twitter
• Survey your audience
• Engage in Facebook groups with a similar target audience
• Always reply to comments on your Facebook business page

If you can master this, you’ll start to see the leads pouring in.