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5 easy steps to creating a powerful social marketing strategy
- 1. Social marketing FIVE EASY STEPS TO CREATING A POWERFUL SOCIAL MARKETING STRATEGY Lisa Dutton, Communications and Marketing Specialist Shout! Communications 514.264.6514 communicationsshout.ca
- 3. What we will cover this morning • Power of social marketing • Step one: Establish your social marketing goals • Step two: Measure your success • Step three: Identify ideal customers • Step four: Select social platforms • Step five: Create compelling content • Bonus: A few extra tips
- 4. A powerful social marketing tool
- 5. Brands today need to be like publishers
- 6. Create content people want to see
- 7. 1. Increase brand recognition 2. Improved brand loyalty 3. More opportunities to convert 4. Higher conversion rates Is it really worth it?
- 8. Step one: Establish your goals • Build relationships and loyal customers • Increase sales • Increase brand awareness • Listen to customers • Protect your brand • Create raving fans • Drive traffic to your website, blog, store • Have a lot of fun
- 9. Step two: Measure your success
- 10. Are you reaching your goals?
- 11. Step three: Who are your ideal customers
- 12. Demographic variables • Age • Gender • Race • Ethnicity • Income • Occupation • Family Size • Family life cycle • Religion • Social Class
- 13. Psychographic variables • Personality attributes • Motives • Lifestyle
- 14. Geographic variables • Region • Urban, suburban, rural • City size • Country size • Market density • Climate • Terrain
- 15. Behaviourial variables • Volume usage • End use • Benefit expectations • Brand loyalty • Price sensitivity
- 16. Step 4: Select your social platforms
- 17. What platforms are your customers on? sproutsocial.com/insights/new-social-media- demographics/
- 19. Step 5: Create compelling content
- 21. The type of info to post can be obvious
- 22. The type of info to post can be a bit more difficult
- 23. The type of info to post can be difficult
- 24. The golden rule for social content 30-60-10
- 25. A few more tips… How much time can you expect to devote to a social network? Count on about an hour per day per network, at least at the start. What personnel and skills do you have to work with? Visual social networks like Instagram require photos, You Tube requires video. Blogs require articles. Can you do the work? Can a member of your staff do the work? Or do you have to hire a consultant? Establish a tone of voice for everything you post. This comes back to the need to be consistent. Your tone of voice is based on your brand. Going back to the magazine analogy. The tone of voice of an article in Macleans magazine witll be different than the tone of voice of an article in Hockey News or Cosmopolitain.
- 26. A few more tips There are various issues that can impact how often you share including your industry, your reach, your resources. The social network you use have have their own best practices too. What is the best time of day to post? The more you post the more your realize what works best for your audience. Your photos and videos should also have a similar look and feel.
- 27. A few more tips It’s best to get a reporting tool. There are a number of free online tools such as Hootsuite or Buffer. Engage with your community If you want to play, then you’ll have to pay.
- 28. Are you ready to dive in?
- 29. Thank you Lisa Dutton, Communications and Marketing Consultant Shout! Communications www.communicationsshout.ca 514.264.6514 Your are doing great things; let’s tell the world
Editor's Notes
- Social marketing is one of the most powerful tools in your arsenal. If you use it correctly, you can create a strong, personal connection with your customers and prospective customers. However, small business owners often make the mistake of diving into social media without a clear plan. At best, you will waste your time– and at worst, you could trigger a PR disaster. To benefit from social marketing, you need to build a clear strategy that takes into account your overarching business goals, what you are trying to achieve, who your customers are and the type of content you will post.
- It use to be easy…nearly every marketing problem had one solution—the ad…a 30 second TV or radio ad or print ad. If you had a product or service to sell, you could reach everybody you needed with a powerful, highly polished message. But, marketing in the digital age is different. Building awareness is no longer enough.
- Marketing in the digital age is less about grabbing attention and more about holding attention.
- Greg Satell writing for the Harvard Business Review says much like the publisher of a magazine, small business owners need to create an easy-to-navigate social experience that will make consumers want to come back. You have to produce content your customers are looking for. Whether it’s news or helpful tips and tricks or even entertaining videos. Brands that aren’t creating content their audience wants are wasting their marketing dollars.
- So, by now some of you might be getting a bit nervous. You are a small business owner. You are trying to build and grow your business and I’m telling you if you have act like a publisher. You might be wondering is it really worth all the effort. The answer is yes! Some of the benefits of a strategic social plan include: Brand recognition: as your posts, articles, photos and videos are shared you increase awareness. Brand loyalty: a social marketing strategy helps consumers remain loyal to your brand. Customer conversion: every post you make on a social media platform is an opportunity to convert customers. When you build a following, you’ll simultaneously have access to new customers, recent customers, and old customers, and you’ll be able to interact with all of them as a group or even one-on-one.
- Getting started The first step to any social marketing strategy is to establish your goals. Without goals, you have no means of gaging success or proving your social return on investment (ROI). Your social goals should be aligned with your broader marketing strategy, so your social media efforts drive toward your business objectives. Some common goals: Brand awareness Increase sales, website traffic or both Build customer loyalty and increase retention These goals aren’t mutually exclusive, but you should focus on one or two. If you spread yourself too thin, you’re not going to accomplish anything.
- You should also use the SMART framework when setting your goals. This means that each objective should be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. An example of a SMART goal: “For Instagram we will share photos that communicate our company culture. We will do this by posting three photos a week. The target for each is at least 30 likes and 5 comments.”
- How will you determine if your social marketing efforts are successful? I am not just talking about gaining more followers, I am talking about making money (I sound like Kevin O’Leary). After all, it is hard to rationalize spending time and money on something that isn’t improving your bottom line. A few metrics to consider measuring are: Conversion Rate Time Spent on website Reach Brand Mentions Sentiment Total Shares There are a lot of free analytics tools you can use to track and measure your efforts. I’ll talk about that briefly a little later.
- More than 27 million pieces of content get posted online every single day. How can you be sure your post is being seen at all, let alone by the right people? Clearly define your ideal customer makes all the difference when you’re creating content. Having a well-defined idea of who you are communicating with is vital. One way of pinpointing your ideal; customer is to create a buyer persona. This helps you gain insight into the who, what, why, when, and where of your customers, providing you with a clearer view of the audience you are attempting to serve.
- Demographics explain 'who' your buyer is, while psychographics explain 'why' they buy. Psychographic information might be your customer’s; buying habits, hobbies, and values. Examples: Concerned with health and appearance Wants a healthy lifestyle, but doesn’t have much time Enjoys going online in the evenings, big fan of Pinterest Tends to favor quality over economy Finds fulfillment in her career and family Values time with a small group of friends
- Some examples, people tend to buy flowers for Mother’s day, chocolates for Valentines day, toys at Christmas Another example are the benefits customers are looking for in a product…if you were selling toothpaste some customers are looking for a toothpaste that promises whiter teeth and some are looking for a toothpaste for sensitive teeth. Behavioural variables also look at customer loyalty...I am very loyal to my hairdresser, but not very loyal when it comes to the gas station I go to. I like Tim Horton’s coffee, but I’ll buy from what ever coffee shop is close by.
- Now, that you know exactly who are your ideal customers, where they live, what they expect, you can more easily decide what social platforms you should use to communicate with them. There are increasingly more platforms, each is unique, with its own best practices, own style, and own audience. But, relax you don’t need to be on all them. In fact, when you are getting started, you should pick one or two platforms, perfect your efforts and build your audience before branching out.
- Sprout Social is a great source for social marketing advice. This link gives you a comprehensive breakdown of the users of each social platform including gender, average age, location, education and income levels. Also, why not ask your customers what platforms they use most?
- Going back to the idea that you have to act like a publisher, I love curling up with an interior design magazine. The format of each edition is predictable: there is a theme such as decorating for small spaces, or kitchens tops chefs would envy. Each edition, has a feature article, four articles about recently renovated homes, product trends, a few recipes and finally on the last page, a designer solves a reader’s design dilemma. Each edition, follows the same familiar format. You need to follow a format for your social content as well. This is critical. Not only does it help you stay focused and know exactly what type of information to post, it allows your customers to quickly understand what your account is all about. When you randomly post information - whatever catches your attention - you end up confusing and frustrating your followers. As a result, they will drift away. A great social medial content strategy delivers consistency with an occasional surprise.
- Check out what your competitors are doing. What is working, failing? What new information can you add or subtract? What can you do differently or better? There’s no reason to try to reinvent the wheel.
- It is kinda easy to determine the type of social conversations Weight Watchers would create. Can anyone give me a few ideas. Eating tips, recipes, exercise advice. Community members could also weigh in offering their own tips, support, what has worked for them, ask questions, post before and after photos, recipes. Pretty easy.
- Okay, a little more difficult…what type of content could a local dry cleaner post to attract a social following? Cleaning tips, advice on how to clean specialty products like silk, leather, how to get a wine stain out of a table cloth. Or in light of the flooding, how to clean carpets, sofas that have been soaked with dirty river water. It is more difficult to figure out how to sustain this conversation.
- It is a little trickier to figure out the type of conversation a local funeral home could initiate in order to develop its social community. It could walk people through the funeral planning process. It could talk about grief. But it is obviously harder to find new information and more difficult to hold people’s attention as this isn’t a service we need often – thank goodness -- death isn’t even something we want to think about let alone talk about. I took a look at Mount Royal Commemorative Services and their Facebook pages announces funeral services. In fact, the website doesn't even promote their Facebook page. All this to say, sometime figuring out your social conversation is easy, sometimes it is more difficult.
- So, you need to take a little time to map our the type of content you will create and share. The golden role of posting is 30/ 60/10 - no it isn’t a toll free long distance line. 30 percent original content – articles, photos, videos that you’ve created. 60 percent is curated content. Relevant information others have created. 10 percent promotional – ads, promotions, contests, persuasive calls to action Why is this considered the right mix? Well, talking about yourself and your company all the time can get boring. Bombarding people with promotions and ads is annoying. When you find interesting articles from other sources, you are mixing things up making you a reliable source of great information. You need a balanced mix to keep people engaged. You’ll also notice there are more and more photos and videos on social networks. This is because posts with images and videos get more views, clicks, reshares, and likes than any other type of post.
- Facebook – the ideal number of posts is 5 to 10 per week. Twitter – five times per day Linked In – once per day There are a tone of tips and tricks on line about the best time of day to post on line. Facebook 1 to 4 p.m. Instagram 5 to 6 p.m. Twitter 1 to 3 p.m. Linkedin 5 to 6 p.m.
- Most major social networks will have basic analytics built into the site. But it is a little easier to seek and find this information from an all-encompassing dashboard such as Hootsuite and Buffer. These dashboards breakdown how each post performed in the important areas of views, clicks, shares, likes, and comments. These tools will also allow you to automate some of the work. You can place all of your posts in a cue ready to send out at an assigned time and date – making your life easier. There are also tools like Mention which send you a notice each time your brand is mentioned on line. Remember social marketing is a conversation so you have to monitor and engage with your followers. Set aside time during your day to follow up with conversations that are happening on social media. These are conversations with potential customers, references, friends, and colleagues. They’re too important to ignore. On Facebook you have to pay to pau to play Organic reach…the ability to connect with people who have liked your Facebook page...ie, people who indicated they want to connect with your brand-- in on the decline. In fact, a study conducted by Lockwise revealed that Facebook pages with over a million likes have 2.27% average organic reach. That means that even though a million people like your page and would like to hear from you, only 2.27% of your audience will see any given post. What this means is you’ll have to pay to boost your posts so more people see them or you’ll have to purchase Facebook ads. Facebook will walk you through both of these advertising avenues.
- Coming up with a social marketing plan is a great step toward diving in to social. If social media looks thrilling and overwhelming all at once, start with a plan. Once you see the blueprint in front of you, it’s a little easier to see what lies ahead. Establish your social marketing goals Determine what success looks like Identify your ideal customers Select social platforms Create compelling content Monitor and adjust.